Chapter Twenty-One
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sarai woke to the cold stone floor of an alcove, remnants of rain dripping down the walls. Her neck throbbed relentlessly. Weakly raising a trembling hand, she shuddered at the five whorls embedded into her shoulder, sinking through skin into muscle.
He would have melted me. Had she kept refusing, they would have thrown her off Sidran Tower for the second time. Her broken body would have ended up atop some Lugen’s examination table. Another dead Petitor.
She couldn’t feel anything. Pushing herself up on one knee, then the other, she swiped a finger through the mess of blood on her neck, using her last dregs of magic to clot some of the burns. She didn’t even know if she could heal them. Forcing one foot before the other, she stumbled forward, a single inescapable truth reverberating with every step.
You’re going to have to choose.
Kadra had been right.
After an eternity of walking, Aoran Tower drew in sight. Her hands left bloody trails on the gate when she unlocked it. Around her, the world slumbered, soundless but for the night creatures going about their tasks. At least she wouldn’t have to face Kadra. He was probably in his office, unaware and uncaring of what she’d faced.
This close to sanctuary, the tears that had choked her throughout the walk rose unimpeded. She should have learned her lesson four years ago. Justice was a mirage, a game of lies and platitudes played by politicians who ensured they weren’t held to the same standards as the populace. And no friendship was immune to that game.
“Bless her, I think she believes she’s rescuing you , ” Aelius had said. The worst part was that Sarai believed it too.
She shuffled toward Kadra’s tablinum and paused at the line of light snaking out from under the door. Had Cato left a candle burning? As she stared, the light blurred. Legs giving out, she collapsed against the door, agony flaring across her neck at the impact. Wetness trickled from her barely closed burns.
She dimly recognized that her body had gone as far as it could. But she wasn’t safe yet. Not until she was sequestered in her room and the Sidran Tower Girl could sob her heart out.
Clawing at the jamb, she dragged herself to her feet and tottered into the study, only to freeze at the man blocking her path, eyes boring into hers.
“Kadra,” she whispered a second before she pitched forward.
His hands closed around her shoulders, halting her fall. A whimper left her when his fingers swept over her burns, and he stilled. Brushing her ruined braid aside, his gaze went from her ravaged neck to her face before turning murderous.
“Who?” The word was as cold and hard as ice.
“Tullus.” The world grew unfocused.
Fingers tipped her chin. “Sarai, can you see me?” Kadra asked grimly.
She tried to focus on his face, but her eyes wouldn’t hold still, circling from the travel dust on his robes to the clenched set of his jaw.
The door thudded open, startling her back to clarity. Cato strode in with a cheerful smile, cup of tea in hand, and went stock-still.
“What the—”
Kadra plucked her off the floor and deposited her onto a couch as Cato hurried to her side.
“What happened? Drenevan, don’t tell me you—” He cut himself off with a shake before turning to her. “Let’s get you to a healer. ”
“No,” she whispered, but Cato was having none of it. “Wait, I can’t—”
“She asked you to wait.” Kadra’s voice sliced through the tablinum, and the older man shot him a glare only to falter when Sarai nodded weakly. “Then …?”
“I can heal it,” she lied. She couldn’t have a healer seeing her scars. Drawing upon her precariously stretched reserves of magic, she poorly clotted one burn and hoped it would satisfy them. Both men blinked.
Cato still looked worried. “Was it the Guild?”
“Tullus.” Kadra looked close to breathing fire. “See to the wards. And inform Gaius that I want his head.”
Cato departed with a nod.
Kadra crouched by her, the sleeves of his tunic rolled to his elbows. “I’ll help you upstairs.”
“No.” She’d had too much time to think on the walk back to Aoran Tower. Enough to realize that he must have known who Helvus’s clients were all along. He’d stayed quiet because he’d known he couldn’t take on Aelius and Tullus and had used her instead. This was the result.
Her thoughts must have shown, because his face smoothed into a hard-eyed mask.
“Did you know this would happen?” She was proud of how the words came out. Empty, indifferent.
He studied her like she would bite if he turned his back. “Gaius was supposed to watch you.”
“To protect me from the Metals Guild, I’m sure. If he’d known he was guarding me from two Tetrarchs, he wouldn’t have left tonight.” Despite the cotton wool lining her throat, she laughed. “Imagine that. You keep your secrets, and I pay the price.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, but he extended a hand to help her up.
She jerked away. “Don’t act like you care. The deeper you drag me into the filth of this country, the worse it gets. Two months and I’ve been nearly drowned, choked, and burned to death. Why me? Why open my eyes to all this? ”
A flash of bleakness in his eyes. “You needed to know who your enemies were.”
“My enemies? You mean yours!” she hissed. “You’re going to get me killed, aren’t you, Kadra? You’ll be the hero who revealed Aelius’s and Tullus’s duplicity, and I’ll be the Petitor who lost her life in the process. Tell me, how many innocents have died because you valued your damned goals over their lives?”
An ugly harshness tightened his face, warning her she was treading on thin ice. Good . If he only understood violence, then she would be violent.
“Then leave.” His words were knives. “If you find it so difficult, then consider yourself released as my Petitor. Perhaps your friend over at Aelius’s will have you.” His eyes turned cruel at her stricken look. “I have no interest in keeping you here against your will.”
Tears warped her vision. She wanted to scream that he was wrong, that even Cisuré had thrown her to the wolves. But all that left her was a bitter, choked laugh.
“Do I really have no right to be angry?” She blinked to keep the tears at bay. “For a man who wants me to choose him, you’ve taken great pains to rip me apart. Since the Robing, it’s only been burnings and blood and bodies in everyone’s closets, and six fucking months of cases in six weeks.” Her voice cracked. “If you’ve been trying to show me my enemies, you’re one of them. Did you spare one thought for me in all this? Was I not innocent in your eyes?”
Something nameless twisted in his gaze.
“You knew it all but told me nothing . I had no idea who was coming for me. And you don’t think I’ve a right to be angry?” Her voice broke. “Gods know why, but I expected better of you.”
The spark of fire that had sustained her winked out. Kadra’s unreadable silence was punctuated by the sluggish beat of her pulse. Crimson flashed at the edge of her vision from her armilla , and her heart stuttered at the warning that she’d drained her reserves of magic. Following her gaze, Kadra went dangerously still. Before she could hide her armilla, his hand clamped around her wrist like a vise, sliding it loose. One look at nihumb , and raw anger unlike anything she’d seen tautened his face.
Fortune save me . She didn’t have to guess his thoughts. An illusion rune in his tower. It all added up to only one conclusion: a spy.
“Kadra, wait!” She jumped when the entire tower shuddered. Her plea collapsed into a petrified gasp as sparks snapped into life around them, threatening to set the tablinum on fire. The fury smoldering in his eyes chilled her to the core.
“Explain.” The order held a threat of imminent violence if disobeyed.
“It isn’t what you think—” She froze as he casually drew a wicked-looking blade from his robes, candlelight glinting off the edge.
What was left of her heart after Cisuré’s betrayal broke apart at his seething menace. As though they hadn’t spent two months as partners, as though he hadn’t told her under that tree in the midst of that storm that she was safe with him.
The knife brushed her throat. “I asked you to explain.” His voice was clipped and hard.
She raised her head without fear. Part of her wanted to let him kill her. It was a path out of all this. The violence, the pain , the blades they kept pointing at each other. But the Sidran Tower Girl who’d refused to die wouldn’t allow it.
She dropped the illusion.
Kadra stilled, shock entering a face that could have been carved from iron.
“Here you go,” she said bitterly. “This is why. If someone touches me, they’ll feel the scars, so I don’t let anyone but—” Cisuré . She couldn’t say it. “I wasn’t out to deceive you. I just hated how people stared—” Her voice broke, control crumbling. “Are you happy now? Is that everything you wanted? Is—”
It was too much.
Choking on ragged sobs, she hunched over, surrendering to the panic attack and pleading with all the gods and Saints for unconsciousness. She couldn’t breathe. A vicious curse sounded far away .
“Sarai, open your eyes.”
She instinctively obeyed, her head lolling back with dizziness. Warm hands cupped her face. She met Kadra’s coal-black stare.
“Blink slowly.” His palms were rough. “Good. Now, breathe.” His face tightened when she struggled to inhale. “Damn it, keep going.”
A hideous rattle filled the air, and she almost laughed at the realization that it was her.
“Again,” Kadra urged when she wheezed a breath. “That’s it.”
Shaking like an aspen, she drew ragged breath after breath until the agony in her chest loosened. When the flood passed, she simply lay there, hollowed out, barely cognizant of the man wiping her tears.
She wished she hadn’t run into him. She’d only wanted to heal.
A rough sigh grazed her face, and she dimly noted that she’d said it aloud. The floor tilted on its axis as Kadra lifted her, striding upstairs to sit them both on her bed, with her on his lap. Her teeth chattered, shock taking panic’s place. Wrapping a blanket over them both, he held her as she shook. He smelled of oranges and wine and the blood she was getting on him, and, gods, she was going to be so utterly humiliated tomorrow when she had the strength to give a damn. But for now, she waited, wondering who would speak first.
Long moments later, he angled his head to study her with unflinching intensity. “You’re still bleeding.”
“I don’t have the magic to clot it.”
A breath and his hand circled her wrist around her armilla. Heat flared from his fingertips, and she realized he was pooling some of his magic in her.
Gritting her teeth, she pricked a finger and wiped it over beshaz. The rush of power was familiar, as was the way her vision sharpened behind her closed eyelids, sinking internally, to survey the damage. Hovering her shaking hands above the oozing mess of burns circling her neck, she tried to rebuild the first layer of tissue. Unable to handle the flow of power, her fingers pressed hard into the burn, reopening it. She swallowed a scream and tried again, fighting tears, when Kadra’s hands gripped hers, steadying her fingers.
Gently leading them to each burn, he held her knuckles straight, allowing her to focus. Power slowly leaked into her skin, and she could have cried as she painstakingly rebuilt each layer of tissue, using her magic to push her body into repairing itself much faster than it could on its own. Long moments later, new skin stretched uncomfortably tight over the area.
Kadra watched the process in silence. He had to have questions, but he wasn’t the only one who could leave people in the dark.
“Thank you,” she muttered. “I haven’t been able to do that for … years.”
“Sarai.”
She refused to look at him. An easy task, despite her ear currently lying over his heart.
“I apologize.”
For a moment, she was too stunned to speak, then a weak laugh burst out. “The mighty Kadra is sorry.”
“When he’s wrong.”
Her eyes burned. “Can’t imagine that happens often.”
“No.” His voice was quiet.
“At least you didn’t roast my neck,” she said bitterly. “Or would you have sliced it?”
Kadra paused before heaving the sigh of a man who knew that his next words wouldn’t please their listener. “I have roasted many necks. But I wouldn’t have touched yours. Earlier.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as if to soften his words. “The knife was a threat.”
“So I humiliated myself for nothing.” The only person besides Cisuré who’d seen her scars, and it had been under duress.
“Sarai—”
“I should have realized that you wouldn’t. The optics of having your Petitor turn corpse and all that.” A sardonic laugh wedged in her throat. “I’m surprised you aren’t gloating. ”
In response, Kadra slid a finger under her chin. She gave into the unspoken request and raised her head for his perusal. Cavernous eyes traveled her face, lingering on her scars. His jaw ticked, features settling into something quiet and bitter that looked oddly like regret.
“My hands are the worst of it.” She extended them, matching her palm to his larger one. “That’s why my writing looks the way it does.”
He went rigid at her touch. His gaze didn’t leave her as he took her hand and explored it clinically, measuring each misshapen finger, each crooked joint, the scars webbing across the backs of her palms, the evidence of the shattered mess of her digits.
“This was done to you?”
She nodded, unable to think of a lie and certain that he’d see through one. “I’d rather not speak of it.”
He acquiesced, tracing her skin with the callused hands of a swordsman. She braced herself for him to wince, to shudder as so many had. Surrounded as she was by him, she’d feel it.
He didn’t. Instead, he asked no further questions, offered no condolences, merely interlocked their fingers and pulled her closer to hold her more securely. A motion that placed her face barely inches from his. Her breath caught when he looked down.
“If anyone should be humiliated here, it’s me,” he admitted, tight lines bracketing his lips. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Speech failed her. At the apology. At the fact that he was holding her in a way that defied explanation.
Kadra frowned at her expression. “Are you still in pain?”
“I don’t know.” Her head was so jumbled that she could barely sort pain from everything else. “Are you still kicking me out?”
“No,” he said softly. “Unless you want to leave.”
“And join Aelius? He had me branded with Tullus’s palmprint.”
His eyes narrowed. She started when he moved the blanket off her shoulders to survey the holes in her robes where burnt fabric had melded with her skin. When his fingers brushed her collar, she stilled at the silent question in his eyes. Heart in her throat, she nodded.
Silence itself seemed to hold still as he undid the first button. The pads of his fingers brushed her skin, moving down her neck to stop between her breasts. His hands lingered on her exposed skin, and she held her breath as his jaw turned to granite, before he returned to her wound with ruthless efficiency. Her pulse tripled as he peeled the material from her shoulders, only to halt when he brought out the same knife he’d threatened her with.
At her flinch, Kadra followed her gaze and cursed. “I’ll find another—”
Sarai gripped his wrist. “Do it.”
Looking grim, in a deft motion, he cut off the sooty fabric, revealing the handprint seared into her skin. Something lethal flared in Kadra’s eyes, jaw clenching so hard she swore she could hear the scrape of his back teeth.
“It’ll heal.” She tried to sound offhand.
“Will it?” The low gravel of his voice said he wasn’t referring only to the wound.
“Will tonight happen again?”
“No part of it ever will.” Every word was a vow. He took her chin between his forefinger and thumb. “You’re safe here. Forgive me for breaking my word to you.”
She blinked away the heat pricking her eyes. “Two apologies in a night. I must have some use as a Petitor.”
“You’re an excellent one.”
“Kadra, you have no basis of comparison for that.”
“I’ve seen at least a dozen come and go.”
Torn between horror and amusement, she sputtered. “You call that a frame of reference?”
His lips lifted faintly as though he was pleased at having made her laugh.
“What do you really want from me?” she dared ask. “Why let me in here and lead me through all this?”
“Because you’re strong. ”
She almost rammed her head into his chin. When his eyes found hers, they burned with the same strange tenderness she’d seen at Aelius’s convivium.
“You don’t bend. You’d rather break, but this land needs strength like yours. I’ve waited for it for years.”
Her heart caved under a catastrophic flood of emotion, crumbling to ash when Kadra soothingly traced a line down her spine.
“I …” Her eyes watered. She glanced everywhere but him. “By all the Saints, if you’d said this that first night here, I’d have chosen you without question.”
“Would you really?” He sounded intrigued.
“No, I’d have tried to get you arrested.”
A semblance of a laugh from him.
“Aelius and Tullus”—she took a deep breath—“they came after me tonight so I’d ruin you. They’ve been asking me to do it since my first day. I agreed initially, but I gave them nothing.”
“Why not?” Kadra looked amused, confirming her guess that he’d known. “The debt-slave ring would have been a good time.”
She flushed. “You’re mad, but … you aren’t without honor. I had to agree tonight because Tullus would’ve burned me alive if I didn’t.”
“I’ll kill him.” Sounding terrifyingly sincere, he traced the swelling below her right eye, the bruises on her cheeks. “I’ll eviscerate him muscle by muscle, if you’d like.”
Awestruck, she grasped for words. “There’s no need to commit treason,” she muttered. “Thank you, though.”
The ruthless look on his face told her he disagreed. “What’s Aelius using against you?”
“ Calumnia . Apparently, he’s taken both of us off Admia’s trial.” She deflated when Kadra nodded in confirmation. “He has a warrant and a list of witnesses from the Metals Guild that he’s bribed into testifying for Helvus.” She cursed. “I’ll steal a scutum if I have to, if it means tearing them down. ”
Adjusting herself on his lap—Elsar help her—she winced when her battered arms protested the motion. Kadra’s brow creased. He gently lifted and settled her under the covers.
With a glance at the dwindling night outside, he eased off the bed. “I’ll leave you to rest. Stay here tomorrow and heal.”
Eyeing the loosening line of his shoulders, she had the vague feeling that they’d passed some crucial threshold but was too exhausted to pinpoint what that was.
“Goodnight, Kadra.”
He watched her for a long moment. “Goodnight, Sarai,” he said softly.
And for once, that night, she didn’t dream of that Fall, but only of how close he’d held her.