Текст книги "The wolf and the crown of blood"

Автор книги: Elizabeth May

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

I withdraw a velvet-wrapped bundle from my coat and toss it at the girl.

She unknots the bindings to find her five knives. “You got them back.”

“Your sister was cooperative. Even useful despite the corpses.”

A sharp inhale. “Corpses? Is Theo—”

“She’s fine. No thanks to the idiot guards she surrounds herself with.”

“And you made sure she stayed that way.” Her smile is lovely enough that I almost understand Evander’s obsession. Almost. If I ignored literally everything else. “It was kind of you.”

Ah. She thinks she’s stumbled on tenderness beneath the ice, some sentimental insanity that forced my hand tonight. How precious.

“Tell me something. Do you know what used to be the rarest thing in existence?” I ask her. She regards me mutely, startled at the non sequitur. “Shadowmeld orebium, colloquially known as Turpori steel. It’s impossible to replicate because I’m the only being capable of conjuring and manipulating it. At least until humans got hold of my power and abused it in ways I’m still dealing with. Do you know what’s now the most coveted commodity?”

Silence. Her brows dig together in confusion.

“Devaliants,” I say impatiently. “More specifically, viable Anchors. And now that you’ve murdered your uncle and become functionally worthless, your sister is our only safeguard against the Shroud’s collapse. Keeping her breathing isn’t kindness. It’s necessity.”

Let her chew on that. She bound her soul to a god and left two realms teetering on a knife’s edge. The least she can do is choke on the consequences.

I leave the room and shut the door behind me.

Alexios leans against the far wall in the corridor, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes cut to my brother’s door, then back to me. “Getting soft, Blade?”

His attention intensifies, his mind shoving against mine. I allow it for a span of three slow heartbeats. Four. Then I slam my mental ramparts closed.

He just smiles.

“The girl wanted a room tonight, so I chained Evander up,” I reply. Time to shift his focus elsewhere. “I was in Hellevig earlier, assessing our remaining Anchor’s security. The empress had some uninvited guests.”

Alexios’ expression sharpens. “Kidnapping or wet work?”

“Unclear. I was more concerned with removing a collar from her neck before her windpipe collapsed.” I dig the broken remains out of my coat and pass them over. “Recognize those symbols?”

He turns the pieces over in his hands. “No. This is your metal?”

I nod. “But I can’t verify when the collar was made or how many of my feathers are still in circulation. I had one like that put on me in the Bloody Court to keep me contained. This one is likely to compel obedience or conceal the empress’ death from you through the Claim.”

A muscle tics in his jaw. His eyes slip closed, and I feel the swell of his power again—a searing, seeking wildfire roaring through the aether.

“Those fucking mental walls of hers,” he mutters. “They were fascinating when we had spare Anchors. Now, they’re just a liability. She only lowers them to berate me about her sister.”

“The empress’ mental architecture is unusual. Strong natural defenses.”

Orderly, I don’t say. Elegant. Beautifully constructed. I’ve never craved a challenge more.

A treacherous flicker of long-dead heat kindles at the memory of those adamantine walls. The secret, shadowed spaces behind them I want to chart—

I crush the thought ruthlessly. Salt the earth so nothing so soft can take root.

Cool disinterest. Distant respect. That’s all.

“Send Elias to guard her,” I suggest, wrenching my focus back to tactics. To logic and necessity. “His background will make him less hostile to the idea of protecting a Devaliant. The empress’ security is weak, and she’s given permission for us to keep her safe with no risk to the Accords.”

“That solves nothing long-term. I need her monitored.” His burning gaze meets mine, and I know with sinking dread what he’ll say next. “Your psychic skill exceeds my own. Will a bond give you full access to her mind if I transfer my Claim to you?”

No.

No.

No.

My shadow wings flare wide. “No.”

One dark brow lifts. “Are you refusing an order? Or admitting you can’t handle it?”

“I destroy things,” I remind him flatly. “I don’t protect them. I’m not a bodyguard.”

Power lashes against me as lightning skitters across his skin. “You do whatever the fuck I need you to do. Evander is chained to a bed, we have a confirmed fleshtrade operating in Hellevig using a codeword with possible Devaliant ties, and your metal just ended up around the empress’ neck. Desperate times, desperate measures. I want you to watch her. If she has ties to the fleshtrade, I want to know. If someone is making an attempt on my Anchor, I want to fucking know.”

I very carefully don’t react to the revelation that there are demigod poachers in Hellevig. That he neglected to lead with that critical piece of intelligence. It’s so like him to safeguard information until it suits his purposes and he can use it to back me into a corner with no recourse but obedience.

“A Claim doesn’t guarantee compliance,” I say. “Her mind could stay her own.”

“A risk,” he allows. “But a necessary one. Form a full sensory bond. You need to be able to locate her anywhere and reach her at any time. See into her thoughts for information, taste her fear, feel the shape of her wanting.” His head tilts. “Can you still handle that kind of intimacy? Or have you forgotten how?”

I swallow hard. This forced link will be unbearable. I’ll have to take rusted shears to the cancer of it behind my ribs. Dig it out. Trade soap and boiling water and the bright pain of flensing for the creeping rot of something far worse.

“I have the theoretical knowledge,” I say through my teeth.

And aren’t those the most damning words. The admittance that whatever atrophied scrap of selfhood I buried hasn’t rotted to nothing after all. That some instinctual relic recognizes the animal snarl of possession. The biting need to crawl inside her skin and curl up between the notches of her spine until she can’t breathe without choking on me.

Focus. Control. Breathe in and hold, lungs turned to stone.

“She might refuse,” I add.

“She won’t. Not if she values her life.” He turns to leave in a whisper of wings. “Five days, Blade. Settle your affairs and get your shit together. I’ll send Elias to mind the girl for now. And Bastien?”

I halt the growl building in my throat and shackle it down. “What?”

“Make sure she survives long enough to birth an heir. Even Evander can’t put her back together if she ends up splattered across her courtyard.”

Then he’s gone, leaving me alone in the corridor with nothing but the thundering of my pulse and the acid taste of bile in my throat.

I wrangle the tide of threatening emotion with ruthless precision.

Breathe in and hold.

Lungs turned to stone.

This Claim will be a necessity. A component in an overarching schematic, its purpose to reinforce the Shroud’s structural integrity and load-bearing capacity.

Nothing more, nothing less. The rest is altered brain chemistry. Misfiring synapses, chemicals flooding receptors. More to the point, my cock still works.

Lights flare as I enter my bedroom and strip out of my clothes. Every garment will have to be sterilized of the lingering scent of her.

I turn the tap on for the bath. Scalding water gushes forth, steam billowing to fill the space. I step beneath the spray and reach for a bar of astringent soap, dragging punishing hands over my skin again and again, abrading the flesh until it’s red and stinging. Still, I don’t stop. I have to cut away this filthy patina of humanity, scour the weakness from me like infection from a wound.

There is no room for gentleness here—only water and the sluicing of my blood down the drain.

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50

ALEXIOS

IT’S THE PERFECT weather for breaking someone.

The salt spray lashes my face as the princess and I pick our way across the shore. We’re at the base of the Tokle Mountains, on the border between Asteria and Nyholm. I used to frequent this shore often centuries ago. Severin liked to fuck me against the rocks in the water, liked to listen to the rasp of our breaths while the waves lapped on the waterfront.

I breathe deep, filling my lungs with the familiar tang of brine—the smell of memories and betrayal and dead friendships.

The Devaliant princess’ footsteps sound beside me. I can practically taste her burning curiosity over her next test—her dread, too. I glance at her. She’s practically glowing with the remnants of Evander’s power, her pale, gleaming skin catching in the light. Not even a scratch unmended. I’d nearly forgotten how powerful his healing ability was, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it.

“You’re looking remarkably whole after my labyrinth,” I say. “The Wolf’s power should be locked up nice and tight in those cuffs, yet here you are without a scratch. Fascinating how that worked out.”

Her breath snags. I catch it, track it, and file it away with all the other fractures spreading through that composure she desperately tries to maintain.

I’m not truly surprised to find her this whole. Even bound, an Eternal is a force of nature. And one seeing his Chosen bleeding out and dying in his arms? He’d have moved mountains and slaughtered realms to save her.

But Bryony Devaliant is mine until the end of our deal, and so I want to see those cracks spread. I want her off-balance. It makes things more interesting.

“What’s wrong?” I stop and face her. “No clever comeback? Or did the Wolf manage to fuck the sass right out of your mouth last night?”

A flush crawls up her throat, staining those high cheekbones. “What happens between me and Evander isn’t your business.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. The second my Enforcer starts straining at his leash and slaughtering humans under my protection, it becomes my business. In fact, it’s the only business that matters.”

My hand shoots out, grasping her chin. She flinches. Smart girl. Fear is the only appropriate response when you’re a mortal stupid enough to play with gods.

“Do you know why he wears a collar, Princess? Why I keep his leash good and tight?”

Her pulse flutters beneath my grip. “He… He told me what my family did to Turpori. That the grief made him and Bastien lose control of their power.”

“Lose control.” A bitter laugh escapes me. “That’s a pretty turn of phrase. I found a pair of young Eternals howling in the ashes of their dead kingdom, and my choice was simple: bind part of their power and aim their rage where I needed it until they were emotionally stable, or put them both in the ground. No other options. An Eternal in agony is a walking extinction event.”

Three thousand years ago, one of our strongest succumbed to madness, and it took five of us to put him down after he shattered continents and boiled seas. We barely contained the damage. In the end, we had to unmake him completely.

Two Eternals in that kind of pain would have wiped out half the realm.

My grip tightens, fingertips pressing into her throat until I feel her swallow against the pressure. They’re so small, these mortals. So fragile. It never ceases to confound me, the trouble they cause.

“The funny thing about immortality,” I murmur, “is that it just gives us more time to go mad. With infinite years, you run out of new experiences. That’s why we can’t leave you humans alone. You burn so bright. You remind us what it’s like to want and hunger. And in the end, that made us all into fools courting our own destruction.” I stroke my thumb across her skin. “I have to admit, I’m curious about your soulbond. Does it hurt? Having your soul tied up with his?”

Bryony is silent for a moment, inscrutable as she searches my face. “Does it hurt,” she returns at last, soft as a sigh, “to have all those voices in your head, and still be so alone?”

A sharp, startled laugh leaves me. Oh, but this one was wasted in her role of sacrifice. She has teeth. I could almost admire Evander’s taste if not for the enormity of the mess it’s made.

My eyes cut briefly to the shoreline past her shoulder, the narrow causeway stretching into the mist. The silhouette of the Onyx Keep juts from the glassy water, still a striking sight even in its ruins, with fog swirling lazily across its surface.

It’s been three centuries since I’ve stepped foot across the bay. Back then, that building was grand, a neutral territory where all the Eternals met to debate and intimidate and settle our shit. Now it’s gathering dust.

But Severin likes to keep an eye on it. It’s the closest point of entry into Nyholm, one humans tried taking ruthless advantage of once. It’s the perfect test for an arrogant little human who thinks she’s worthy of an Eternal.

“Alone, am I?” I say in a low voice, a plan taking shape. “Interesting choice of words, all things considered. How would you like to spend your next trial finding out what that feels like?”

Her eyes flare wide. “What?”

Ah, there it is. The dawning realization that she is well and truly fucked. It’s too perfect. I didn’t think I had any appreciation left for the poetry of small cruelties, but it appears I was mistaken. I should do this more often.

I flash her a grin and reach for my power, letting it pour out of me until the air thickens and lightning skitters across my skin. My magic snakes through the metaphysical weave of her soulbond and sinks into the strands that tether the Devaliant to her Wolf. And all I have to do is—

Snap.

The girl screams and staggers away from me. I watch as Evander’s mark on her wrist blinks out of existence, leaving nothing behind but smooth skin. Empty.

“There,” I say brightly. “Isn’t that better? No god’s power keeping you safe. No mate to come charging to the rescue. Just you, Princess. Soft and fragile and completely alone.”

She rips her knife free of its sheath and shoves the weapon against my jugular. “What did you do?”

“Put the knife away, Princess. It’s temporary. Not even I can break a soulbond permanently.”

“Fix it. Now.”

My expression goes dead. “The knife, little girl. Before you do something stupid and make me fucking show you just how bad your life can get.”

But she keeps it in place, chest heaving, eyes wild with the kind of desperation that makes mortals so dangerous.

I sigh and flex my power, sending the dagger clattering over the rocks. “Now that we’re done with the dramatics, listen carefully, because I hate repeating myself.” I gesture across the bay. “See that fortress? That’s the Onyx Keep. It’s abandoned now, but it means something to the Dark King. It’s also where we keep every treaty between Eternals. Your test is to slip in there without Evander’s mark protecting you, find a small chest in the atrium without Severin skinning you alive, and I might be convinced to reinstate your Claim.” I spread my hands. “Simple enough?”

She jerks as if slapped. “That’s a death sentence.”

“Probably. But you’re resourceful, aren’t you?” I pause, considering her. “You know, there’s a singular truth between the lines of every fable. If you want something of value, earn it. With blood, with pain, whatever it takes. Nothing worth having comes cheap or easy.”

She glares at me. “What’s in the chest?”

“You’ll find out when I’m ready to show you. It’ll be on a table with some old scrolls. You won’t miss it. Unless you die first, of course.” I start back up the beach, gravel crunching beneath my boots. “Take the boat,” I say, pointing at the rickety thing at the end of the pier up ahead. I’d optimistically call it seaworthy. “My power will hide you until you reach the shore. After that, you’re on your own. I’d wish you luck, but. Well.” I shrug. “Try not to die, et cetera and so forth.”

I keep walking, the wind snatching at my wings. After a few moments of weighing her options, the girl growls in frustration, walks to the pier, and climbs into the boat.

With a thought, I cast it away from the shore, watching until the mist devours her and I can no longer discern the glint of her hair from the silver of the water.

A familiar presence tugs behind my eyes, then.

Bastien.

Whatever you just did, Evander is ready to tear this place apart, his mental voice informs me.

Temporarily severed the soulbond for her test, I answer shortly. He’ll get over it. Or not. I don’t particularly care.

Next time, try giving me some warning. Even with the chains on, it’s taking three of us to hold him down.

Put him in the cell before he rampages through the palace and ruins my day even more, please. Tell him he’ll have plenty of opportunities to destroy things when he faces his challengers tonight.

I can practically feel the Blade sorting through a dozen scathing retorts, but he settles on, As you say.

He withdraws, and I’m left alone with the gravity of what I’ve just done. Because now there’s a Devaliant loose in Nyholm, a feral Eternal straining at my leash, and an inevitable confrontation with Severin. Which would mean seeing him after three hundred years and not breaking every bone in his body for his betrayal.

This had all better be worth the effort, because it’s giving me a damn headache.

I don’t turn at the rustle of wings. I’d know Zephyr’s presence anywhere—the cadence of her breath, the way the air changes and sharpens when she’s near. The way my skin prickles with awareness even after all these years.

“If you’re here to scold me, Whisper, save your breath.”

“You could have asked me to get the chest.” Her voice carries that edge I know too well—the one that says she sees right through my bullshit. “You could have had Wraith bring it.”

I give her a look. “I’m not interested in dealing with Severin until I have no other choice.”

“That doesn’t mean you should toss the girl at his feet. Wraith’s territory is in uproar over his missing demis. If he catches her—”

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” I say. “And she’ll either talk her way out of it, or we’ll be scraping what’s left of her off the walls. If she wants what’s in that box badly enough, she’ll get creative. This is about more than just retrieving an object.”

“Storm.” Something in my chest clenches at the sound of my nickname on her lips. “Do you want her to fail?”

I could feed her a line and spin the narrative—I’ve made an art out of it. But I don’t lie to my Whisper.

I can’t help but stare at her, studying the stark lines of her features, the blade-slash of her cheekbones as she stares resolutely across the water. Wind catches in her hair, sending black strands dancing. Part of me wonders what she’d do if I reached for her. If I dragged my knuckles along her collarbone and buried my fingers in her wings. If I leaned close enough to steal the breath from her lungs.

But Zephyr is a fortress right now—all smooth, impenetrable walls and ramparts bristling with spikes. And I suspect I’ve already filled my quota of reckless idiocy for the day.

“I’m sure you remember what happened the last time an Eternal soulbonded with a human,” I say. “If that girl wants her Chosen, she needs to prove to me and every god in this realm that she’s worthy of him. That includes Severin. Let her see what it costs for a human to reach for power in Scillari.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. Do you want her to fail?”

Always pushing me, undaunted.

“She has to die,” I say. “Scillari won’t let the Wolf take his throne with a human by his side. I want him to see the girl give her life to let him rule.” I give her a wry smile. “Sacrifice is an act of love, isn’t it, Whisper?”

Her mouth flattens. She steps back, withdrawing into that wall of duty and careful distance. “Will there be anything else, my king?”

Like a door slamming shut. The same tired lines, wearing grooves into the space between us. I lost the right to her softness when she needed me and I left her with Calder, and now I’m always being split open by the blade of her indifference.

“Go to the palace,” I tell her, gaze fixed on a distant point beyond her shoulder. Letting the short distance between us expand and expand. I showed enough weakness during Aethertide. “Make sure the Wolf gets ready for the arena. I’d prefer not to have to kill another Eternal.”

She nods once, and then she’s gone in a whisper of wings.

I settle in to wait. Let’s see if the princess has what it takes to survive what’s coming.

Because that’s the thing about power—it always makes you bleed for it first.

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