Chapter 45 #2
His fists fly upward as I lean down, but I absorb the impact of every strike and wrap my hand around his right shoulder, closest to his heart.
Frost shoots across my palm.
Agonizing, heart-stopping frost.
He freezes. Stops struggling. Passes out for a few seconds—I can tell from his heartbeat—before coming back to what must be breathtaking agony.
I’m impressed he isn’t screaming.
“Do it,” he rasps. “End me.”
I should, but I’m finally close enough to see his eyes.
They’re bright blue, not faded, and flecked with shining silver, a distinctive trait belonging only to the Silversten family.
I grip his shoulder harder, inflicting more pain. “I know you. I saw you when you were a boy.”
When I was a boy too.
The memory is brief, fleeting images flashing through my mind. My mother was holding his hand. He couldn’t have been more than seven years old. The same age as my sister at the time.
He and my mother were in the throne room, where my father towered, resplendent in his white robes, his fingers dripping with silver rings.
Mother was pleading with Father, asking him to let the boy stay in the palace. She said the boy was living on the street because his courtesan mother had died.
I remember the whispering sound of her pale-lavender gown trailing across the stone as she dared to step closer to Father.
“Take him in,” she urged Father. “It would be the smart thing to—”
He slapped her hard enough to knock her across the floor.
His laughter was mocking. “Why would I take in Iker’s bastard son? Do you wish him to be well fed when he meets the sword?”
My feet were carrying me out from the shadows of the pillar at the side of the room. I wasn’t supposed to be there. The throne room was forbidden to me.
Mother saw me and gave me a sharp shake of her head. At the same time, this boy…now a man…stepped in front of her, his little hands balling into fists, glaring up at my father, who snickered down at him, a remembered sound now snatched away by the wind.
The boy was sent away and I didn’t know what became of him.
Now, I consider the man the boy became. “What is your name?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he rasps, visibly fighting the pain I’m inflicting on him.
I increase my frost power, determined to make him admit his lineage. “Who. Are. You?”
“Nobody.” He grits his teeth so hard, it sounds like they might crack. Then, on a sigh, he admits, “I wasn’t given a name.”
“But you’re here to kill me.”
“I volunteered.” The nameless man’s eyes are watering, but it’s so cold that even his sweat turns to ice, white powder whipping across his face.
I can’t stop my cruel smile as I speak aloud what must have motivated him.
“Iker’s youngest child turns twenty in ten days, doesn’t he?
He and his siblings will come for you first. You might not be recognized as a legitimate heir, but that won’t matter to them.
They’ll kill you for fun. And to make sure they’ve tied off loose ends.
That is, before they turn on each other.
” My lips twist. “You thought I would give you a quicker death.”
Just as Lilis did. Fighting for a fast end to a life of misery.
The nameless man grins up at me, blood trickling from his mouth. “I had to try.”
I give him a nod. “It was a good try.”
He may have only held his own for a mere minute, but it was longer than most assassins. Except for Lilis. I never pinned her like this. I drew her blood, wore her down, but she never stopped fighting.
The nameless man stares up at me. “Get on with it.”
I withhold my power for the seconds it takes me to strategize, my thoughts racing.
After the day my mother brought the boy to the palace, what stuck with me was my mother’s insistence that taking him in would have been the clever thing to do.
It was my first lesson in strategy, even if she’d likely intended it to be a lesson in compassion.
Now, the nameless man’s brow furrows the longer I hesitate, but his focus turns to the Rose Room. “This is where Sineria died, isn’t it?”
Whatever cold strategy I was devising vanishes.
A shot of fury fills my head. So sudden, so burning that I fight the surge of my frost power, battling to keep it under control. “Do not speak my mother’s name.”
I fight to control my anger. Then I fight to control my fear because I shouldn’t be able to feel this rage.
Fury shouldn’t flow through me like this.
I shouldn’t be able to feel it!
Mentally, I rage at myself.
Chaos will not control me.
Fear will not—
Thyra’s quiet breathing breaks through my stormy emotions.
Her deep, peaceful breaths are suddenly loud in my hearing, her quiet strength a soothing balm on my anger.
My shoulders relax. My mind settles.
“I’m letting you live,” I say, shutting off my frost power.
The man’s eyes widen and his muscles are visibly tense. “Why?”
“I want you to deliver a message to Iker.”
The nameless man narrows his eyes at me. “What message?”
“Tell him that if he wants the Oracle, he must come for her himself. For every assassin he sends in his place after tonight, I will kill one of his heirs. To be clear, I don’t consider you one of them.”
“You’ll…what?”
I give the nameless man another cold smile. “I’ll start with his older children to be fair to the younger ones, but I won’t care if eventually, there are none of them left. After which, I’ll come for Iker.”
I’m playing a dangerous game. Iker could retaliate against my threat, but no matter what, I’m certain he’ll take it seriously.
Every assassin he has sent so far has ended up dead. Yesterday, his personal guards died out in the open. He will have to consider his next move even more carefully and because of that, I will have bought myself time. Maybe a week. Maybe the full ten days until his youngest son’s birthday.
I wrench the nameless man upright, putting him back on his feet and releasing him. “Will you deliver my message?”
A wash of snow fills the air between us. Now free, the man quickly backs into the flurry and away from me. A smart move.
I’ve let him go without demanding his promise first, but I’m not worried.
Strategy tells me that those who are caged by one tyrant will seize any small freedom, even if it comes from another tyrant.
Of course, it helps that I’ve made it clear I’ll only target Iker’s official heirs, which doesn’t include this man. Rather, I would end those who would end him.
He has every reason to agree.
The snowstorm has nearly swallowed him before he says, “I will tell Iker.”
When the wash of ice clears, the man is gone.
His distant footfalls confirm his quick path north out of the palace. Once he clears all three walls, I anticipate he’ll turn farther eastward in the direction of Iker’s compound.
Nara gives me a sharp growl when I return to her side.
I stand firm in the storm, but my thoughts whirl as wildly as the flurries filling the air, ice that should cool my temper and settle my soul.
My fury only builds.
Thyra wants to break the False Queen’s curse. I want to destroy my enemies. We can do both, but only if she’s skilled and strong enough to fight any battle that comes her way—and prepared to end another fae’s life without mercy.
My whisper to Nara is as harsh as my intentions. “The time for patience is over.”