31 Truth
Midnight found her in Kadra’s morgue. The Lugens’ examining tables were quiet at this hour, few willing to work into the night or with the dead these days.
She soundlessly went down the flight of stairs at the back toward the door at the end of the hall where Kadra placed the victims of cold cases in his Quarter on ice to preserve their corpses until he could ascertain a culprit.
It scraped open, loosing a frigid blast. Moonlight rolled in like fog from square windows by the ceiling.
An unmoving patch of shadow at the back of the room was all that spoke to Kadra’s presence.
Hands locked behind her, Sarai leaned against the opposite wall, trying to quell her roiling stomach when she caught footsteps on the landing. Soft taps approached the door. It parted, and Noceo emerged.
Anger and whispers of remembered fear sank teeth into her bones, pumping her full of venom. For the last few hours, she had wondered if her hate would override her pity when she saw him again. Apparently, she held both in equal quantity.
“If this is a trap, I would advise against it, Death-Summoner.” Dark hair coiffed back, gray-green robes immaculate, he looked like a Naaduir of winter and ice.
“I never had your flair for it,” she said into the quiet.
He jerked before turning unerringly in the direction of her voice. Silver eyes found hers and gleamed. “Well?” he murmured smoothly. “Are you finally here to ask me for power?”
She laughed, emerging from the shadows. “I don’t think yours would serve me well. Edessa hates you.”
“They’ll grow used to me once they realize that I’m not going anywhere.”
“From drugmaker to ruler.” An empty smile bled across her face. “Would you have chosen the same if life had taken a different turn?”
Noceo cast her a surprised look that he quickly veiled with insouciance. “Why do you ask? Trying to see if things would have been different had Drenevan kept his word?”
“Perhaps.” I need to know what happened the night of their escape. Only that would tell her if there was any hope for this man.
Noceo was silent a moment. “A iudex would have been boring,” he finally said. “I have no patience for fools making poor decisions and asking me for clemency. I probably would have formed a Guild for weaponry.”
Weapons again. “Does life need to be war, Noceo?”
This time, shock openly blanketed his face. She had used his name for the first time on purpose. “It is war.” His gaze didn’t waver. “The powerful win.”
And that’s all you’ve ever wanted to be. “What happens now? You take the throne and sit there until death?”
“I’ll have won. He’ll have nothing. And there’ll be no one above me.” He looked at her like he was saddened that she hadn’t understood. “A complete unfettering.”
Of you, she realized sadly.
A brow went up at her silence. Noceo’s mouth formed a dazzling grin. She hated him. She pitied him. She was so fucking tired. Perhaps Méherre was right, and people didn’t deserve the chance to change. Yet, she wanted to try a last time here.
“You sought me out.” A brilliant, genuine gleam of elation lit his eyes. “You’ve made your decision.”
“I have.” She approached him hiding beshaz’s bright flare. Her placid mask, the shield that had kept her sane for so many years, kept her serene, armored as she faced him.
Noceo’s lips twitched before a deep laugh left him. “I wish I could see the look on Drenevan’s face when he realizes that I’ve stripped him of everything.”
“You can.”
She struck while his eyes were still narrowing. Gripping his hands, she sent magic beneath his skin to shred every major tendon. He staggered with a gasp of pain, lips parting to issue a Coercive order, when she pulled a blindfold from her pocket and gagged him swiftly.
Knocking him unconscious would only turn him madness-struck. She tripped him to the ground and pinned him, herar already active on her armilla.
“I’m truly sorry for this,” she eked out between labored breaths. At the end of the day, Probing was a punishment. But it was time to have the truth out in the open.
She gripped his head. The world turned black and morphed into the library of Noceo’s mind.
Alright. She strode quickly through the incorporeal shelves of his memories, trailing her hands over them until she reached the E’s. A cobweb-covered book titled Escape was the first book there. She frowned at the dog-eared one beside it. Poxtan.
Shelved out of order and beside Escape. She recalled Noceo’s infatuation with Parvine. It must have all gone wrong eleven years ago then. Foreboding moved like an ice cube down her throat. She flipped the book open. And opened her eyes to horror.
She only took one look before spinning around, hands over her mouth. Tears involuntarily sprung to her eyes, a choked sob of disbelief wedging in her throat. She dared turn around again and struggled to hold down her bile.
Parvine’s body lay on the rocky shore of the Chaboras River. Waves roared around her, splattering her with vicious spray. She would never feel it.
Sarai had only seen Parvine once in Noceo’s first memory of meeting Othus. A glossy-haired vivacious girl with friendly eyes. The mutilated body at Clevsin’s feet sitting in a puddle of blood and entrails looked almost nothing like her. Almost.
Kadra’s kills had been emotionless pieces of work designed to satisfy his father and inspire terror with a few knife strokes. This had been personal. The girl was missing her nose. And she was naked.
Clevsin nonchalantly kicked a tooth as one would a pebble. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
A sob several feet away. Sarai turned to find Noceo on his knees, strangled cries tearing from his chest. His face was ravaged, streaked with tears and blood. Clevsin strode to him, a crimson-drenched dagger in hand, and struck the hilt against his son’s head.
“You really thought I wouldn’t know you were trying to fuck some no-name whore?” He hit him again when Noceo sobbed like his heart had broken.
Sarai’s teeth cut into her tongue.
“She wasn’t going to hurt anyone,” Noceo wept. “We just went for a walk. Why would you come and—” He dissolved into a series of curses and screaming.
Clevsin snorted. “Well, she was a terrible fuck. On your feet. Get rid of the body.”
“Die!” Noceo screamed. “DIE! DIE!”
She winced at the brittle roar of power in his voice. It wasn’t enough. Clevsin shrugged it off and raised the dagger again.
She pulled out of the memory, shaking with silent tears.
No wonder he craves power. Enough to indulge in stimulant use. He hadn’t been able to protect Parvine, and no one had protected him. Had it been her in his place, wouldn’t she have gone mad too? She dared flip to the last few pages of the book and took a glimpse.
Noceo’s haunted features came to life in front of her. He sat beside Kadra in the same stretch of shore where Parvine’s body had been, staring at the waves lapping the shoreline. Foam flew into the air and settled again and again.
“I can’t ever face her family,” he said after a long silence. “I said that I would never hurt her. And I threw her body in the Chaboras.”
“I spoke to them. Got there before Clevsin could plant a story.” The ice in Kadra’s eyes was so deep, she wondered how it had ever thawed for him to have become the man he did. “Lied that she committed suicide after you rejected her.”
The emptiness bled from Noceo’s face. He swiveled to face Kadra with sudden fury. “She would never!” he snarled, seizing his brother’s tunic. “You couldn’t come up with a better fucking story?”
“Exactly.” Kadra didn’t move. “She would never. No one will believe it. Any story Clevsin spins afterward will not take. Her memory is safe.”
Withdrawing, Sarai shoved the book back in the shelf with shaking hands. This was so much worse than she’d imagined. And there was one more. The incident that had changed everything and set these men down different paths.
She gripped the volume titled Escape and wiped her eyes. Alright. She inhaled sharply and dove in. This time, when her mind detached herself from Noceo’s perspective, she moved back in.
Finaze Poxtan was here.
Noceo blankly stared at the girl screaming for answers in the snow, prostate at his feet. The road down the Drust Mountains wound down behind her. Why did it have to be tonight? Drenevan was due any moment. They had to leave.
“Please just tell me why,” Finaze pleaded. “You came around for months to flirt with her. You seemed to like her, so why don’t you care?”
Noceo glanced around. What if Drenevan had failed at subduing Clevsin? He had snuck out to unlock the manor’s gates once the two had started fighting. But if Drenevan lost, then Clevsin would know that they had been working together. And this fucking girl kept screaming.
“Why did you abandon Parvine?” Finaze wailed.
FUCK. She had never liked him. Never wanted him around Parvine.
Beneath the anguish in her eyes was hatred.
His adrenaline surged to the beat of his pulse.
She was right. Gods, she was right. But he couldn’t have her ruin everything.
She had chosen to come here despite knowing the consequences.
This was her fault. Didn’t she understand how hard he had fought for Parvine?
Everything Clevsin had done to him while he tried to protect her that last night?
Sweat slicked his palms. “You’re right,” he finally said quietly, pitching his voice low and wrapping it around her. Her brow smoothed, blankness entering her face. “But I can’t say much out here. Come inside and I’ll explain.”
A hint of fear surfaced on her face. She was fighting it.
“Don’t worry.” He bent to her, forcing a smile that felt like a rictus grin. “I’ll keep you safe. As your friend, I owe you an explanation.”
Finaze nodded, eyes glazed.
Moonlight glinted off the metal gates, transforming them to spears as he led her through. They shut behind her. The flashes of lightning within the manor told him that Drenevan and Clevsin were still battling. Finaze’s limbs jerked in front of him.