Chapter 9 #2
My hand touched the bandage at my arm, the evidence of what almost happened to me.
Breathing in and out, I stepped cautiously inside the old tower.
The walls barricaded the wind, but did little else.
Nature had intruded, rooting itself along the walls, tearing at the stone floor, and destroying the stairs leading up, leaving ruins of whatever existed here before.
The wind howled through the open windows from above, sounding like screams and moans, an echo of the past. I could feel misery within the structure, peppering goosebumps over my limbs.
Wrapping myself in the rough cloak, lost in thought, my heart leaped when a massive, hooded silhouette with a scythe stepped in from the back doorway, seeing a Jackal.
“Huginn-Muninn.” My hand went to my chest. “You scared me.”
“I. Should.” The Northerner stepped in, the shadows receding from half his chiseled face to highlight the scar on his lip.
He tossed boughs of pine he had gathered from the ground onto the cracked stone floor, flicking his head.
“You can sleep here,” he practically barked, like I was his hound, while he carefully set down the saddle and reins from the horse.
“You let it go?”
“Draugrhest are not pets. They are to be respected. To be given a choice . . .” He sauntered up until his boots hit mine, his emotionless gaze locking on me.
“Unlike you.” I tried to pretend his physical nearness didn’t affect me, but I shifted back, making his lip curl.
He easily regained the space I put between us.
“A good lesson, kanin . . . no matter if your mouth and hands are untethered right now, you are still mine to do what I want with. Don’t ever put me in any other category but your enemy. ”
“Don’t worry.” I prodded my chin higher, though my voice came out a little wispier than I wanted. “I do.”
“Right.” He bobbed his head. “Because I’m a lowly thrall in your eyes.”
“No, because you’re a soulless Night Raven, who kills and tortures my people.”
“Am I?” He reached over, rubbing a strand of my hair between his fingers.
“I thought we went over this?” He leaned in, his lips merely inches from mine.
I could feel the heat of his mouth, the rumble of each word against my own.
His fingers tugged at my locks, shivering my skin, causing heat to flush over me.
It felt like a power play, one to make me feel uncomfortable. Anxious.
It was working.
“How is your father any different to the Night Ravens?”
“Because—”
“Because he told you?” His eyebrow curved. “What do you think your father, and General Backe, do to thralls in the prisons below?”
“But . . . you murdered my friend,” I croaked.
“Technically I didn’t. But I would have. As your people murdered my friend.” He snarled, his mouth so close, I could feel the scar brush against mine.
“Because you were kidnapping me.”
“I can’t decide.” His dark eyes tracking mine, like he was searching for something deeper in them.
“What?”
“If you are truly ignorant, or willfully so.” He sneered, stepping back. The cool air seeped back in, slapping my skin. I relished the shock, the air clearing my head.
“Fuck you.”
An eyebrow curved up. “Thought we’d been over that several times now.”
“Then fuck yourself.” Hot anger shot from my mouth. “I have been tutored by the best teachers in the whole Day Realm.”
“I don’t doubt that. But what you study in books makes you know the things in them. History is written by the winners to make themselves the heroes, not about the truth.”
“What does that mean?”
“Did you know Beggar’s Hole wasn’t the original name of this place?” He strolled to a window facing the road, observing the landscape for any threat.
“No?” I shrugged.
“The original name . . .” He glanced back at me. “Was Silverguard.”
“What?” I blinked, my mouth parting. “Silverguard?” The name stirred something in my memory, but I couldn’t grasp where from or why.
“Your father never told you about it?” He set the scythe down, propping it against the wall in front of him. “Or learned it in those fancy books of yours?”
“Why would he?”
“Because this was once King Vorian’s tower.”
“My father’s? I don’t understand.”
“Then I’m gathering the best tutors in the land haven’t told you that this entire area, since we crossed into the Rift, used to be Day territory at one time.
This was the original guard post at the border when the Day territory used to reach all the way up here.
Before the Rift began to expand, claiming the land between the Night border and the Day. ”
“The Day Realm used to go all the way here?” I knew the Shadow Rift had slashed between the old Silvervalian border and the north, but that happened soon after the battle.
Yet, my mind struggled to imagine all this land we traveled used to be part of Silvervale. “Maybe way before the Battle of Blood.”
“No, up until recently.”
“What?” I shook my head. “No. I don’t believe you.”
“You can believe me or not, doesn’t make it not true.”
“Okay, when did this supposedly happen?” I folded my arms.
“About twenty years ago.”
“Twenty?” I sputtered. If true, it was before I was born, but it was still very recent, something I should have learned. Heard about. But not one person in our kingdom ever mentioned it.
My mind calculated how far we had ventured since crossing into the Shadow Rift. At least fifty or sixty miles. All this territory used to be ours? The notion unsettled me. Why would they keep that from me?
“Let’s say I believe you.” It came out as patronizing. “What happened to the Day Ravens living here then?”
“Most fled, but some had families here, children with those who were on the other side of the border in the Night Realm,” he replied casually. “Stallard had many of them hung.”
“Hung?”
“Your king looked upon them as treasonous. Disloyal to the crown. He had his soldiers go into villages around here and pillage them. Murder his own people.” He kept his eyes on me. “Burn their homes, slaughter the offspring, and rape the women.”
My head shook vehemently. “My father would never do that! He would never order them to murder children or rape women.”
“Never?” His head tipped. “To you, people outside your land are nothing but cold-blooded savages, right? It is what we deserve?”
My shoulders prickled in defense, my chest rising. “No, that’s just you.”
“You saw the children back there. The ones with blue eyes or blond hair? They were born from those first mixed families. And now they all live as pariahs, not fitting in anywhere. A constant reminder of what happened here.”
Clenching my teeth, I said, “It’s possible you are making all this up.” I heard the pitch in my tone, unsure and reaching. Apparently so did he, because a demeaning smile hinted on his full lips.
“Tell me. Would the Night King do any different?” I continued. “Wouldn’t he fight to keep his land by whatever means necessary?”
“I never said the Night King wouldn’t. I’m stating that your father is guilty of it too. Kings will claim everything they can as theirs when they are trying to win the war.”
“We’re not at war.”
His full focus fell heavily on me. “We’ve never not been at war.
Strategic, slow, like a game of chess. Not as obvious as straight-on combat.
” He drummed his fingers against the sickle.
“But don’t mistake it, kanin. From even before the Battle of Blood, that’s all this realm has been doing. It just changes its enemy.”
He faced back toward the window. “Now, come here.”
His demand set my shoulders back. “Excuse me?”
“I said . . .” He curved his head back, his tone gravelly. “Come. Here.”
My heels dug down firmer into the crumbling floor, my nails digging crescents into my arms.
“I think you need to be reminded that when I call you, you come,” he growled. “I know you’re used to being pampered and called my lady, but let’s not forget, you are the prisoner here.”
Defiantly, I kept my place, staring back at him, locked in a battle of dominance.
“Even in defeat, Wrennlyn, you do not show weakness.” Father’s voice spoke in my head. “Never concede to your enemy.”
He slanted his head, taking in my challenge. I expected to feel his annoyance and wrath, but instead a slow grin tugged at his lips, leaping my heart into my throat. It was far more terrifying than any threats he could spew.
He came for me.
I wanted to take the win, but the malevolent glint in his eyes made me scuffle back until my spine rammed into a wall.
His form eclipsed mine, his arm leaning against the wall behind me as the other hand traced up my throat, his fingers a soft caress. “You know what happened to thralls who disobeyed orders under your father’s rule?” His voice seductive. A hunter teasing its prey.
I swallowed roughly, forcing my eyes to stay on his, my mouth staying closed.
“They would chain us up, lash us until we passed out from the unbearable agony. If we screamed, they would start all over.” His knuckles glided over my skin, his thumb slipped over my pulse, feeling it throb against his hand.
“Using your logic, since they did it to me, it’s only fair I do the same back, right?
Strip you bare and lash you, and when you beg me to stop, I start again. ”
Adrenaline slammed through my veins, a shiver running down my body, squeezing at my thighs and tightening my nipples. Shame and disgust instantly filled me, turning my head to the side, rage flushing me hot.
He gripped my chin, jerking my head back to him. “Or does that only count when it’s your people being hurt?”
My nose flared; my gaze narrowed.