“But for his disobedience, this wouldn’t have come to pass.”
My magic screamed and bucked inside me, trying to break free, leaking into my voice. “No.”
Roland’s eyes narrowed.
“You speak as if it’s some outside force that tortured and murdered these people. As if it’s some disaster that was inevitable, and you, through your benevolence, tried to hold it off, but your subordinates failed you. But it’s you. You decided to kill them. You decided to crucify them. You. You are the source of this evil. It’s your fault, not his. You are the sick bastard who decided that he has the right to mass murder.”
Roland recoiled. His eyes blazed. His magic shot out in a furious torrent, boiling like a thundercloud around him.
Screw it. I let go. My power burst out of me, matching his. The castle wall shuddered under us.
I glared at him. “You have no right. Have you ever wondered why you always have to burn and kill your way to power? Why nobody ever comes and says, ‘Please, mighty Nimrod, lead us’? It’s because your reign brings pain and suffering. Nobody wants you in charge.”
“YOU WILL NOT SPEAK TO ME LIKE THIS.”
His magic splayed out, shooting up. Wind tore at me, raging out of nowhere. The stones under us rattled. Several stone blocks slid out, tumbling over the edge. In the courtyard, people cringed.
“You’re a usurper, Father. You keep doing horrible things for the greater good, but there is no greater good. There is only this.” I pointed at the crosses. “This is what our family stands for. Not for peace, happiness, or progress. This is your legacy. You’re a tyrant. The evil creature that people use to scare their children at night. On this entire planet, you are the only person who thinks you are fit to rule.”
“SILENCE!”
The blast of magic hit me, nearly taking me off my feet. Oh no. He would not shut me up. I had things I needed to get off my chest. They’d been building for months.
My magic surged back. If it had a voice, it would’ve roared.
“You can’t handle any authority but your own. Even now, it gnaws at you that I have this city. You can’t let it go. You scheme, and manipulate, and push me, and when I’m forced to retaliate, you’ll placate your guilty conscience by telling yourself you gave me a choice. If only I would go along with your blatant disregard for your own word, none of it would happen. You’ll pretend it’s really my fault. It’s yours, Father. Your own sister chose to die rather than live in the world you wanted to create.”
His hand shot out, but I saw it a mile away. He was a wizard, but I was a professional killer. The slap never landed. Roland stared at my hand blocking his.
“I’m leaving now, Father. I’ll come for Saiman. You took him from me, I will take him back, and then we’ll be even and you’ll have a choice to make.”
I turned and walked off the wall. There was nothing else to say. People fled from my path. The two fighters from the wall had disappeared. A storm spun above the castle, dark clouds churning. I couldn’t have cared less.
Derek and Julie waited for me, standing still in the human chaos, as Roland’s people tried to secure the castle against the rising wind. Julie’s face was bloodless. She was holding the reins of her and my horses, trying to keep them in place as they eyed the storm with rising panic. Derek’s expression said nothing, flat and impassive. His eyes shone yellow-green. He was on the edge of violence. I marched past them, out the gates, and to the cross. They followed me. My father was still where I had left him, watching.
I looked at Derek and pointed at the cross. He moved behind it.
I pictured my father’s face in the wood, took a step, and hammered a side kick into the base of the cross. I sank all my strength and fury into it. The wood cracked. I kicked it again and again and again. The cross toppled down, with the man on it, and Derek caught it. I pulled a knife out of its sheath and sliced through the rope on the Iron Dog’s ankles and wrists. Derek pulled him off the cross and slung him over Cuddles’s back. I swung into the saddle and rode off, Derek and Julie following me.
Behind us, dark clouds boiled, hiding the sun.
CHAPTER
3
WHEN WE RODE to the meeting spot, Curran’s group had gained two new members. Barabas, his spiky hair standing straight up, was playing cards with Evelyn, one of Jim’s scouts.
Ella eyed the Iron Dog slung over my saddle. “That’s not a cookie.”
Curran saw my face. His expression hardened.
“How’s the bridge?” Barabas called out.
“There is no bridge.”
Barabas opened his mouth and closed it with a click.
“When is he coming?” Curran asked.
“I don’t know.”
Derek took the Iron Dog off the horse. Hugh’s man looked dead.
Derek slapped his face lightly. “Hey.”
The man’s eyelashes flickered.
Derek looked up. “Water?”
One of the mercenaries passed him a canteen, and Derek held the flask to the man’s mouth.
The prisoner came to life and gripped the canteen, drinking.
“Not too much,” I said, dismounting. “He’ll vomit.”
“Who is this?” Curran asked.
“Hugh’s second-in-command.”
Curran stared at me for a long second.
“What was said, exactly?” Barabas asked.
“I told my father that he had to give Saiman back. He gave me this man as a consolation prize. Roland had ordered him to murder some people. The Iron Dog refused, so my father decided to torture and slowly kill him. Then my father condescended to explain to me that when people didn’t play ball, things like that happened. I told him what I thought about that.”
Barabas squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “How did he take it?”
“Look behind me.”
Barabas glanced at the storm raging in the east. “I knew I should’ve come with you. This is my own fault. Did he say anything about declaring war or coming for you?”
“No. He tried to slap me.”
“He what?” Curran snarled. His eyes went gold.
“He tried to slap me. I blocked it and told him that I would get Saiman back, it would make us even, and then he would have to decide what he would do about it.”
“Did he say anything else?” Barabas asked.
“No.”
The Iron Dog retched and vomited water on the ground.
“So no declaration of war has been made. We can work with this.” Barabas exhaled.
Yeah, right. “I don’t want to work with it.”
“I completely understand.” The weremongoose nodded his red head. “That’s why I would advise you to avoid speaking with your father while we untie this knot and hopefully prevent the city from being plunged into a horrible war with mass casualties.”
“Yes, of course, this is all my fault.”
“Yes, it is,” Barabas said. “All you had to do was walk in there and have a simple conversation with your father.”
Simple? “You know what I don’t need, Barabas? I don’t need you to criticize how I speak to my father.”
The mercs took a step back in unison.
Curran put his hand on my shoulder.
“Be careful, Kate,” Barabas said, his expression unreadable. “Your magic is showing.”
“Do you know where I found him?” I pointed to the Iron Dog. “I took him off a cross. There were thirty more like it.”
“Thirty-two,” a hoarse voice said.
I turned. The Iron Dog sat up, his light gray eyes open.
“Thirty-two people,” he repeated quietly. “It took them three days to die.”
“Because he had refused to kill them, my father made him watch. This is what you’re asking me to negotiate with, Barabas.”
“This is exactly why we need you to negotiate.”
“I’m getting sick of you ordering me around on my own land.”
“Enough,” Curran said.
Barabas took a step back. “We’ll talk about this another time.”
Curran crouched by the sitting man. “What happened?”
“There was a compound five miles to the south,” the man said, his words ragged. “Some kind of religious group. Roland wanted the land. He didn’t say why. He offered to buy it, but they wouldn’t sell it to him. Something they told him must’ve pissed him off, because he ordered me to take my people and clear it out. He said he wanted them buried off the land, somewhere else. I told him I was a soldier. I wouldn’t order my people to butcher unarmed civilians.”
“And if Hugh told you to do it?” Curran asked.
The Iron Dog faced him, his eyes clear. “He wouldn’t.”
Yeah, right. “I find that hard to believe,” I said.
“I’m a soldier,” the Iron Dog said. “Not a Ripper. Soldiers fight other soldiers.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Julie said behind me. “When Hugh needed a massacre, he’d use the Rippers. Most of them are dead now.”
Don’t explode. Nothing good ever came from exploding.
I turned to her.
“The Iron Dogs have six cohorts,” Julie said. “The first five cohorts have four hundred and eighty soldiers per cohort, broken into six centuries of eighty soldiers each. The Sixth Cohort had two hundred and forty people and was known as the Rippers, the shock troops. Each cohort had a captain. Hibla was the captain of the Rippers. This man is Stoyan Iliev, captain of the First Cohort. He was the first captain Hugh recruited himself.”
Great. I’d rescued Hugh’s bestie.
Stoyan turned to me. “I was in the Swan Palace. I saw you kill Hibla. If you’re going to kill me, give me a sword first.”
“Settle down,” Derek told him. “You can’t hold a sword. You can’t even keep water down. She didn’t pull you off a cross so she could kill you.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” the Iron Dog said. “If it weren’t that, it would’ve been something else. Of the six cohorts, the Rippers are completely gone and the rest are at less than fifty percent of their capacity. Roland is purging the ranks. Anyone loyal to Hugh has been killed or run off, and the Legatus of the Golden Legion openly hunts people Roland exiles. If you’re not going to kill me, what are you going to do with me?”
Curran looked at me. “He’s yours. It’s your call.”
I sighed. “We’ll take you to the Guild medic. The magic is up and our medmage is good. You have twenty-four hours to get on your feet. Don’t be in the city when the sun rises tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” he said.
“Good. Load him up.” Curran rose and walked over to me. “Come talk to me.”
I followed him down the road.
He dipped his head and looked at me. “What happened?”
“He crucified families, Curran. I could smell their rotting bodies. And then he had the audacity to tell me that this is what happens to people who disobey him. Disobey. Like I’m one of his flunkies who stare at him with adoration and throw themselves off a cliff because he frowned at them. I can’t take it anymore. He sits there and taunts me. I have to protect my land.”
“When did it become ‘my land’?” he asked quietly. “It was ‘the city’ just a few months ago.”
“It became my land when I claimed it. Nobody else wanted to step up and defend it from him.”
“What about them?” He nodded slightly toward the mercs arranging Stoyan in a vehicle. “Did they not step up? Did I not step up?”
I wanted to hit him.
Full stop.
I took a deep breath and blew the air out.
Where did that come from? I loved him.
“Barabas is a friend,” Curran said.
“And?”
“You seem to have forgotten that. I’m reminding you.”
I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. Like he was trying to figure out if there was something wrong with me.
“Roland’s grooming Julie to become his next Warlord. She’s still talking to him and there is nothing I can do to stop it.”
“I’ll speak to her,” Curran said.
“It won’t do any good. We both talked this into the ground. He’s got his claws into her and I don’t know how to pry her loose.”
“We’ll fight for her,” he said. “To the very end. But she’s her own person, Kate.”
“She’s a kid! He’s thousands of years old.”
“She’s sixteen and it’s an old sixteen. She loves you and me. I’m not worried. He tried his shit on me, he tried it on you, and we’re both still here. We didn’t run off to join his crazy parade. Julie is our child. She bucks against authority. I don’t think it’s as bad as you think. But there will come a point when she’ll make a decision you don’t like and you’ll be powerless to stop it.”
But I wasn’t powerless. I could order her and she wouldn’t be able to refuse my command. And then I would become my father.
“I’m going to the office,” I told him. I was done talking. I needed space and time to sort myself out.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll drop by later, after I’m done at the Guild.”
“If you want.” Okay, I was being a total ass now. “I’d like to see you.”
“As you wish,” he said.
• • •
I DROVE TO the office in our Jeep, wishing I could punch something in the face to vent my frustration. Barabas was right. I’d lost my temper. Curran was right, too. Barabas was a friend and deserved better. The fact that they were right only made me madder.
Something happened there when Curran stood in front of me. Something that almost overrode my brakes. He challenged my authority, just like my father challenged my right to hold the land, and I had felt myself teetering on the precipice. The urge to enforce my will was so strong. Thinking about it made me uneasy.
This wasn’t me. None of this was me.
I had a lot of energy I desperately needed to burn off. My whole body buzzed. I had packed a magical punch but never let it rip, and the unspent magic was driving me crazy.
I parked in front of Cutting Edge, walked to the office, and stuck my key into the lock. The key wouldn’t turn. Being a trained detective, I deduced that the door was unlocked.
I didn’t want to see anybody or talk to anybody. I wanted an hour by myself so I could have a lovely date with a heavy punching bag.
Standing here with the key in the lock was stupid, so I opened the door and walked in. Ascanio, our bouda intern, sat at his desk, holding cards. Roman occupied the chair across from him.
Oy.
The black volhv was wearing his trademark black robe with silver embroidery along the hem. His knotted six-foot-tall staff stood propped against the wall. The staff’s top, carved into a monstrous bird head, remained wooden for now. I gave it the evil eye. It had the annoying habit of coming to life and trying to bite me.
“So three of a kind beats two pair?” Ascanio said.
“Yes.”
“But that makes no sense. Two pair requires four cards, but three of a kind only requires three. That’s harder to get.”
“Statistically, the odds of getting two pair are higher than three cards of the same rank.”
“You’re wasting your time,” I told him. “Ascanio has the worst poker face I’ve ever seen.”
“I have a strategy,” Ascanio announced.
“Aha.”
“I’m going to play with women and distract them with my smolder.” Ascanio unleashed a devastating smile. He was, without a doubt, the most beautiful seventeen-year-old kid I’d ever seen. He even beat out pre-injury Derek, although Derek
always had a kind of boyish, disarming sincerity about him, while Ascanio knew exactly what he was doing. Which was why he needed to be taken down a notch.
“Let’s see it.”
“See what?” He blinked.
“The smolder.”
Okay, I had to admit the smolder looked pretty good. “Needs improvement. Work more on seductive and less on constipated.”
“I don’t look constipated.”
I glanced at Roman.
“Nah,” the volhv said. “Constipated isn’t your problem. You’re too slick about it. Women sense when you’re faking.”
“What am I supposed to do about that?”
“Stop trying so hard.” The black volhv pivoted to me. “I have questions.”
“Can it wait?”
“No. Your wedding is in two weeks. Have you prepared your guest list?”
“Why do I need a list? I kind of figured that whoever wanted to show up would show up.”
“You need a list so you know how many people you are feeding. Do you have a caterer?”
“No.”
“But you did order the cake?”
“Umm . . .”
“Florist?”
“Florist?”
“The person who delivers expensive flowers and sets them up in pretty arrangements everyone ignores?”
“No.”
Roman blinked. “I’m almost afraid to ask. Do you at least have the dress?”
“Yes.”
“Is it white?”
“Yes.”
He squinted at me. “Is it a wedding dress?”
“It’s a white dress.”
“Have you worn it before?”
“Maybe.”
Ascanio snickered.
“The ring, Kate?”
Oh crap.
Roman heaved a sigh. “What do you think this is, a party where you get to show up, say ‘I do,’ and go home?”
“Yes?” That’s kind of how it went in my head.
“You do realize most of the Who’s Who in Atlanta are going to want an invite to this?”
“They can bite me. This wedding is for me and Curran, not for them.”
Roman leaned his elbow on the table and rested his cheek on his hand, looking at me with a kind of amused hopelessness.
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