“And wasn’t that perfectly timed?” he whispered in my ear. “Because how can my father deny me troops to put down their forces when they’ve attacked one of our cities? And as they melt into that tangle you call the Forbidding, I will be stealing my father’s army from under his nose and establishing my hold in this rocky misery of a land. But it is only a starting point. Only a beginning. From here, we will take over the Winged Empire and you will help me conquer. I will dress you in silks and you will call forth your bees and you will smile beside me as I rule the world.”
“And why will I do that?” I asked.
“Because after I have Osprey carve my mark into you, I am going to marry you,” he whispered. “How kind of me to show you such mercy? Don’t you think? How gracious of me to bind myself in matrimony to the land I defend and the people I rule.”
I gagged, not just because the snake was wrapped around my neck. Not just because of his words in my ear, but because now he trailed his lips across my cheek and kissed me – chastely, cruelly, tauntingly – on my lips.
Chapter Twenty-Three
HIS SNAKE RELEASED me and I collapsed to the ground, my hands around my throat clutching the ache there, my knees watery and weak at the thought of being bound to him forever – not just as a slave or property, but as a wife. I felt so ill that my other injuries seemed to fade in comparison as cold sweat slicked my forehead and spine and I began to shake, nausea rolling over me in queasy waves.
Don’t give up, Aella, don’t give up.
There was still time to do something about this.
I swallowed down bile and forced myself to shaky knees.
“Take her upstairs, Osprey, and strip off those bloody clothes,” Juste smirked and there was something cruel in the look he turned on Osprey. His eyes narrowed like he knew a secret. “Take this knife. You’ve already bloodied your own.” He handed Osprey the albatross knife. “Carve an image of my snake into that strong back of hers and mark her as mine with your own hand. And when you’re finished, you will dress her in one of the silks in those fancy closets that Madame Jesuie keeps. They’re close in size. I’ll marry her as soon as I can find a Skybinder. There has to be one around here somewhere.”
“Marry, Le Majest?” Osprey’s voice seemed to stumble.
“Well, what did you think all this was about, Guardian? I don’t take this kind of time for just anyone. I have affairs of state waiting for me. You – of all people – should know how precious my life is and how valuable my time. After all, you went to great lengths to save me.”
His smirk seemed to mock us both.
My breath hitched, choking in my throat worse than it had when the snake was wrapped around me. The thought of his slimy hands all over me – of no barriers between us – rippled through me like the Forbidding. I wanted to sink into unconsciousness. I wanted to run. I wanted someone to save me.
But no one was going to save me.
I bit my lip. I could lunge now and try to take the dagger he’d given Osprey, but I knew Osprey was fast and the room was full of Le Majest’s allies. They’d take the knife from me before I could stab their precious crown prince. But Osprey was going to drag me away from here in a minute. We’d be alone. That would be my chance. He was already weakened, bleeding in a half a dozen places from wounds he’d inflicted on himself – wounds that had probably saved me from a worse beating.
I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to stay calm, trying to be patient. Hot, tangy blood seeped into my mouth.
“Stop gawking and obey, Osprey,” Juste Montpetit said, looking once over his shoulder as he turned to Counsellor Butiez. I followed his gaze, surprised to see Osprey glaring at Juste, fists clenched at his side. Behind him, his bird blinked in and out of existence as if it was bursting free with every beat of his heart. He trembled and as he shook, the bright glow in his chest shone right through his shirt and jacket as if it was somehow heating up or under pressure. Juste’s smile grew at the sight. He looked just like a child who’d been given an extra treat. “Or did you want the consequences of disobedience? That can be arranged.”
Osprey made a quick sign of the bird and grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet. Everything hurt. I stumbled, fighting against waves of pain as I tried to find my feet.
Osprey cursed quietly, trying to support me, but I was as wobbly as a fresh-born fawn and his hands were slicked with his own blood.
It all came down to this. I’d been debating all this time about whether I could save him or whether I would have to kill him to be free. In a few minutes, we would be out of sight and it would be easy enough to pretend I’d lost my balance and lean into him for support. I would take the dagger then. But could I wound him enough to stop him from chasing me as I fled? Any hesitation and I would certainly lose. He was faster and stronger than I was and had training. I would have to be certain of what I was going to do because I would only have surprise on my side.
I tried to slow my racing heartbeat. It wasn’t helping me think clearly. Not when every muscle in my body was screaming at me not to hurt Osprey – especially now, after he gave himself all those wounds to try to protect me. I had to ignore that instinct. I had no other option.
We exited into the entranceway outside the gallery and I slipped, falling hard to the floor. My body was not cooperating, and my right eye had swollen shut. I bit my lip. How was I going to steal the dagger and do anything in this state?
Strong hands reached down, lifting me up and into his embrace. He slung one arm under my knees and the other under my back, pulling me to his chest like a small child.
“Os – ”
He cut me off with a sharp shake of his head and began to whistle as he carried me slowly through the entrance and to the wide staircase, leaving a trail of blood droplets behind him. It was the song he’d sung me when Juste had offered me as a substitute to the snakes. A song low and haunting, sad and mysterious. I sank into it, my heart crying silently with the low lullaby.
It shouldn’t have come to this. But it was always coming to this, from the moment he plucked me from my hatching. It was always going to be me plunging a dagger into his heart or him killing me under orders from Le Majest.
My left eye was blurry. I reached up to wipe it and realized it was glazed with a single, unshed tear. My eye met his desperate gaze for just a moment as his whistle intensified and his cheeks burned hot. Neither of us wanted this. Neither of us liked who we were in this moment. Could I really stick a knife into a man who looked at me like this? With tenderness and a breaking heart?
He clung to me as he carried me, as if I was his anchor to sanity as much as his intended victim and I began to build my resolve. He was trapped in an endless cycle of villainy to save these children under his care, but I would never be free as long as he had me within his grasp. And while they would die with his suicide, they would not die with him if it was at the hand of another. I’d be saving him with this. And judging by what he had done to himself down there, he might even welcome this.
His song faltered as we reached the top of the stairs and left the guards behind.
“Hold on, House Apidae. Hold on,” he whispered, carrying me down the hall and into the room we’d flown in from. The window to the balcony was still open and a light breeze stirred the filmy curtains. The smell of flowers – lavender, I thought – filled the air. “It will be okay.”
I didn’t answer. I wanted the comfort – but I knew it was false. Because in a moment, he’d be trying to rip away my clothing and carve a snake into my flesh so he could present me to Juste Montpetit as a tattered bride. He might hate what he did, but he would do it all the same.
I should be silent. I shouldn’t tip my hand.
I couldn’t help myself.
“What were you thinking, stabbing yourself like that?”
“He feels what I feel. He hurts when I hurt.”
“And do you want to make him hurt?”
“I want to make him stop. And that was the only way I could think of to do it.
The only way I could keep him from destroying you and from forcing me to be the one to do it. I’m sorry – if I could have stopped it, I would have.” His cheeks flushed with shame and a shudder ran through him. “I need saving as badly as you do, House Apidae. We are both pawns in this game of War and Wings.”
“But I’m only a pawn because you dragged me into it. I could have run with my family. I could have killed Le Majest and fled that cathedral under the ground. But who was it who stopped me? Who kept threatening me? Who made me make a vow to him? That was you.” I was trying to be gentle, but he needed to understand why I was going to do what I would do next. “You are more my captor than the crown prince will ever be, even when he marries me and forces himself on me, and tortures me day after day for the rest of my life because it will be you who keeps me there.”
He stumbled, leaning hard against the wall, but still not dropping me. He left a smear of blood against the wall. It was dripping into small pools at his feet.
“Not if I can help it. I will cut myself a hundred times to prevent it. I will –” but here his voice broke as if he didn’t know what to promise.
“You’re the rope binding my wrists and the knife at my throat,” I whispered.
“I don’t know what to do to stop it,” he said, shuddering. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for all of it.”
He set me down on my feet, but he kept going, falling to his knees. I fell to mine, too, but only because I barely had the strength to stand.
He blinked rapidly, fighting his emotions, his face twisting bitterly. It made him look younger than he was, like a child. How could I save him from his binding and from himself? Perhaps death would be a mercy. Or perhaps, like him, I was just making excuses for myself.
“I’m sorry, too,” I said biting my lip.
He leaned in, bringing a hand up to cup my face, his eyes filled with tender agony.
“You break me, House Apidae, and burn my soul to the ground. You salt its fields and leave it weeping.”
I breathed in a long breath as he spoke, letting the hum of the bees fill me with certainty. I reached for his belt, snatched up the dagger and jabbed it into his chest.
He looked down at me with shock, snatching his hand from my face. But he didn’t stop me.
Os flared to life behind him, hovering there but not attacking.
“He never thought to order me to defend myself,” he whispered. “He didn’t think I would ever meet my match.”
But I wasn’t done yet. I hadn’t stabbed him very deeply. And that was for a reason.
Ruthlessly, I reached out and grabbed his jacket, tearing it and the shirt beneath, to expose his muscular chest. His skin shone with the sweat of stress and fear. I had hit my mark. The dagger pierced the skin where the feather glowed under it.
“I’m at your mercy,” he said, eyes meeting mine. His eyes sparkled slightly with the gleam of unshed tears as his arms parted, baring himself to me.
I swallowed, overwhelmed by the trust and vulnerability.
I wrenched the dagger out with little effort. It had sliced through the top layer of skin and muscle, deeper than I’d hoped, but with any luck, not too deep ... not lethally deep.
“Do as you must,” he breathed.
I shifted my grip around the handle of the dagger, took a deep breath, and pierced his skin again in a quick motion, like killing a chicken – fast and as efficient as possible to spare the victim. I sliced his skin and muscle, worrying the knife in under that glowing feather and then prying one end of it free. It reached out like the tangle of the Forbidding, reaching toward me as if it could grasp me and pull me in. I caught it between my fingers and tried to pull.
He made a soft keening sound and I looked up to see his teeth gritted in agony.
None of this would matter if I didn’t finish the job. I wanted to save him, not to kill him. I wanted to save us both.
I planted a foot on his hip for leverage, grabbed the feather in both hands, and pulled for all I was worth.
A wail of pain escaped his lips and I heard warning cries below.
“Forbidding take it!” I swore, sawing off the end of the feather that was free. Half gone. It was half gone.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs – multiple feet. I had seconds.
Osprey swayed, his teeth still clenched, blood pouring from his ruined chest. He grabbed my wrist with one hand and looked into my eyes.
“A valiant attempt, House Apidae.”
He collapsed to the ground at the same time that the first guard dashed into the room.
I spun and ran for the balcony, begging my bees, “Please! Please, come! Please!”
My heart wrenched at leaving Osprey like that, but I had no choice. This was my one chance. My one hope of escape.
I ran to the edge of the balcony, climbing up the carved wing.
“My hope is in you,” I breathed, like a prayer ... and leapt.
Chapter Twenty-Four
BEES POURED FROM MY mouth and hands, speeding so fast that they stung my skin as they passed. They formed below me, slowing my descent as I dropped through the air. Humming a music that resonated deep within me, they bore me to the cobbles below like a gentle cloud. I reached out my hands and let them pour through my fingers like rain.
I’d done it. I was free.
I wobbled as I caught myself on the cobbles, wavering for a moment as my bees disappeared. They left me breathless and sagging. That one, sudden burst had taken every bit of strength I had left in me. One solitary bee buzzed around my head.
“Hold on little buddy,” I whispered to him. “I need you yet.”
I forced myself to stand, wavering as my legs protested. I needed to move. Now. Before I was discovered. But where? The docks were close. I’d flee there.
I ran, making it only three staggering steps before something snagged my foot and I tripped, falling heavily to the cobbled ground. I grunted in pain as the fall flared through all my injuries.
But it wasn’t a simple trip. Something had my foot. I kicked out at it, but I was being dragged across the cobbles and I couldn’t twist enough to see what had me in its grasp. My injured face and belly bumped across the rough edges of the stones and it was all I could do to hunch myself and protect my injuries.
My head hit something, and stars danced across my vision as I came to a stop.
I blinked my one good eye open, gasping with pain.
Inches from my face was the face of Le Majest.
“It seems you have overcome my guardian,” he said smoothly, his wide eyes far from innocent in how they looked me up and down. “We won’t make that mistake again. Will we?”
He flicked his finger and I stood up – not intentionally, but something stood me up. Something that was wrapped all around me, squeezing me. It pulled me along, upright behind him as he walked back into Sunset House. His fist was clenched tightly to his chest.
I tried to struggle, but I couldn’t find any kind of purchase against the bonds of the spirit snake, and my strength was spent in using the bees to break my fall. I could barely hold my head up. It lolled against my chest.
“Flee,” I whispered to my bee. “Find help. Or just get away.”
It darted away but I was so weak that I couldn’t even tell where it had gone.
“Guard the door. Keep everyone out,” Le Majest ordered as he led the snake holding me into another room of the house. “And find a healer for the guardian. His wounds irritate me.”
Osprey had survived the botched feather removal. I hadn’t killed him by accident. But I hadn’t saved him either – not with the desperate feather gamble and not by taking his life.
Juste led me into a room that had once been a study. Maybe it still was. Whoever had owned it must have studied strange things. There were books on shelves, a desk, a bird totem – albatross – and a fireplace, but that was where the normality of the room ended. One of the walls – a thick stone wall – had manacles and chains across it. Small bottles and metal instrume
nts lined the wall.
“Looks like the kind of place you’d expect from one of my Vultures, doesn’t it?” Juste’s mild tone made my skin crawl. “That’s what I thought when I saw it. A place for torture and confessions. But, apparently, the owner of this home was studying your beloved Forbidding. He would cut a piece of it – living – from the countryside, bind it with chains and bring it back here to study. He had no success, but that only seemed to drive him harder. He’s an inspiration to me, you know. I don’t like giving up on things easily, either.”
His snake pulled me against the wall and Juste strolled over, grabbing the clanking manacles and strapping me in place with them before his snake pulled away from me.
“If you expect me to confess something, I have nothing to confess,” I said thickly.
“I don’t expect you to confess anything,” Juste Montpetit said sweetly. “That’s not the point of this little demonstration. No, this is to teach you two things. First, that your resistance – while good for the genetics of any children you might bear me – is useless against me and a waste of our time. I can’t have you stabbing my Wings left and right, can I? That’s hardly the type of behavior we want to see in the peaceful society I am preaching.”
“You aren’t bringing peace here. You brought that snake attack,” I said. I felt so weak that even talking was difficult. I slumped in the manacles, wishing I could sit or lay on the study floor. They were attached to both hands and feet, keeping me spread-eagled uncomfortably.
“Of course I did,” he said gently, as if speaking to a small child. “You get what you ask for in life, property. And I am asking for everything. The whole Empire and everything in it.”
“Won’t you get that when your father dies?”
“In fifty or a hundred years?” he asked, sneering. “We’re long-lived in the Imperial family. My father has songbird Wings who sing to him every day, increasing his long life and energy. I’ll be an old man before he dies and by then he’ll have wasted all our resources on his endless conquests. I have other plans for the Empire. Plans that won’t wait. I wouldn’t tell you about them – but as my wife, you’ll need to know because you will be helping me to promote them.”
Hive Magic (Empire of War & Wings Book 2) Page 15