“It’s nothing personal,” Zeryth said. “I’m realistic about the risks I face. I’m protecting myself. Don’t pretend any of you would be doing anything different, if you stood in my place.”
I wouldn’t. And that’s why I would never stand where he stood.
His fingers brushed the crown, absentmindedly, and a flicker of thoughtful uncertainty crossed his face.
But then that smile was back, easy and careless. “Do you know what power is?” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Power is sitting here alone in a room with four people who want to kill me, and knowing I’ll walk out alive.”
Chapter Six
Tisaanah
I remembered very little about my life in Nyzerene before it fell. I was so young when we fled, my lost country reduced to fragmented sensations burned into my memory. Sometimes, moments that I didn’t realize I remembered would come roaring back at the most unexpected times. Now, as Max, Sammerin, and I strode through the hallways of a beautiful house that I had never been to before and yet recognized more clearly than my own homeland — as Reshaye roiled and hissed in the back of my mind, awakened by the sheer force of my anger — one of those lost images bloomed to life.
My father had kept a little, useless metal contraption on his desk, a series of interlocking brass rings that went on in perpetual motion. The night the capital of Nyzerene was conquered, I had been standing in his study, my fingers clutching the edge of the desk, watching those rings swing, swing, swing, the only thing in my world that remained a certainty.
That was what my mind felt like, now. Something that needed to keep whirring away, because if it stopped, too much would shatter.
My fists were curled at my sides, fingernails biting my palms.
Zeryth’s words echoed in my ears.
If I die, so does she.
How casually he said it. How easily my life became a piece in his game, something to be played with and bartered away, something that ceased having value the minute it was no longer useful to him.
{It has always been that way,} Reshaye whispered. It reached for a memory — Esmaris’s face as he told me, You are worth one thousand gold.
Max walked fast, his eyes straight ahead, as if by not looking he could avoid his surroundings. Not that I could blame him. I could see the ghosts of his family out of the corners of my eyes, edges of Reshaye’s frayed memories catching on every doorway or hallway or painting we passed. And still, the beauty of it was undeniable — mind-boggling, even, to see it firsthand for the first time. Every inch of the interior displayed the same delicate, elegant craftsmanship on the outside. Brass, carved columns separated the hallways from the ballroom below, the floors composed of complex mosaics, the doorways immaculately crafted from mahogany. Art adorned all of the walls, paintings that I could only catch glimpses of as we walked.
His hand found mine and held tight, as if he was afraid I would be pried away.
Without hesitating, he led us down a spiral staircase, then through a stunning atrium filled with light flooding in from a glass ceiling until we reached a set of double doors, which he barreled through immediately.
A wall of cool, moist air hit me. The sky was overcast, darker now than it had been when we arrived. Max’s pace slowed slightly. We were in a garden, crossing a large stone patio with pathways shooting off. Mountains loomed over us. I could see what looked like military forts dotting the horizon, less than a mile away. There was more activity out here than I expected. Uniformed soldiers clustered across the landscape, and many more still were traveling to the bases in the distance.
“Zeryth said he came here to gather loyal troops,” Sammerin muttered. “I suppose that was accurate.”
Max swore beneath his breath. His stride did not break. Heads turned as we passed, whispers rising. Is that Maxantarius Farlione? I didn’t believe he’d really…
“Now what?” Max finally ground out, so low I almost didn’t hear him.
Now what? That was the wrong question to ask. I knew exactly what would happen next. I would fulfill the pact I made to the Orders. I would fight Zeryth’s war, even though he betrayed me, even though he now used my life itself to manipulate the people I loved most. Even though I hated him almost as much as I had hated the Mikovs.
He would do all of that to me, and I would still hand him everything he’d ever wanted.
But I didn’t get the chance to voice this, because suddenly, Max stopped short. His gaze snapped to one of the groups of soldiers in the distance, brow furrowed, a look on his face that made my heart still.
“What is it?” Sammerin asked, just as Max began striding across the path.
“Moth!” he bellowed.
Moth?!
I followed Max’s gaze, and there he was, standing with a cluster of young men in deep green jackets. At the sound of Max’s voice, Moth whirled around so fast that his blond curls went flying, his face lighting up. He gleefully abandoned his conversation and half-ran to meet us, grinning.
“You’re back! They said you’d come here, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. So did you do it? Did you kill the slavers?”
“Moth,” Sammerin said, calmly, but in a tight voice that betrayed something deeper. “Why are you—”
“What are you doing here?” Max barked. “What the hell are you wearing?”
Max was not listening to Moth. He wasn’t even looking at his face. He was looking down — down at Moth’s jacket. At the sun emblem at the lapel, and the embroidered name, and those familiar brass buttons.
My confusion soured to dread. That was a military uniform.
Moth’s glee faded. “Well…you were all gone, and Helene wasn’t a very good teacher, and two weeks ago they offered us a lot of money to…”
“You enlisted,” Sammerin murmured.
“What. The hell. Were you thinking?” Max’s voice began quiet, then slowly rose. “Sammerin leaves you alone for two weeks and you run off and join the military?”
Moth was the only person I’d met in Ara who had such little control over his emotions that I still felt every ripple, and now, I tasted excitement turn to hurt. “I— I just thought— you and Sammerin were both members, so— I thought—”
“You weren’t thinking. This was a stupid decision, Moth. Reckless.”
“I— I just—”
“You just what?”
“Max,” I murmured, putting my hand on his arm, and he let out a breath through his teeth.
Moth’s eyes darted between us, landing on Sammerin.
“I thought you’d be glad,” he said in a small voice, and Sammerin looked as if someone had actually struck him. I felt it, too.
“Why would you think that?” Sammerin said, and Max scoffed.
“Glad. No, Moth. We just thought better of you than to—”
“Max.” My hand closed around his wrist, and his gaze snapped to me. “Enough.”
For a brief moment, he just looked at me, and I could see all of the invisible words neither of us could tackle hanging there in that split second of connection. Then he pulled from my grasp, turned away, and began striding down the path.
Moth looked as if he were actively holding back tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said, quietly, as if it were the only thing he could think to say — even though he didn’t know what he was apologizing for.
But I did. I understood exactly.
“It’s not about you, Moth,” I said. I glanced back at the boy, took in the sight of him — round-faced, barely a teenager, still years away from so much as peach stubble. Then my gaze met Sammerin’s, and I knew we were thinking the same thing.
I felt vaguely ill, nausea warring with anger. Not at Moth, but at everything that led him here.
He was just a child.
And now what? What was this world going to do to him?
What is it going to do to all of us? a smaller voice whispered, in the back of my mind.
“It’s not about you,” I said, again, and went after
Max.
I rejoined Max far behind the house. He had taken a sharp turn away from the main paths, veering to a secluded expanse of overgrown grass at the edge of the grounds. It was getting dark, and mist clung to the air, rendering the sky grey and flattening the distant mountains to silhouettes. Deep green forest spread out before us, and the house loomed behind.
Max stopped walking abruptly, head bowed, hands stuffed in his pockets, facing the tree line. We stood there together in silence.
“They will not send him out there,” I said at last, quietly. “Will they?”
“I don’t know. They took him. If they’re desperate…” He cleared his throat. “Last time, some of those soldiers were only fourteen, thirteen, near the end. Children.”
I did not miss the way his head twitched towards the house, as if he was going to look over his shoulder and thought better of it. The soldiers were not the only children claimed by the war.
A blink, and his memories — Reshaye’s memories — flooded me. Blood and fire and anger, and the lives of all those Farlione children discarded in one terrible night like crushed flower petals.
I reached for his hand, and his fingers twined around mine with unexpected force, as if he were a sinking boat and I was the only thing tethering him to the shore.
Or perhaps, the opposite.
“And this is what it was all for,” I muttered. “Zeryth’s throne.”
“I should have seen it happening.” He closed his eyes. “But of course I didn’t. I didn’t see any of it until it was too damned late.”
I knew he was talking about more than the crown. More than the war. More than Zeryth. He was talking about me, too. Reshaye stirred at the back of my thoughts. I shuddered.
“It’s not possible,” he said. “One life can’t be bound to another like that. He’s bluffing.”
I was silent.
I wouldn’t put it past Zeryth to manipulate us with a lie. And yet, when I thought of the strangeness of what he had showed us, the odd magic I felt in the air when he revealed it… I suspected it was not so simple. And I suspected Max knew that, too, and didn’t want to admit it.
“There must be a way to get out of your contract,” Max said. “I’ve heard rumors that there are ways to break a Blood Pact. If I talk to the right people, maybe—“
“Break it?”
“Of course. Do you want to be the one to put Zeryth on a throne?”
No. The answer rang out in my head, firmly. No, I don’t.
But out loud I said, “I don’t. But I will.”
Max’s gaze snapped to me. The betrayal in it gutted me. “That man doesn’t deserve to draw breath.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?”
“You think I do not hate him, too? Of course I do. He’s— he made me—“
I couldn’t even figure out how to finish that statement. What words were there? He had left me in slavery once, and now he dragged me back into it. He took my desperate desire to save the helpless and used it to make me a weapon of death. Now he tried to control my very life, and use it to control others. It made me so angry that I couldn’t breathe.
But then, the image of the refugees on the boat flashed through my mind. They way they looked at me — as if I was their last hope.
“But I made that pact for a reason,” I choked out. “That has not changed. I fight his war, so that I can go fight mine.”
“His war for what? For his ego?”
“When I spilled my blood on that contract, I thought it was going to be for Sesri’s ego. Is there a difference?”
Max gave me a look that said he thought there was a world of difference.
“Zeryth is the difference. Reshaye is the difference.”
“I controlled it,” I said. “I can do it again. I can use that power to make this war less bloody than it would be without it.”
“You sound like Nura.”
The words cut me open. I yanked my hand away from his, even though I could already see the regret spilling over his face.
“What do you want me to say to you?” I shot back. “Do you want me to tell you that I want to walk away from all of this? I do, Max. Of course I do. But there are so many people who cannot walk away. They are still there, suffering. Girls like me. You hate Zeryth for leaving me there, but you’re asking me to do the same thing.”
Something flickered in his expression. “That isn’t the same.”
“Why? Because they aren’t standing in front of you? Because you don’t love them the way you love me? Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, and they are just as loved, just as important. It is a privilege to do nothing, Max. So many people do not have that gift.”
He looked at me, jaw tight, regret and sadness and anger all mingling in his eyes.
“No war can be fought with clean hands,” he said. “Not even the ones waged for the right reasons. Not even the ones you win.”
I knew he was right. In the Threllian wars, I had lost so many of my own people to the cost of victory.
But what choice did I have?
I stepped closer and placed my hands on either side of his face.
“You don’t have to fight this fight,” I whispered. “You have already given so much.”
Max’s forehead pressed against mine, his body so close I could feel its warmth surrounding me. And when he spoke again, all that anger was gone, replaced only with weary resignation.
“That was never an option, Tisaanah,” he murmured, and pulled me into an embrace.
It felt like falling. One moment, I was clinging to my plans and composure, and the next, I was lost in him. His scent of lilacs and ash surrounded me. I buried my face against his neck, inhaling it. I could feel the slight shudder in his breathing as he struggled to keep from unraveling.
I pulled away just enough to turn my face, lips parted even though I didn’t know what would come out. But before I could speak, he kissed me — gave me the kind of kiss that communicated everything that we couldn’t put into words. For precious seconds, nothing mattered except for this, the cadence of our shared breath, the movement of his lips, the brush of his tongue.
Nothing mattered except that we were alive, and here, and together.
We parted but stayed close, his forehead against mine.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m just…being here is…”
He sounded as if he could barely get out those fractured words. My chest ached. It had been impossible to miss the change in him the minute we stepped through those doors — a raw, tangible pain, like he was walking over razor blades.
“We will not let it be like last time,” I whispered. “We will find a way.”
I told myself I could make it true. I was grateful that he didn’t call out my uncertainty, even though I know he heard it.
Instead, he pressed a kiss to my jaw and said, quietly, “I want to believe you.”
Chapter Seven
Aefe
“What he says cannot be true,” the king said.
“All the survivors say the same thing, my Lord,” Siobhan said. She knelt at my father’s feet, at the bottom of glassy black steps that rose up to his place upon the dais, sleek and dark beneath an arch of polished stone.
He, my mother, and my sister all stood there, crowns adorning each of their brows. My father’s was Nightglass upon a head of long, ashen brown hair. My mother’s, spires of twisted silver against pale skin and sleek locks of red-black — near identical to my own. Actually, it was uncanny, the extent to which I resembled my mother. A less beautiful version of her, to be fair. My skin was a little ruddier, my mouth a little broader, my eyes bigger and curved down in a way that my mother used to always joke made me look as if I was perpetually sad.
Used to joke. It had been a long time since my mother had joked about anything. Now she sat upon her throne, gazing off into the middle distance, that lovely face offering no sign that she had heard anything that we
had told her.
There was a time — a time I barely remembered — when my mother was intelligent and humorous and talkative. Now she was only beautiful, and whatever lay beneath had been eaten away like moth-bitten silk. And yet, she was captivating, so graceful in a way I never would be.
My sister, though, embodied that grace impeccably. She had my mother’s bearing, even if her appearance was much more my father’s, richer skin and fairer hair, and those dark eyes like pools of night. Orscheid sat beside my mother, hands delicately folded over her velvet-adorned lap, a twist of silver across her forehead.
She had given me a faint smile when I strode into the room with Siobhan, though now her gaze was lowered with concern.
My father frowned, still visibly skeptical.
“I don’t see how humans could have done this,” he said.
Siobhan bowed her head.
“We sent six Blades to the House of Stone. They found many bodies, Teirna. They counted sixty before they stopped trying to account for the dead, but understand that was only a small fraction of the full loss of life. There may be other survivors, but our scouts found none in Atecco.”
“None in Atecco?” Orscheid whispered. It was easy to tell that she was scared — she had the same look that she did when we were children, and I, ever the obnoxious older sister, would terrify her with some ghost story or monster tale. “The entire city, and… none?”
“None that we could find.”
That sentence hung in the air for several long seconds.
“And how many survivors do we now have in our infirmaries?” my father asked.
“Nineteen,” I said.
His gaze slipped to me.
“Are any of them able to speak to us?” he asked.
Stupid, how I still found myself shriveling under my father’s stare. “Not currently,” I said. “None of them are conscious right now. The one that I rode with was the one who told us it was the humans. But he didn’t manage to say much more.”
Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Page 5