Chapter 16
Elysia woke to angry, incessant snarling.
Gods, she felt like shit.
She’d only been choked out once before. She hadn’t minded. She was always trying to get Gage’s men to practice harder with her, but Gage, on the other hand, had made sure the man joined her on the dirt, out cold and with a bruised windpipe.
Last time she’d woken up to careful ministrations from Gage’s practiced hands.
Today, her wrists and ankles were chafing against ropes that tied her to a chair, and she had no idea where she was.
Another sharp snarl echoed out, and her lips turned up at the sight of Crusher, world’s best Deathlands hound, standing on her feet and warning everyone off.
The lanky blonde sat on a stack of crates, twirling and tossing a blade to a silent rhythm, likely blissfully unaware Crusher could swallow her whole. Fucking Aidan. Such a stalker.
“Quite the undead pet you’ve got there, Parker.”
Or maybe the woman did know there was something odd about Crusher. Elysia shifted, trying to determine just how tightly her hands were bound. If Crusher hadn’t grown ten sizes and eaten her kidnappers, then she figured she wasn’t at death’s door yet.
“Can’t say she’s mine, but she does have an unexpectedly large bite.” Elysia smiled pleasantly enough to unnerve her new friend, who just squinted at her and continued twirling her blade.
Abruptly stabbing the blade into its sheath, she leaned back and kicked her long legs out with curiosity on her face.
“So, it’s true then. The gods are rumbling once more in Kava.”
Elysia lifted a shoulder. “Hardly.” She waited for the woman to make her move, but she was staring at Elysia like she was an enigma.
“Rumor has it you were trained by Kava’s Shadow.”
Elysia kept her face straight. Where is this going?
“Rumor also has it that you made a kill in a room filled with royals and walked away.”
Ah. This wasn’t going anywhere good then.
Elysia sent out her magic silently only to recoil at what she found. Notes of sharp abandonment buried beneath a blazing fury. This woman had turned her pain molten and forged it into the weapon that was herself.
“Scarzan,” Elysia breathed. “He really did sell you.”
The woman’s smile was tight, but her voice was even and matter of fact. “He always did have a terrible gambling problem. But I’d say it all worked out in the end.”
The man who had squeezed the consciousness out of Elysia lumbered back into the room. All six and a half feet of him made her nerves twinge. This was why you weren’t supposed to get caught. Because instead of fighting one person, now she was tied up and going against gods knew how many.
Topp’s warning that she wouldn’t be able to win every fight played back in her head.
The size of the man’s neck alone made her all too aware of her shortcomings.
Anxiety unspooled in her stomach as she scanned the room.
They were in a work shed. Tools, carriage parts, and sled equipment took up most of the space.
Gods, maybe Crusher really would have to eat them.
She nudged the tiny dog with her foot, but she did nothing. Figures.
The man brushed his hands down the woman’s shoulders. “So?”
She kept her eyes on Elysia. “Haven’t decided yet.”
Crusher growled again and Elysia smiled, nudging her once more. Yes, eat them, do it. Who needed the fifteen blades no longer strapped to their body when Crusher was hungry?
“Look. You stole my kill, and in my world, that means I get to kill you. But here I am with such a tricky little situation given the friends you keep.” She spoke casually as if this was a perfectly normal conversation to have.
“Friends like the god of the dead?” Elysia drawled right back, meeting her eyes with unwarranted confidence.
“I’ve been to the temple here, you know.
The Bone Temple in Ryspur with the priestesses who sang me such a pretty lullaby?
You’re familiar?” She leaned forward as much as the ropes allowed.
“I used to hear the lullaby in my dreams. It was so nice to finally hear it in person.”
The woman stilled, her breath catching. She had grown up in Bellia.
A land where the gods were active, loved, and feared.
Elysia had no idea if she was religious, but if she was as comfortable doling out death as she made it seem, then it was likely she was familiar with the god of the dead’s customs. She might even believe she would be meeting him one day when her own light went out.
Elysia had no problem capitalizing on that religious fear if it meant keeping herself alive.
The woman’s hand tightened on her blade’s handle and then was towering over Elysia in two smart bounds. Crusher just huffed as if the woman holding a blade to Elysia’s throat were no more than an annoyance before promptly disappearing into the ether.
So much for the help. She couldn’t wait for the earful she’d likely receive back in the Deathlands. Something about managing to get kidnapped in less than five hours flat of being gone.
“It’s true then? You’re the mortal to his god.” The blade nicked against the sensitive line of her scar.
Elysia’s insides squelched. She didn’t even know if that was a good thing to these people, but she’d already dove headfirst into mouthing off about the death priestesses.
Elysia hid her uncertainty beneath a blank face, but then the heavy silver ring on the resident muscle’s hand caught her eye as it gleamed in the light. She gave a slow, knowing grin.
“Pull down my shirt.”
The woman laughed. “Not my type, pretty girl.”
“Pull down the damn collar of my shirt. You think I know Kava’s Shadow, well, I do. And I’m marked.” Elysia all but growled the order.
“Bullshit. Gage doesn’t even—” But the man gently moved the woman aside, as she continued spitting about Gage. With one enormous finger, he pulled down the collar of her shirt.
“Fuck.” He let her shirt snap back up, his lips twitching. Elysia was fairly certain that was akin to a full-bodied laugh for this man. “She’s serious.”
Disbelief crashed across the blonde’s pointy face.
With Crusher gone, she marched back up to Elysia fearlessly, ripping at the fabric of Elysia’s shirt with her whole fist. “By the gods…” She brushed a finger over the brand, her face stretching into a wide grin.
Throwing her head back with a laugh, she smacked Elysia on the back as if they were old pals.
Slicing through Elysia’s bindings, she stuck her knife away and held out her hand. “Emmellin Reyez, formerly Scarzan.”
Elysia rubbed her wrist and slapped her hand into Emmellin’s. “Elysia.”
Emmellin looked at her seriously while still holding her hand.
“You’re family now. And as family, I can let this one go, even if it was my lifelong goal to take revenge on my father.
Consider it a welcome to the family gift, but don’t take my kill again, understand, sweetheart?
” She made it sound as though she were being generous.
“Is there a list?” Elysia asked dryly. “You know, of people I ought not to kill?”
Emmellin’s grin came back. “Oh, I like you.” And then she punched her.
A clean, practiced punch that knocked her right back out.
Elysia decided that she wasn’t sure about this new friendship. Given that she had been knocked unconscious and woken in strange surroundings twice since it first commenced only hours ago. At least this time she was in a comfortable bed with the smells of stew and spices warming the air.
She damn near yelped when Emmellin spoke from the corner of the room where she was sprawled on the floor with a book. “Bet you’re hungry. We napped ya before you could get your dinner at that tavern. That was the prince, wasn’t it? Think we could make him pay for you?”
Elysia rubbed her temples. Being knocked out twice in one day couldn’t be good for anyone’s health. “He’s not really in a position to call on the Blatz wealth at the moment. Has a wicked temper too… I’d be careful there. You should know he’s a damn good tracker.”
Emmellin popped to standing and made an unconcerned face.
“Prince or not. Magic or not. He’d have to be dumb as shit to come here wanting to fight.
You’ve been running with Gage too long. Things are different here in Bellia.
We don’t care if he’s a prince or some asshole who owes us money. And we’ve all got magic.”
Elysia recalled what Topp had told her about the king and grimaced. They had magic for now, anyway.
Emmellin pulled her off the bed. “Come on then. Let’s get you fed, and you can meet the family.
Gage has been very naughty keeping secrets, and you are going to share them.
How are we supposed to maintain a successful and unchallenged crime empire when our heir doesn’t even tell us he’s been training and harboring the mortal to the god of the dead?
His job was to keep an eye on you, not adopt you.
He is in so much trouble. Just wait till you meet his mom. ”
What? Gage was supposed to keep an eye on her?
But she wasn’t given any time to dwell on that new information.
Emmellin took hold of Elysia’s wrist and didn’t let go until she’d yanked her down several flights of timber stairs into a large open kitchen and dining room.
The smells alone made Elysia’s stomach rumble.
There were large iron pots that she had no doubt had been simmering for hours.
Platters of cheese and cured meats. Vegetables roasting to perfection.
And about ten Reyezes of all different ages staring at her like she was a disease.
Emmellin shoved Elysia in front of her. “Elysia Parker, everybody. Poisoned a whole court, killed my father in the process, and was chosen for the death voyage.” Emmellin glanced wickedly between Elysia and her family before unceremoniously pulling Elysia’s shirt down once more. “And she’s ours.”
There was a moment of silent surprise before cheering and banging broke out.
Elysia wasn’t sure she’d ever been more off-kilter.
She would’ve thought that years of following Gage around would have prepared her on some level for the people who had raised him, but then again, she was wrong a lot lately.
Emmellin shoved her around, introducing her left and right to the warm but rough crew surrounding her.
Food and drink were in her hands before she even knew what had happened.
Later, once everyone had piled in around the long wooden table, a young boy with dark hair and matching eyes threw down his fork in a fit of frustration. “Uncle Gage can’t just mark some random lady. She hasn’t earned it.”
Elysia couldn’t help her smile at his indignation, but she wiped her face clean when she realized several faces around the oval table were considering his words.
She set her drink down and met the young boy’s eyes. “Lyon, right?”
He nodded and shoved his hair out of his eyes so he could properly stare daggers her way.
Elysia spoke slowly, caring for her words. “Gage, your uncle, took me in when I was smaller than you. He is not my father or my brother or lover. But he is family.”
While not every person in the room was a Reyez like she had first thought, the man who came to stand behind the small boy looked so much like Gage that it made her heart hurt. Elysia blinked at the familiar dark brown eyes and lithe body movements.
The man spoke. “You say he is family, then we would like to see just how much like family you are.”
A thick woman wrapped in a gauzy cream dress glided down the stairs. Her black hair was spiced with gray and coiled into a strong knot atop her head. Elysia automatically sat up straighter, her heart rate increasing. Gage’s mother, Sylvia Reyez. The queen of this family, this empire then.
She paused above them all, but she stared directly into Elysia’s own brown eyes.
“Emmellin has brought us a gift in allowing us to know the one my son has given his life to guide and protect as was his sacred duty. But my family is right to test you. Our family’s protection and resources do not come free. ”
Elysia swallowed.
The woman laughed, but the sound only made Elysia’s nerves jump higher. She came closer, swiping a piece of fruit from the table. “Your king grows paranoid. You disappear beneath his sword, and now his son slips out like a thief in the night? Both of your warrants have been sent far and wide.”
Topp had a warrant now too? She knew Topp was expecting it—that was why he had left—but she still struggled to keep the surprise off her face.
Garrison being willing to take the chance of harm coming to his only heir was a shock, but then dreadful realization sank within her.
If Garrison was a demigod, his lifespan had just expanded.
He could make a new heir without hesitation now.
Sylvia’s gaze glittered. “You need us. But you will be tested like any other Reyez initiate, no matter your status. Consider your test to be one of Gage as well. You are his first protégé after all. He has no partner, no children. Just you.”
As much as she wanted to travel out of there lickety-split and not look back, she knew she would need their protection and assistance, and more than that, she didn’t want to let Gage down.
Elysia straightened in her seat and kept her voice level as she met the queenpin’s gaze. “Name your test.”
Sylvia Reyez evaluated her and smiled coldly. “A court-raised woman trained by the heir of a criminal empire. Yes, I can find a useful test for you.”