Chapter Twenty-Six
At first I thought I’d misheard him. “What did you just say?”
“I am going to take the diviner stone from you.”
What was happening? Was I asleep and this was a new dream? I looked to my left as if Invara and Eramis might suddenly appear.
But this was not a dream. It was the coldness in his face and his voice, the finality and surety of what he was saying, that let me know this was very real.
I took out my sword. Had he hit his head yesterday in the final event? I had no other explanation for why he was behaving this way. I didn’t know this Zain.
“You’re not going to take the stone,” I said.
“I understand that you have issues with your mother, but there are things far more important in this world than winning your mother’s favor.” He said it dismissively, as if my dreams were small and worthless.
And I’d already resolved to give her the stone and let her ask a question. This could help my entire nation. He wouldn’t be stealing it from me.
“More important things like your great treasure?” I shot back.
He didn’t answer.
All of this for some gold?
“If you were in such a hurry to die, you should have just said something in Sagaris,” I said. “I could have helped you then.”
“Put your sword away,” he said. “I’m not going to kill you.”
Would I kill him? I wasn’t going to let him take the stone. I had earned it, and it could help Thrace.
It would not bring me pleasure but I would stop him from stealing what was mine.
“You haven’t fought me yet, but you will lose,” I told him. “I am undefeated.”
I didn’t count Lia because we had only been sparring.
“There’s always a first time for everything.”
“This is foolish. I will end you.”
He stood in the shadows, waiting.
Everything that had passed between us over the last week—I began to see it all in a very different light.
Zain should have finished what he’d started.
“You would have been better off romancing the stone from me than stealing it openly,” I said.
His silence made me think that had been his original plan.
I had been completely taken in by him.
This colored every action and conversation we’d ever had. “You sat there by my side encouraging me, helping me, standing up for me, for it all to lead to this moment.”
No wonder he’d been so excited whenever I’d won. He knew it was getting him closer to this, when he planned on stealing the diviner stone. Taking it from the woman who had been enough of a fool to fall for his lies.
To have believed him when he said that I was beautiful.
All tainted.
“Pull out your daggers,” I said. I would prefer he was armed when we fought but at this point didn’t care either way.
“I’m not afraid of you, Basileia.”
“You should be.”
“I know you won’t hurt me,” he said. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if we were conducting some kind of transaction.
“Things change,” I said from my clenched teeth.
A tiny part of me hoped he would tell me this had all been a jest, that he’d tracked me down because he realized what a huge mistake he had made last night by leaving and that we had to be together.
But as the seconds ticked on, it became very apparent that wouldn’t be happening.
If a fight was what he wanted, then I would give it to him. “This is your last warning. I am going to win.”
No response.
Fine. I rushed at him, sword drawn. This would be over so quickly that—
He blew some dust at my face. I came to a halt. “What—”
My lungs constricted, as if I couldn’t breathe, and I began gasping for air.
My head swam, my eyes blurring. My airways burned as I fell to my knees.
I tried coughing it out, like I had with the dirt during the chariot race, but that only made things worse.
It was like everything inside me began to shut down and stop functioning.
He said, “The only way you could have won would be if I fought fair.”
That lying, duplicitous, dishonorable, horrible thief. I was going to—
Then the world went dark.
When I woke up, I became quickly aware of two things.
The first was that there was a gag in my mouth, preventing me from speaking.
The second—my arms had been tied behind my back and to my feet.
Zain stood a few feet away from me, and loathing for him filled my entire being. I tried to shake the feeling off. I needed to concentrate on getting free of these ropes, not how much I hated him. He faced the other direction and I moved as quietly as I could so as to not draw his attention.
I stretched and strained, trying to get myself free. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to break thick ropes, but there was only one way to find out.
Nothing happened.
Glancing down, I saw that the rope was the rope of Phrygia. Unbreakable, and he was the only one who could remove it, since he’d put it on me.
He had bound me with my own prize.
And I had lost a fight for the second time in my life. I did not want this to become a habit.
Despite just resolving to never call on Invara’s magic again, what would happen if I could call up her warrior aspect? Would I be strong enough then?
But the gag prevented me from saying, “Invara Enyalius.” I couldn’t use her power if I couldn’t speak the words.
Maybe if I could get one of my smaller knives free, I could slip it into my hand and use it to start sawing at the rope.
I didn’t know if “unbreakable” meant that it couldn’t be cut either, but I at least had to try.
But no matter how I moved, I didn’t feel any of my knives.
He had taken them all.
And I had shown him where they all were when I disarmed myself before the final event. I wanted to groan in frustration but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. This was so humiliating, to be tied up like some wild beast.
I glanced around to see where we were. We were no longer at the oasis. I could tell from the sand beneath me that we were still in the Wastelands. We were in some kind of natural fortress—surrounded by towers of rocks that enclosed the area around us, blocking out the sun.
“You’re awake? You shouldn’t be awake.”
Just a moment ago Zain had been fifteen feet away from me, and now he stood only a couple of feet away. How could he move so quickly and so quietly?
“I should have accounted for you being battle-favored.”
What had he drugged me with? How long had I been asleep because of it?
“No matter.”
It didn’t matter because I couldn’t break free. Was this why he had encouraged me to take the rope if I won? I remembered talking to him about it because I didn’t think I’d need it, and he had said that I shouldn’t turn down magical gifts. Had he been planning all this since then?
“Sorry about the gag. I couldn’t have you calling out when I ask my question. It’s what I would do if our situations were reversed.”
I wanted to tell him to take two steps closer to me and I’d reverse our situations. I didn’t need my hands to fight.
He took the diviner stone out of his pocket. It had a yellowish tinge and looked like a large diamond. It wasn’t in the box. He was going to use it.
Zain had told me that his interest in winning the tournament was the bag of gold. How could I have been so foolish as to believe that? I had seen how capable he was of stealing. He could have stolen the prize amount from Sagaris in a single night and they wouldn’t have even missed it.
When he lifted the stone, I protested as much as I could, struggling against my ropes. Fury licked through me and I wanted to scream.
“How do I get what’s mine?” he asked.
I went completely still, shocked that he’d done it. That he’d stolen my question when it hadn’t belonged to him.
After a few beats, the rock responded in a deep voice that I felt in the base of my soul: “Basileia.”
Then the stone disintegrated quickly, turning to dust that he shook off his hand.
I only had a moment to wonder why the diviner stone had said my name and then Zain was there, pulling the gag off my mouth and immediately stepping back.
“Invara Enyalius,” I said.
I tugged against the ropes. Nothing had changed. I wasn’t stronger. That aspect didn’t seem to be working for me.
“Did you do something to the stone?” he demanded.
“Did I do something?” I echoed. “That’s what you’re concerned about? Not the fact that you betrayed me? I gave my blood and my body to win that and you took it from me! You saw what I had to do to get it!”
“I needed it more than you.”
“Then you should have won!”
“How could I defeat someone who is battle-favored?”
That made me go silent. He had known that about me from the beginning. I thought about all our interactions, the things that he had learned about me, the things he had said.
What I had confessed to him.
And what I had seen in Sagaris. I began to put the pieces together.
“This was always your plan. If not me, it would have been someone else. You were going to steal the stone from them. Because there was no way you could have stolen it from the bank. And if you won the tournament under a false identity from stolen papers, the Sagari might have started to ask questions.”
Him not answering confirmed my suspicions.
I was already furious with him, but his silence somehow managed to enrage me further. Had he been the one trying to kill me? “Then why did you sabotage me? You should have been helping me to win. Why cut the axle on my chariot? Did you give Levern that knife?”
He looked outraged. “How could you possibly think that I would hurt you?”
I turned sideways and showed him my bound wrists.
“That’s different. I had to tie you up to make sure that you wouldn’t steal the stone back from me. Because you’re right, in a fight between us I would lose. Not that it did me any good. Why would the stone say your name? Are you the answer or was it claiming you as its mistress?”
Did he think I was going to help him solve this mystery? “I can’t believe how much time and emotion I have spent on you. The guilt has been eating away at my soul.”
“What guilt?” he asked incredulously.
“Last night when you told me to get off you? I crossed a boundary that I shouldn’t have.
You seemed upset and I thought I had hurt you and all I’ve wanted to do is make things right and apologize.
I’ve spent all this time . . .” My throat closed in, preventing me from speaking.
I tried to swallow the large lump that had formed. I would not cry in front of him.
“You think you crossed a boundary by sitting on me? I’d all but asked you to do just that many times. I don’t need an apology for doing what we both wanted.”
I barely registered what he’d said and kept going. “I didn’t choose to behave that way. I didn’t know what calling on the goddess’s power would do to me. But this? You made this decision.”
He had chosen to betray me.
“That’s why you turned down my advances,” I said. “You knew you were going to do this. And you dressed it up by saying that you were making the right choice. Incapacitating me and then stealing my prize was the right choice?”
“Having sex with you knowing I was going to steal from you the next day would have been wrong.”
“Now you have morals?”
He ignored my question and walked over to his horse, searching through a bag. It was then that I realized there was only one horse here.
“Where is my horse?” I demanded.
“Your nameless horse?”
I would not tell him that I’d named her because of him.
“I sent her on her way,” he said. “I can’t have you following me.”
“So you’re just going to leave me out here to die?”
“You’ll be protected by the rocks, and I pity the man or beast who would be foolish enough to disturb you.
” He held up a bag. “I’m going to give you more of this powder and you will fall unconscious again.
I will untie you and leave you food and water and a weapon.
If you head east, it’s a two-day walk back to Sagaris.
I’m sure they would love to help their newly crowned champion. ”
By which point he would be long gone and I would have no hope of tracking him.
My grandmother used to say that I was like a volcano—slow to anger, but when the anger struck, I would destroy everything around me. That was happening now—he had pushed me over the edge and red-hot molten rage exploded, threatening to consume me.
I was going to give the king of thieves all my fury.
“I will hunt you down. I will find you and I will kill you for taking the diviner stone from me. It will be slow, because I want you to suffer.”
“Quiet,” he ordered, and I stopped speaking out of shock. No man had ever talked to me like that.
Even if he hadn’t betrayed me, I would have killed him for that alone.
He started scanning the area beyond the rocks. I was about to kick him when I suddenly sensed what he had.
We were not alone.