Devourer: A Minister Knight Novel (The Minister Knights Series Book 2)

by Nicole Givens Kurtz

  “The queen!” someone cried.

  Attention shifted to the throne where Queen Zoë lay slumped forward in her chair. Her chin rested against her bony knees, and her arms lay sprawled on either side of her legs. Her hands brushed the sides of her feet. A beautiful royal in the palm of death.

  “She does not breathe!” A servant beside the queen’s throne gave a frantic wave. “She’s dead!”

  Like a wildfire, terror swept through the packed Great Hall, and in minutes, screaming, shouting, and frantic crying erupted anew. Guards hustled people to the entrance and demanded the hall be emptied.

  Only Akub remained as people streamed by her, a rock in a rushing river of human frenzy.

  Another minister shoved his way through the crowd, up the two flat steps to the unconscious queen. Those left in the Great Hall seemed to hold their breaths—waiting confirmation.

  Akub grinned a tight, cold smile. The oracle had been right—an evil had come to the ice planet and its queen.

  While others looked after the queen, the minister knights and guards searched those confined to the hallway. Akub yanked on her hood and lowered her eyes. Inching backward, she tried to blend in to the retreating wall of clustered people. When she brought herself to look up, she discovered Zykeiah’s glowing eyes on her.

  “Devourer!” Zykeiah started toward her, those unsettling eyes pinned to her. She shoved past people and charged to Akub’s position.

  Once more, she knew she should run, but she stood like a useless statue. Akub had thought herself prepared for this. Yet now that false courage weakened her all the way to her knees.

  A hard shoulder bump from a passing traveler jolted Akub from her musings. She needed to get out of here, before Zykeiah caught her. She faded into the thinning crowd. When Akub glanced back over her shoulder to see if she’d been followed, she spied Zykeiah cutting a direct line toward her, shoving people out of her way, her attention locked on Akub.

  Too late.

  Panting and sweating, Akub moved farther down the hallway that snaked outside the Great Hall. With her heart racing, she tried to stay within the larger pockets of people, hiding in the herd. If Zykeiah found her, she wanted there to be others present. Witnesses.

  Akub had devoured the knight’s trust before.

  Zykeiah had promised to rob her of life if she ever saw her again.

  “There!” Zykeiah shouted.

  A hand landed on Akub’s shoulder and with great force, whirled her around. The same strength slammed her against the hard wall and pressed a forearm against the base of her neck, pinning her. Akub almost lost the orb but clenched it with tight desperation as she came face to face with the one person she both loved and loathed to see again.

  Zykeiah.

  “Tell me you didn’t have a damn thing to do with this, Devourer.” Zykeiah’s mouth became a slash of raw fury. Those haunting, luminous eyes narrowed. The scar over her right eye twitched. “Tell me or I will slice your throat.”

  Her dagger bit into Akub’s neck.

  “Devourer…” Zykeiah whispered, her breath hot on Akub’s face.

  Akub closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and released it. She opened them and, with renewed courage, met Zykeiah’s harsh glare.

  “Do it. You won’t see your queen alive again.”

  Zykeiah dragged Akub by her arm into her room, slammed the door, and barred it with a plank of wood. Akub dabbed at the trickle of blood tickling her neck. She relaxed when Zykeiah returned her daggers to their holder along her thigh.

  “I should kill you for being here.” Zykeiah rubbed her hand through her short, wooly hair, all remnants of anger gone—or so she pretended. Tight wrinkles around her eyes spoke to the tension of the situation.

  “…and yet, you don’t.” Akub shrugged further back into her cloak.

  “Do not tempt me more, Devourer. Talk.” Zykeiah pointed at her with a dagger.

  “I prefer to be called Akub.”

  “Talk!” Zykeiah smacked the wall with the palm of her hand.

  “You have to tell the bees when someone passes or they’ll just clear off.” Akub opened her palm and blew. Incense, dried rose petals, and earth scattered across the center of the floor. “Or so I’m told.”

  “The bees have been gone a long time from Veloris,” Zykeiah said as she paced, scattering Akub’s herbal gift.

  “So has my love.” Akub avoided the other woman’s pointed gaze. The words held no physical substance, but Zykeiah flinched all the same—as if they hurt her to hear them.

  “You don’t love me. That flame died many rotations ago. Still, you didn’t come all the way from Saturn Four to repeat the past.”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t call the other ministers. I’m giving you a chance. What did you do to the queen?” Zykeiah sat down in a chair. “What wicked spell have you woven?”

  Akub inched closer to the fireplace. How could she begin to answer her and remain truthful?

  “Magick weavers wove time and space to their will, folding all that’s real into their favor. Deceptive and dangerous, they don’t belong, in this castle or near our queen,” Zykeiah said.

  “We don’t inflict illness.” Akub turned away.

  “How do you know the queen is ill? By the goddess, you know! Tell me.”

  Zykeiah fingered the daggers sheathed around her thigh. Only average height, she more than made up for her lack of stature with ferocity. Many of the castle’s men feared her, and more than a handful of women wanted to be joined with her in marriage.

  All this Akub knew because she had heard stories from the Saturn Four visitors. On her planet, the merchants would come to the Goddess Ana’s temple and confess their infractions to the priestesses. When their lips were loose in meditation or in counsel, they spilled secrets and gossip into a priestess’s ear, but many spoke so loudly, Akub heard them as she went about the temple.

  Akub shook off the memory.

  No chatter now.

  Only silence stretched out between them.

  Akub’s fingers brushed the now warm orb and waited for Zykeiah’s next move.

  The queen had been injured, and Akub had been too late.

  “My patience wanes!” Zykeiah pounded the chair’s arm.

  “I did nothing!” Akub shouted back. She tossed her dreadlocked hair over her shoulder. Someone had already set their plan into motion before she arrived.

  “Then how do you know the queen is ill? Others believed her dead.”

  “The oracle predicted it.”

  “The oracle? That’s it. You’re going back through the Allerton Circle and whatever hell you crawled out from under. Come on. Let’s go.” Zykeiah pointed at the closed door.

  “You’d just let me go?”

  “Yes, the sooner you get off this planet, the better.”

  Akub heard the hesitation in the knight’s answer.

  “You say that like my infidelity was forgivable.” Akub couldn’t believe her own words. Under the final decree, the Veloris queen could order Akub’s death for outstanding markers, but moreover, she carried a soul-snatching orb. Both offenses could mean death. On some planets, like Veloris, a sharp divide existed between those of faith and those of rule.

  “It is or else your throat will be slit.” Zykeiah shrugged. “The markers for your treachery on Saturn Four—and the other six planets—remain.”

  Akub hadn’t forgotten how lethal her former lover could be.

  “The Saturn Four markers have been dissolved.” She stretched out her arm and pulled back her heavy cloak’s sleeve for Zykeiah to see the scarred tissue where her original brands had been removed with acid. The tattoos rose and fell along them like paths over mountain ranges.

  “That still leaves five.” Zykeiah crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I’m aware.”

  On this cold evening, nothing surprised Akub any longer. The hearth’s fire chewed at the onk logs, releasing warmth and floral scents into the small outer room. Zy
keiah’s chambers held her weaponry, her shields, and her armor alongside domestic items like blankets, yarn, and riding clothes.

  Zykeiah muttered under her breath. Akub didn’t need to hear the words to know the knight’s displeasure. Akub removed the small sphere from her robe.

  “How dare you bring that here? You’ve stolen the queen’s soul!” Zykeiah uncoiled from her seat.

  Akub glanced at the fire, collected her thoughts, and then turned back to the warrior woman. “With prophecies come all things, even evil.”

  Zykeiah scowled. “I know all about your evil, Devourer. You won’t bring death here. I won’t allow it.”

  Akub swallowed the fear-soured spit in her mouth. Bitter. Thick. She longed for a mug of ale. “That happened a long time ago.”

  “Every good place you touch becomes eaten away by your deceit.”

  “Listen! Death will spread out across this land, even as far as the Southern Forest. At one point in time, that forest gave life. Now it breeds only decay. All of Veloris will meet its end if I don’t stop it.”

  “So, you came here to stop what?” Zykeiah’s right hand poised above one of the five throwing daggers. The metal gleamed in the firelight.

  Akub hesitated. “What the oracle demands.” She opened her palm. The clouded-over orb hovered in the air. “I can’t do it all on my own, Zy.”

  “You did snatch the queen’s soul! Are you unwell?” Zykeiah closed the distance between them in a blink of an eye, a dagger in her fist. She stood in striking distance.

  “Release her!”

  “I…this one is empty.”

  “Empty?” Zykeiah laughed, but it didn’t hold mirth. “Liar!”

  “Yes. I brought it here to capture the queen, to keep her safe until the evil could be stopped, but I need your help. It seems I arrived too late.”

  Zykeiah gawked in disbelief. She shook her head.

  “You asked for the truth. There it is, plain.”

  “What you propose is forbidden. This isn’t some fairytale. That thing shouldn’t even be here.”

  Zykeiah adjusted her tinted glasses on her head and peered hard at Akub as if seeing through her flesh and into her mind.

  “Aren’t you a ray of golden light?” Akub lifted the orb higher.

  “The risk is too great. Of all places, not here.”

  Akub had come to the ice planet because she’d heard the rumors of the Minister Knights of Souls, the so-called saviors of the Pixlis Galaxy. The orb darkened and dropped into Akub’s palm. Fine. Closed-minded individuals had held many back from greatness. Revolutionary vision often fell on deaf ears. History spoke of this.

  Kidnapping a queen sounded mad. That didn’t mean it was.

  “Realign yourself with life. The orbs are only death.” Zykeiah’s tone had softened, but her stance hadn’t.

  “I can’t claim my life back. Not now. Not after all I’ve done.”

  And all I have yet to do.

  “Devil’s fire will rage if I allow you to stay here. You must leave.” Zykeiah started for the door.

  “No.” Hadn’t Zykeiah been listening?

  “I will make you.”

  “So be it.”

  A smile rose on Akub’s face, and she laughed at the stunned expression on Zykeiah’s. Her former lover didn’t like being rejected.

  She caught herself as Zykeiah’s gaze narrowed.

  “You assume I would let you live.” Zykeiah’s voice lowered to just above the fire’s crackle.

  “I hurt you, I know—but being hurt doesn’t make you right, Zy. I’m not here to harm the queen, only help.”

  “You ran from me. Innocents do not run. Stealing a queen’s soul is a marker for death. You’ll throw your life away for some whispered nonsense from a piece of glass.”

  A dagger zipped by Akub’s face. She flinched and touched her cheek. No blood, just the breeze as it flew past. It made her heartbeat increase.

  A warning. Zykeiah never missed.

  “Were you actually trying to hit me?” Akub’s anger rose.

  “Give me the orb.” Zykeiah stalked over to her and, with an outstretched hand, beckoned. “Now.”

  Annoyed, Akub swept her hand upward and whispered, “Hold.”

  The gesture sent the knight whirling backward over the chair and into the opposite wall with a whack. The purplish scars on Akub’s hands throbbed as her power ignited. She held up one hand, palm-out, and in the other, the orb.

  “Stop!” Zykeiah managed, before gurgling replaced her words.

  Akub’s outstretched hand remained rigid with power. If she wanted the minister knights’ help, killing Zykeiah wouldn’t be a good starting point. Plus, she couldn’t deny the feelings the warrior raised in her. Emotions she’d long since buried reanimated on seeing her again.

  “Release!” She relaxed her hand, and Zykeiah fell with a crash to the floor.

  Silence.

  Akub had to slow her breathing. Ever since she discovered the orb, using her magick winded her. It took too much energy to suppress the orb’s call for souls. Its constant hunger took much to muffle. She spun away from Zykeiah and turned to the fireplace again. With her heart burning, she gripped the orb tighter. It glowed and warmed as memories flared in her mind.

  Many rotations ago, while under the influence of a soul snatcher—Manola, she of ill repute, the undead—Akub had done terrible acts. Her will had been caught in the undertow of this woman’s influence. She’d devoured the trust of Zykeiah, her own family, and countless souls entrusted to her—all to feed Manola’s appetite and support Valek’s enterprise.

  Manola had worked for Valek, a greedy and vile man who once extracted souls and turned them into a mind-reading serum he then sold to warring armies on two separate planets. At first, Akub thought Manola could help her magick, assist her knowledge of other worlds, and grow her skills. All of this, the pale woman promised.

  A hard cough from Zykeiah wrenched Akub from her thoughts. Across the room, the minister glowered, touched her throat, and took another dagger into her fist as she got to her feet.

  “You caught me off guard once. You won’t again,” Zykeiah warned.

  Akub put up both her hands in surrender. “I came here for your help, not to fight.”

  “I cannot tell. You come to my home. Attack my queen.” Zykeiah rotated a dagger in her hand. A dangerous expression spoiled her face.

  Akub huffed out a deep breath. Stubborn. Brave. Foolish. All of these qualities made her fall in love with Zykeiah once, and even now, the strong tugs of attraction lingered. They proved just as annoying then as now.

  “Are you going to help me?” Akub whispered, her throat tight.

  “No.” Zykeiah gestured with her dagger at the scattering of her items on the floor.

  “I didn’t mean to attack you…”

  “A perfect denial! You even look like you might believe it, Devourer of Truth.”

  “…I need you to listen to me. A great evil is coming here. It may even be here already.”

  “If there is evil, it’s because you led it here.” Zykeiah walked over to the door and removed the thick wooden plank that secured it.

  “Zy, listen…” Akub rushed to her, but didn’t touch her.

  Zykeiah leaned in close. “There is a dangerous evil right here, right now—in your cloak—that glass sphere.”

  As if on reflex, Akub’s hand squeezed the orb.

  Zykeiah’s unflinching, penetrating stare made her squirm. At the same time, she wanted to snatch Zykeiah to her and kiss her thick lips. She remembered how warm, enjoyable, and comforting being in Zykeiah’s arms had been. Safe. Loved. Cherished. Nothing would ever touch her as long as Zykeiah loved her. The memories poured into her, forcing her eyes to burn and her throat to go dry.

  “Zy…” Akub released the orb, took her hand out of her robe, and reached for the knight’s hand.

  “No.” She jerked her hand away from Akub. Zykeiah’s voice held heat mixed with caution as she raised her
dagger. “Get. Out.”

  Akub wrapped her arm around Zykeiah’s waist. Since spilling out of the Allerton Circle, Akub had struggled against the urge to fall under Zykeiah’s spell. Nothing had prepared her for seeing her former lover again. Not even the most powerful magick could make her not desire the knight.

  “Fool me once, you bear the shame; fool me again will get you dead. Get your things. The Circle awaits.” Zykeiah untangled herself from Akub’s embrace.

  Suddenly, the door swung open. Zykeiah jumped out of the way to avoid being hit.

  A tall, dark man entered the chamber. His bald head gleamed in the firelight. Shadows flickered along his unsmiling face, as if afraid. On one of his biceps, a raised M had been branded, seared into his smooth, hairless flesh. Gray eyes drifted over Akub’s face and then to Zykeiah.

  “Marion! Knock first!” Zykeiah stepped in front of Akub.

  Akub doubted Zykeiah even realized she had done it.

  Marion. The heir to the throne and Minister Knights of Souls’ leader. He had been the one who rushed to the queen at evening meal when she collapsed. Like Zykeiah, he wore kowletta leather pants and heavy snow boots. His sleeveless vest left his muscular torso exposed. His tinted glasses sat atop his head, and his lips pulled back into a sneer. At his side, a heavy sword rested in its scabbard.

  “The servants speak of a woman in a dark green cloak. She had an orb. A Saturn Four woman. So, tell me, Zykeiah, why do you hide her?” Marion pushed his way farther into the room, which seemed to shrink in size at his girth.

  “I do not hide her. I removed the danger from the populace. I have questioned her, and she has nothing to do with what happened to the queen.” Zykeiah sheathed her dagger and crossed her arms. She stared up at Marion as if daring him to disagree.

  “You are sure of this?” He looked down at her and then back to Akub.

  Stunned at Zykeiah’s declaration, Akub could only manage a nod. She’d heard about the great Marion of the Minister Knights of Souls from Manola. Rotations prior, he rescued both his wife and her sister from Valek’s soul cages only to have his own soul stolen by betrayal.

  “She’s on her way back to Saturn Four.” Zykeiah stepped forward.