Chapter 22 #2
Vaasa ran her tongue over her teeth. Looking at the door, she pretended to check that no one was coming inside.
To make herself appear nervous. He needed to believe himself cleverer, more connected, better informed.
She controlled every aspect of her voice, broaching an almost too confident tone, one Karev would perceive as fabricated.
As her trying too hard. “Would you believe my brother sent me into Icruria without a plan to make friends with the salt lords?” Vaasa asked, the lie coming as easy to her as breathing.
Lord Karev scoffed. “Your brother was a sniveling idiot. But I suspect that advisor of yours knew precisely what he was doing.”
Vaasa paused for just one second. He had just provided her with a far easier lie than her brother spinning schemes, because it was a half-truth.
She sighed in concession, tugging her hand through her snow-tangled hair.
“All right, fine. Ozik asked me to make friends with the salt lords, and I did. When your friend mentioned salt the other night, I decided I would risk it. The man you met—I was trying to meet with him last night, as well. If I can deliver salt, I can secure the throne. But I had nothing to do with what happened to Vlacik.”
Throne. All he needed was that one word.
Lord Karev smiled like the devil himself. “So you know the man?”
“I do.”
“And what exactly is your intention with him now that trade has been cut off between Asterya and Icruria? What does Ozik want?”
She started to breathe a little heavier and gave a small frown, like she was losing control of the conversation. “Why would I tell you that?”
“Because I might be the only thing standing between you and a prison cell, Heiress.”
She barely winced. This was a fine line to walk. Finally, she whispered, “So either I tell you the throne’s secrets, or you’re going to blame me for the lord’s death?”
“That depends on what you can offer me. I can just as easily tell every noble out there that you and I were together the entire night.”
There it was. An alibi and a marriage agreement in one fell swoop. She widened her eyes and looked down at the floor. “In return, you want a marriage agreement.”
“I believe that is obvious,” he said plainly.
“And you can drop the innocent act. A man does not claw his way into a lordship without being able to read people. An innocent, vapid heiress wouldn’t have listened to the bare bones of a conversation and then found herself in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
No. Your brother may have wasted you, but I certainly won’t. ”
Vaasa ran her tongue along her teeth. “What do you want?” she asked, letting her own tone slip into bluntness.
“At today’s council meeting, ensure Ozik nominates Roland Beránek to be warden of the prison instead of one of Vlacik’s allies. I also want your connection to the salt lord. He doesn’t trust me; our language barrier is too great. I suspect if you can help translate, a deal can be struck,” he said.
So this was how Karev would give Sachia access to the prison.
He was slowly untangling Vlacik’s hold on the city guard, inserting himself instead.
Vaasa was instrumental to his own plan, a missing piece he needed to slide into place.
He planned to use her the way her father had, no matter how blatant or cruel.
Vaasa crossed her arms—if she’d had her magic, she swore it would have hissed.
Because this time, she was going to squeeze everything she wanted out of an arrangement like this.
If she was going to be relegated to the schemes of men, she would weave a worse one all her own.
“The man you met with won’t be pleased with the breaking of Asterya and Icruria’s trade agreement.
He’s selfish and motivated by money alone.
My hope was to work with him to undermine the Icrurian forces.
We win the war, and he becomes the wealthiest salt lord in existence.
I believe that’s a deal he will be interested in. ”
“To win a war, you need an army,” Lord Karev stated.
And he had one of the largest mercenary armies on the continent.
It was the only reason he held the power he did, and it was his greatest bargaining chip for an engagement to her.
It was what set him apart as the head of the New Asteryan faction.
Vaasa held his gaze, though she didn’t bother feigning a smile.
“I wonder where I might find a powerful lord with one of those.”
It was positively carnal how he looked at her, the corners of his mouth rising with considerable pride. “In exchange for the throne, you get my armies and an alibi. It’s a better offer than Vlacik ever would have made.”
This was a part of her plan. Vaasa knew that, and yet her chest still constricted at the thought of going along with what he wanted. “Have an agreement drafted, then.”
“Would we include last night’s alibi in it?” he asked with such wickedness in his tone.
Vaasa only stared at him. “You can leave that part out.”
Karev gave a small chuckle and leaned comfortably against a table. “I only have one concern.”
“And what’s that?”
Lord Karev looked at the door, gesturing with his hand to it. “Your lead sentinel. The moment we’re engaged, you stop fucking him.”
Vaasa reared back. “Excuse me?”
He smirked at her aghast expression. “If we’re to be married, let us begin with the truth. I don’t blame you your appetites, but I have no intention of ending up like Vlacik.”
A fucking fool. Lord Karev thought she had no clue who’d committed that murder.
He assumed he was smart enough to outwit her, to rise to power and overcome Ozik.
Overcome her someday, too. All he had to do was convince her to marry him, and he thought he had won the game.
But he was the prey, and he was the perfect choice for it: power hungry, gullible, and too full of himself to think he was either of those things.
Vaasa crossed her arms indignantly. “My lead sentinel is a means to an end. A way to visit the city and go where I please. He believes he has a chance at getting in my bed, so he does what I ask. But despite what you and everyone else seem to believe, I am not having an affair.”
Lord Karev stared at her, gauging how much of that he believed.
There was no sexual tension between them, no lust there for her to twist. In his eyes was only a craving for power.
He stood, towering over her. “I am not the kind of man you need to seduce in order to get what you want. I have no interest in fucking you. I prefer my women with less… presence. But if you stand at my side, I will ensure you want for nothing. So if you need to go to the city, or you want a man thrown from a window, it’s me you call upon going forward. ”
Never in her life had this much poison been spewed at Vaasa in such a charming tone.
It was both an insult and a compliment, a transparent admission of the marriage he offered her.
A marriage that, perhaps a year or two ago, she might truly have considered entering.
In so many ways, Lord Karev and she were similar—maniacal, ruthless liars.
There was a version of the world where he would have been precisely the man to overthrow Dominik.
If she had been born power hungry, he would have been the bet she took.
But she did not want to rule Asterya. She wanted to dismantle it.
Vaasa pulled herself from where she leaned against the table, taking a few steps away. “Then I no longer need him.”
Lord Karev nodded, uncaring about the space she’d put between them, and stood from the table. He beamed down at her, not a hint of attraction or craving in his eyes. It was all ambition that shone there. She was, just as she had said about Roman, a means to an end.
He started toward the door. “Remember what I said about Roland Beránek. I need him to be warden of the prison.”
“I’ll tell Ozik immediately,” she agreed.
He peered over his shoulder. “I’ll call upon you tomorrow. I’d like to meet with the salt lord sooner rather than later,” he said before swinging open the door. He stared at Roman, then stepped past him as if the sentinel meant absolutely nothing to him.
Roman rushed in, looking her over, but she held up her hand. Ozik walked in just then, his curious eyes watching her. Vaasa stood up straight and strode to the door. “Nominate Roland Beránek as warden of the prison, and you’ve got your marriage agreement.”
Ozik raised a brow. “You’ve made your choice?”
She stopped in her tracks, fury bright in her chest. She spat, “Don’t pretend you ever gave me one.”
Ozik chuckled, and Vaasa just kept walking, Roman following silently on her heels, grief pouring from him, unavoidable, undeniable.
As Vaasa walked back to the emperor’s wing of the fortress, Roman kept his distance paces away. The moment they passed through the doors that led to the private hallways of this wing of the fortress, he stopped walking.
They were alone now.
Vaasa turned and released a small breath. The list of undesirable conversations she had no way to escape kept growing longer.
“Are you really going to marry that man?” Roman asked.
“What choice do I have?” She shook her head and dragged a hand through her hair.
Roman pursed his lips in contemplation. “Did you have Vlacik killed?”
Vaasa huffed an angry breath and placed her hand upon her hip. “Did you?”
He gawked at her. “I was inside the brothel for all of ten minutes—”
“And unaccounted for all of the minutes after. The murderer wore a sentinel’s jacket, Roman, and you returned to the fortress without one. The guards at the gates saw you. It’s all the nobility are talking about. It’s precisely how Karev just cornered me into a marriage agreement.”
Roman went still. Anger lanced his features, and she was once again struck by how quickly he morphed into a different person—a colder one. “So my mistake is the reason you have to marry Karev?”
Vaasa shook her head in frustration, a pounding headache stealing her patience. “Yes. Either I marry him, or he pins the murder on you and me. This is all I can do to protect you. To protect myself.”
Roman ran his tongue along his teeth in contemplation, perhaps deciding if he believed her reasoning. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Vaasa, I’m so sorry.”
Her heart sank in her chest, this guilt burrowing so deep inside her she couldn’t see a way to claw it out.
It felt like no matter which direction she went, she couldn’t avoid breaking his heart.
“You need to be very careful, Roman. Karev wholeheartedly believes we are having an affair, and if you give him any hint of confirmation, he’ll soon have all the power he needs to call for your head. ”
Roman looked down at his feet and cursed, fisting and unfisting his hands.
“I don’t want to be the reason you lose everything again,” she confessed. “I won’t be.”
Finally, a real truth she could give him—that she didn’t want to hurt him. Not again. No matter what fears she held about him or what their circumstances had turned them into, that single thing remained true.
Roman met her eyes across the hallway. “Thank you.”
Vaasa just turned and started away. “Summon me when Ozik has news.”
It was only three hours before Roman knocked, his expression still twisted and guilt-stricken. He held a white envelope in his hands. “Roland Beránek has been made warden of the prison,” he said. He extended a letter. “This arrived for you.”
Vaasa took the envelope from him, inspecting the Karev family seal upon it. She popped it open with her finger, skimming it quickly. It was an invitation to visit the port together the following day.
And an official declaration of his intent to pursue a marriage agreement.