16 Devastation #3
“Don’t take it as an insult. I wasn’t always this powerful either, but there are ways.” Something amused formed in the furrow of his eyebrows when she failed to hide her curiosity. He stood and offered her a hand. “Come with me.”
She glowered at it. Sighing, he tucked it into his pocket and led her down the never-ending stairs winding out of his tower.
He stopped before a pair of double doors untouched by fire, wards etched into the very doorframe as protection.
They parted noiselessly upon unlocking to reveal a hallway that stretched as wide as Aoran Tower.
Her steps echoed on the stone-and-marble floor past busts of men with a vague resemblance to Noceo and Kadra and books that looked older than the Aequitas within clear crystal cases.
“Welcome to the Clan’s Relic Hall.” Noceo looked amused at her dropped jaw. “No one could keep me away from here as a child. There’s something powerful about having a people or place or to tie yourself to that you know will go on after you.” He glanced back at her. “I hear you’re an orphan.”
“Are you trying to say that I’m tying myself to Kadra because I haven’t known permanence?”
“I think you’re rebelling,” he said, with a kindliness that set her teeth on edge. “Just like Drenevan is. Do you know why he calls himself ‘bu Kadra’ instead of ‘bu Kader’?” He didn’t wait for her response. “It’s an obscure Urdish word that means ‘no one.’”
Her steps slowed. Drenevan bu Kadra. The “bu” was a possessive. He’d gone by “Drenevan of no one.”
“Dramatic, don’t you think? Orphaning himself like that. But that is part of why you went for him. You thought he was like you.”
This time, the blow landed. “I don’t need someone to mirror me to love them.”
“We all do. At the end of the day, we love ourselves most. I hope you can be honest about that.”
Glowering, she assessed him as they wove through the Clan’s mementos of more powerful days. Like Kadra, he moved with purpose and elegance, body language so contained as to make him impossible to read.
“Why bother with a coup?”
He thought for a moment. “Vengeance. Irritation.” He flashed her a grin. “I find the south tiresome on the best of days.”
“So, you loosed a plague and turned them madness-struck?”
A frown edged Noceo’s lips. “I’ll accept every accolade for exacerbating tension, but the rest wasn’t me. I don’t know why the beetles went rabid either. The north hated the south just fine without me, and I had nothing to do with your madness-struck.”
Truth. The words rang clearer than they had so far. Sarai froze. “You had nothing to do with the madness-struck in Edessa?”
“Of course not.”
True. Everything turned to smoke and snow in her head. Then, who’s behind it?
Mistaking her terror for thought, Noceo offered her his arm again.
An imperceptible shift took place in the line of his shoulders when she stood where she was.
“You don’t take easy to change, do you? Drenevan’s a different beast though.
He always adjusted to what Clevsin—our father—demanded so easily.
There wasn’t an emotion in him that wasn’t linked to violence. ”
Her hands clenched.
He followed the motion with a thoughtful nod. “Yes, his ‘love’ for you. Every man has their urges, even him. But there is a reason our father was so preoccupied with Drenevan. He’s the very best of us. I doubt that there’s any child this Clan has raised that has so completely become a monster.”
“You set a market aflame here to test your strength!”
“Coups don’t come cheap,” he said wryly.
“Targeting a southern city would have brought the Tetrarchy’s eyes on me too quickly, but the north never bothers telling you anything, and they blamed the Guilds so quickly.
” He shrugged. “As they should. I didn’t create this conflict.
Does it matter that I held the flame to the brazier?
Would you rather that they stay impoverished here? ”
“There were better ways—”
“Were there?” He closed in, invading the wide breadth of personal space she maintained at all times with men. “Death-Summoner, have you never wanted something so powerful in your hands that the whole world will finally sit up and take notice of what you say?”
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Silver eyes pried into hers, a subtle knife unlike the swallowing black of Kadra’s gaze.
“Are you not tired of screaming into a void, begging a foolish populace to listen? Don’t you weary of listening to their infighting and petty prejudices?
I can make them behave. Lives were lost, yes, but that’s the nature of war.
Drenevan would say no different. At least, I have been honest with you. ”
The hand that touched her face held curiosity. Her skin crawled, but Noceo ignored her visible shuddering.
“Tell me that you’ve never wanted to press a knife to a Guildmaster’s throat and shut them up. Tell me that you’ve never wanted to control their very limbs to force them to do as you bid. Isn’t it all because you know you have no power?”
He may as well have skewered her. She was in Arsamea again, seeing Marus loom before her. She was surrounded by the dead in Komis and Edessa. And painfully aware that she could do nothing.
“I can make you more,” he vowed. “I was a Seventh-Tier too, prior to my newfound strength. I’d share it with you. Drenevan can only offer anguish under the guise of independence. He acts like he’s supporting you, but really, you’re carrying it all alone.”
“That isn’t true,” she said tightly, trying to pull away from his grip.
“Isn’t it?” His eyes narrowed to silver slits. “Has this love made your life simpler or worse? Has it not subjected you to ridicule? Death-Summoner, have you truly never wanted power?”
The pressure in her veins shot up dangerously. “I don’t want your power.”
His smile held a terrible glee. “Thank you for admitting the converse.”
The hand on her shoulder slid down to find her palm. She jerked away, but he locked a hand around her waist and forced her still.