Chapter Nineteen #2
A wall of water rising, rising, rising. The First stands, small but without fear, in the shadow of a tsunami waiting to fall.
His hold on Khiran’s neck goes lax, the shapeshifter falling to the shallows.
The impact, and perhaps Kaia’s magic, pulls the water from his lungs in a guttural cough.
The First doesn’t drop his eyes from Kaia’s. “How kind of you to join us.”
Kaia’s gaze is deadly. Cold enough to burn.
The First meets it without flinching. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you how Marcia’s binds work? Try to whisk him away and that lovely noose will tighten.” He turns his back to her, returning to his twisted throne and flicking a hand towards the others. “I trust you remember your place, Kaia?”
“I remember much more than that,” she hisses, her round face pale with quiet rage. She kneels in the shallow water, helping Khiran up as he finds his breath. He leans on her as they leave the shore, the wall of water dropping with the subtlety of a door slammed shut behind them.
The First sits, his gaze falling squarely on Anna as he motions for her to approach. “Let us have a look at you, then.”
When she doesn’t move, Marcia pushes her toward him, threats falling from her lips like barbs.
Anna stumbles forward, feeling the weight of everyone’s eyes.
Emotion clashes in her chest, fear and fury twisting until they feel like two heads on the same snake.
For a moment, she thinks she might suffocate beneath the weight of it.
Then, between one breath and the next, it eases. Spilling from her until the beat of her heart slows, the pulse in her ears fading until a new sound snares her attention.
There is a whisper disguised as wind slipping between the skeletal branches. Anna feels it more than hears it. It’s a storm—a demand, a plea.
Anna stares, the echo of it robbing her of breath. She can feel it curling against her heart, the way a newborn curls its fist around a finger. The way Piers once hugged her as a child, with his entire body and no reservations. The way Eira took her hand in her weathered ones and called her Child.
Child.
Anna is just a child. Her eight centuries are a mere stitch in the tapestry compared to the canopy looming over them.
The branches groan and Anna hears the wordless songs mothers hum to their children. Comforting. Soft. A stark contrast from the cold edge in The First’s gaze.
“I’m afraid your lover has put you at a disadvantage,” he says, voice booming over the courtyard. “Entry into this family is normally by my invitation only.”
Anna looks at him with new understanding.
She thinks of the hives she abandoned on the California coast. Hives that thrived under her care, but were more than capable of surviving without it. She thinks of the bees, the intricately simple way in which they work together as a collective for the good of the many instead of the individual.
She thinks of what happens to an unfit queen.
The First grips her chin with bruising force, his long fingers a vice along her jaw. “What gift do you possess?”
So close, Anna can feel his power humming against her skin. The split second of electricity in the air before lightning strikes. She should feel terrified, but her heart is calm, her pulse steady.
“She doesn’t have one,” Khiran says. His voice is rough, an avalanche of sleet and stone. Bitterly cold and hardened by hatred. “She is of no use to you. Let her go. Let her be.”
The First’s stare is piercing. “Marcia.” The sound of knuckles cracking against flesh, a pained grunt that sounds too much like Khiran to be anyone else.
“Since your first warning didn’t seem to take, speak again and I’ll slit her throat.
Now.” The First’s fingers bite into her jaw as she tries to look.
“You’ll find I abhor repeating myself as much as I do interruptions. Tell me. What is your gift?”
Stubbornly, Anna repeats what Khiran has already told him. “I don’t have one.”
He looks down at her a few seconds longer.
“I don’t believe you.” His hold on her face softens, fingers assessing the line of her jaw.
“No bruises. You’re less prone to damage than your lover.
” He grabs her right hand faster than she can pull away, evaluating the nub of flesh that used to be her finger.
“But not impenetrable, I see.” He turns her wrist, catching sight of the pale shadow on her forearm and pulls up her sleeve.
“What is this, then? Do you change your skin like he does?”
The flush that spreads over her chest is far from embarrassed. It’s angry.
Eight centuries ago, Khiran knew with only one look what the patterns on her skin were and were not.
He knew because he had seen it before—because he cared enough about the world to want to be a part of it.
The ignorance of someone who has had lifetimes on top of lifetimes to learn, who has decided the world is beneath him from a throne of roots and ruin, is infuriating. “It’s mine.”
His lip curls. Whether it’s in distaste or disappointment, Anna can’t be sure. “Cassius.” He says the name like a summons.
Anna has to force her expression to remain neutral, but her heart stutters. She knows why The First is summoning him, but she can’t be sure if his kiss will yield the same results as last time. The empty space between her middle and pinkie finger stares up at her.
She still doesn’t know if it was Khiran’s magic or her own that saved her from succumbing to his gift.
Cassius hesitates, his eyes finding hers. For a split second, his horror is an echo of her own. Then his expression goes carefully blank. Guarded. She can see his mind working behind his passive expression.
Anna realizes with a sinking heart that whatever plan he’s making is contingent on her being immune to his charms. He doesn’t know about the ring.
Doesn’t know she is probably as susceptible to his kiss as any of the others.
They never told him. Never told anyone. The only one who ever had an idea of the ring’s origins—of its importance—is gone.
Anna thinks of all the secrets Eira kept, from her, for Khiran’s sake and knows with certainty that this was guarded just as carefully.
The First gestures to her with a flippant hand, leaning back into his throne. “I’ve grown impatient. Force the answers from her.”
“Very well,” Cassius says, tipping his chin in mock deference before stepping towards her. His hands, smooth and unblemished, cup her jaw with the gentlest of pressure—a cage in appearance only. There’s a message in his eyes, begging to be read.
Pretend.
The strain on Anna’s heart doubles, fear spiking. She doesn’t have any way of telling him she may not have to.
The kiss is as chaste as one can be, the mere brushing of lips.
Anna waits, breath held so long her lungs burn with it, as he pulls away. His dark blue eyes search hers. She stares back, relief slowly unknotting the worry snaring around her heart.
She is still herself. Cassius’ kiss no different to her than any mortal. The immunity to his charms was hers.
Only hers. Her gift.
“What power do you possess?” Cassius asks.
“I do not have one.” Her answer is breathy, drunk without her having to bother faking it. A lie has never tasted so sweet. It coats her tongue, makes her giddy. She is a mouse in a den of snakes, but they’ve been robbed of their venom without their knowing it.
There is a shadow of a smile hinting at the corner of Cassius’ mouth. Anna thinks it says, well done. “Is that all you wished for, oh exalted one?” The mockery coating the words is so thick it drips.
The First’s glare is full of warnings. “Careful, Cassius. I’m not in the mood.
If you wish to keep your tongue, I advise you still it.
” Anna can feel his gaze burning into her cheek, but she doesn’t dare look away from Cassius.
She remembers how Khiran described it to her—of being enamored.
Obsessed. As if there were no one else in the world but him and his words. “Ask how she got the peach.”
Cassius turns back to her, trying to look admonished and failing spectacularly. “Who gave you the peach?”
Who not how. The difference strikes her as an important one. A hint of a plan laid out in the meager offering of a few words.
Who?
It’s not what the First asked. The who is already—no.
Not known. Assumed. They all believed it to be Khiran, because who else would risk taking a peach, of angering The First, than the one who once wished to overthrow him?
Anna understands the difference between knowledge and assumptions.
Understands that the latter holds room for doubt.
“A woman gave it to me,” she answers. “She—”
“I don’t care what form The Liesmith took,” The First interrupts, frowning. “Ask her how he got it.”
“How did Khiran get it from The Tree?”
“It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Khiran.” She can feel the ripples of shock, hear the murmurs, but she doesn’t pull her gaze from Cassius’ face. She thinks of another pair of blue eyes, one’s cold with cruelty. “It was the one you call The Huntress.”
The reaction is immediate, but it’s the shine of approval in Cassius’ gaze that she focuses on. In them, she sees the same wickedly sharp edge as the moment he looked at her across a courtyard and realized she was different.
“She lies!” Marcia shrieks. From the corner of her vision, Anna can see her draping herself at the feet of the throne. “He must have stolen my face! My love for you is endless. No one has ever matched my devotion to you! The girl is a liar. A snake just like her maker! You mustn’t—”
The First strikes her, the back of his hand cracking against her cheek with enough force to send her stumbling. “You presume to tell me what to do?!”
“No! No, of course not. I wish only to serve you. To protect you.”
His pale hand wraps around her throat. “And yet, Cassius’ charms point to the opposite,” he says, thumb stroking the line of her jaw.
He looks down on her, contemplates her fate with as much emotion as one decides on what animal to cull for their next meal.
“Release the girl, Cassius. I have questions for Marcia that require explicitly honest answers.”
Cassius’ hands slip away from her face, his finger tapping against her jaw.
Anna knows it’s a signal, but she doesn’t know how to interpret it and she’s too afraid she’ll ruin everything by dropping the act too soon.
Cassius chuckles, a dark purr in his voice.
“How sweet. She still can’t seem to keep her eyes off me! Do you like what you see, Little Bird?”
Anna ducks her head. To anyone else, it must look like embarrassment, but the truth is she fears her expression might give her away. Her blood is thrumming in her veins; her pulse so quick, she feels like her entire body is humming with it.
She remembers the secretive smile Cassius gave the morning Khiran asked him what had changed—what could give them a chance at winning a war so stacked against them. Anna had no idea what it could be, not until she saw the flash of satisfaction the moment The First called out Marcia’s name.
He tried to possess you. Khiran had told her. If he asked you to jump, the only question that would break through the magic is how high. Anna saw the power such a gift could wield, but didn’t share Khiran’s fear. Her hands close into fists, her knuckles pale against the rich earth.
Cassius said he had been working with Silas.
Silas who loved him—who trusted him completely.
Who would be willing to submit himself to his kiss, again and again, if it meant his lover could twist his gift into something else.
Something darker than obsession. Something that skipped the question, the order, entirely.
Anna knows, even before his lips touch Marcia’s, that it won’t be the truth that springs from her lips. It will be his words in the shape of her voice. His will disguised as her actions. With just a kiss, he will have her power at his disposal.
She looks up just to see Cassius pull away, watching the hatred in Marcia’s eyes soften into dough for him to mold. Anna holds her breath. Counts.
One.
Two.
Three.
Marcia’s hand shoots out, snaring The First’s wrist in her grasp while the other plunges her blade straight into his heart.