Maks grabbed my shoulder and helped me sit up. “Was that what I think it was?”
I nodded, and then I closed my eyes and the world slipped away.
4
I woke with a start, thinking I was going to be covered in poisonous, sticky, grasping little frogs as they croaked and hopped all over my face. Flailing, I flicked my hands over my body as if it wouldn’t be too late already had one actually touched me.
“You’re okay. You’re okay!” Maks had a hand on my shoulder and the night around us was still dark, the river rumbling in a roar off to our right. A quick glance up at the stars and the moon said it all. I hadn’t been out cold all that long. Just long enough to freak me out.
I blinked a few times, a yawning chasm of hunger and fatigue hitting me at the same time. Maks shoved a hunk of dried meat into my hands. I touched my belly and found I could count my ribs far easier than just the day before. The magic had literally taken the stuffing out of me.
“Eat. That was a lot of energy you used up.”
I barely tasted the meat, and all but swallowed it whole. There wasn’t a lot of food left, though, and I didn’t know when we’d have time to hunt again, so I filled the rest of my empty belly with water, drinking most of my flask down and distantly wishing it were țuică.
Anything to numb the bone-deep fatigue and gnawing sensation that this night was not over yet.
“Are they really all gone?” I looked around, waiting for the ground to move.
“Well, dead, but not gone. We’re going to have to ride careful, slowly now.” Maks pointed at the ground. Still covered with frogs, only now they were not moving, not even a flinch of the tiny bodies. I grimaced.
“That’s going to stink like rotting frogs by the end of tomorrow,” I mumbled around the last bit of dried biscuit.
He laughed. “But not like rotting you and me and two horses. That would be worse.”
Black humor, no time like escaping death to put it into play. I grinned, and then twisted in my saddle to look at the far side of the river. I reached out to Bryce through our connection to the pride and found him. He was worried, but not hurt. A sigh of relief spilled through me.
“Bryce is okay. He’s ahead of us,” I said.
“We’d better hurry or he might not realize that he’s riding on frogs,” Maks said, and my stomach lurched. The rain was still coming down, and it was still dark out. Maks was right. Bryce might not even see the frogs now that they were still, their red lines no longer glowing with imminent death. Damn it, there was always something.
We kept the horses moving at a brisk trot, weaving around patches of frogs, moving them with Maks’s water whip only if we had to. His face was drawn. This day had taken us to the end of our reserves and then some.
The bodies of the frogs were endless, heaped on top of one another as they’d seethed toward us, a river of death on both sides.
Seeing how close we’d come left me in a cold sweat.
“They were pushing us north, toward Ish,” I said. “Is that what Ollianna wants for us?”
“Maybe to have Ish finish you off.” Maks nodded. “It makes sense to pit us against other enemies first, to weaken and then kill us. It’s a move you use in battle if you have to fight on more than one side.”
I didn’t like that his thoughts lined up with my own. “She’s going to harry us until we face her, isn’t she?”
His blue eyes looked into mine, worry etching the skin around them. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Assuming she doesn’t manage to force us to our deaths first. It’s a smart tactic, having others do her dirty work. Best case, we all kill each other and she’s free to rule on her own with no one to face her.”
I agreed with him, just a nod because it made me sick to my stomach to move my head. He was right. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t going right into the shit hole for us. We still had to face the others. Ishtar. The Emperor. And then Ollianna and the falak child she was going to produce. A child with a bloodline to the Emperor. Fuck, what would that do to the falak? Make it stronger, no doubt.
As we rode, an idea came to me, a possible solution. One that no one was going to like. Which was why as soon as it came to me, and I saw the merit in it, I held it close to my chest as far away from Maks and Bryce as I could. Either of them would take one look at me and be asking what I’d thought of—curses of not being able to control my face.
Five minutes later, Bryce and his horse came into view. Moving quickly, avoiding the frogs as we were. “Sweet oasis water, I thought we were all dead.” Bryce shook his head, flinging water in every direction. The rain was easing off, still coming down, but not in heavy sheets. The worst of the storm was blowing over. But that wasn’t what had my attention.
I glanced at his horse, saw the sweating, foaming mouth, the wide rolling eyes. “Get off your horse.”
Bryce looked down, not understanding. Not knowing horses like I did. “He needs a break?”
The horse collapsed before I could do anything, forcing Bryce off. He stumbled and had to hop to avoid stepping on the frogs around him. The poison took the horse so fast that even if I’d had my hands on him, I wasn’t sure I could have saved him—especially as drained as I was from stopping the frogs in the first place.
Worse even than watching the horse die was the reality that if I hadn’t used the stone, that what I was looking at would have been our deaths. We all would have ended like that poor boy, heaving and struggling for breath as the poison ramped up through him. This would have been Lila too, if she’d survived the initial onslaught and crawled out of the saddlebags, still sleepy and stumbling on the frogs.
The horse heaved for breath, a wet, horrible breath. I pulled the shotgun out from under my leg where it rested, aimed and pulled the trigger before his suffering stretched on. The boom rattled the air, but neither of the other two horses so much as flinched. They’d been around weapons of all sorts for years. Balder reached back with his nose and bumped my leg, gently, warmth from his muzzle and breath seeping into me.
Somehow, he understood. I’d given that poor horse a merciful death. Poison could take a long time to kill. I tucked the shotgun away into its sheath under my leg, then rubbed a hand over Balder’s neck. “I know, buddy. I know.” He’d nearly died only a few weeks before, but we’d been able to bring him back. I didn’t know how much he understood or remembered, but he seemed to grasp that this could have been him.
The horse with no name stretched out, its limbs slowly going limp, and the light in its eyes fading, going dull. I made myself watch, not out of any morbid sense but because I had to remember it could happen. I could lose someone I loved, or I could be the one to die. We’d been lucky. Bringing Bryce back from the dead—or whatever kind of limbo he’d been in—was not something I thought we’d be able to do again.
Which meant I would do what I had to do to keep those I loved safe. No matter what the cost to me.
I shook my head and snapped fingers at Bryce when he bent to the horse. “Leave the gear, it’s smeared with frog goo. We don’t need a repeat of that demonstration.”
Bryce straightened, opened his mouth to argue and then quickly gave me a nod. Letting me lead. “At least I have boots on.”
“They’re my boots, so try not to ruin them,” Maks said.
For just a second, I thought Bryce was going to deliberately step on a frog—because boys.
“Don’t,” I said.
“I wasn’t.”
“Bullshit.” I pointed at him. “So don’t.”
Maks looked between us. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing,” Bryce and I said in tandem, and in that moment, I was ten years old again, standing in front of my father with Bryce at my side, trying to get out of trouble for one thing or another. That memory was bittersweet, and I held onto it. Grateful for the flash of the past coming back to me. There weren’t many of my memories that were good and sweet, and not painful to recall.
So much death, so many lie
s from those who were supposed to love me, so much shit in every sense of the word.
It was a wonder I wasn’t more broken. Or maybe I just didn’t see it anymore.
But that sweet memory, the two men at my side, Lila tucked away sleeping, they were the reasons to keep on fighting, a reason to take whatever bit of hope I had that I could keep them all safe.
“The frogs thin out in the next few minutes. At least there weren’t that many when I rode toward you.” Bryce took one last look at his mount, then continued on, leading the way through the green and red valley of dead frogs, more visible with each second as the clouds above us cleared and the moon came out, lighting our way.
The dying horse, the dead frogs . . . it was all the way of the desert. Those around you died, sometimes friends, sometimes family, and you had to keep going. You had to learn to grieve when it was safe, not when your heart wanted to, and you had to know when to retreat, when to fight, and when to give in . . . No, I wasn’t going to think about that.
A part of me worried that if I thought about my plan, Bryce or Maks would somehow know. Stupid, maybe, but they both knew me so well and in different ways, I wasn’t sure I could keep my plan from them if I thought about it.
When the time came, I just had to do it. I would give Ishtar what she wanted if she stopped Ollianna and the falak. My guts twisted just thinking about Ishtar, of putting myself back into her hold. But what choice did I have? She was more powerful than anyone save maybe the Emperor.
I had to be ready to bargain.
“What do you think that was all about, the frogs, I mean?” Bryce asked. “Other than trying to kill us. Because I feel like there are better ways.”
I blew out a breath. “Ollianna. She’s going to harry us until either she’s dead, or we are. If the frogs cut our numbers, or killed us all, it would have been a bonus.”
Bryce shook his head. “Not us. You. The frogs ignored me on the other side of the river.”
Maks let out a low growl that he blended quite nicely with a curse. “Then we have to go after her first. We can’t deal with Ishtar while Ollianna is on our heels.”
I didn’t think that was the answer. I wanted to go after Ishtar. Ollianna wanted me to go after Ishtar.
Doing what Ollianna wanted wasn’t going to be good for us, even if I did manage to convince Ishtar not to kill us.
The line of the wooden handle on the flail that had become such a part of me gave a not-so-subtle tingle across my back. The flail was my weapon through and through, but to bring my brother back from the limbo he’d been stuck in, and to save myself and Maks, I’d traded it to the Emperor. I’d not put a time limit in when he could have it.
I was kind of thinking once I was dead and long gone. I grinned and the wooden handle gave a sharp zing across my back, far more than a simple tingle. I yelped and put a hand to it, heat cutting into my palm like a hot brand. “What the fuck?”
Another sharp snap that arched my back and made the breath whoosh out of me. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to eat any frogs!”
You traded the flail. You must give it to the Emperor.
There was that voice again. “Not yet.” I bit the two words out.
Yes. Now. The deal must be done.
I groaned and turned Balder toward the west, and the pain across my back immediately subsided. My chin dropped to my chest as I thought about resisting the summons. As I thought about my plan going to shit right in front of me. “Fucking hell.”
I grimaced and urged Balder forward in the new direction. Yeah, the pain was gone now. “Are you sure?” I whispered the words, already knowing I was probably losing my mind.
Yes. You need to trust me now. You did once. Your plan is good. Use it on the Emperor.
I swallowed hard, finally recognizing the voice. “Marsum.”
There was a sensation that rippled outward from the flail along my spine wherever it touched that could only be described as laughter. Marsum’s soul had been taken in by the flail, and now he was directing me. And laughing at me.
Son of a bitch, I thought we were done with him and his interference. Even if he’d turned out not to be the right asshole we’d always thought.
“Did you say Marsum?” Maks was at my side in a flash, his eyebrows creased with worry.
I touched the flail. “He’s in here, right? I can hear him in my head.”
The dip of Maks’s brows went deeper yet. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my hand over my face, my plans for Ishtar going right out the window. I wished Lila was awake. I wished she were on my shoulder being a sassy little bitch who helped keep me grounded.
“We are changing directions,” I said. “Ishtar will have to wait.”
“What? Where are we going?” Bryce hurried to catch up as I dismounted.
“Get on Balder. I’ll ride with Maks. We need to cover ground. No doubt Ollianna knows we killed her frogs. And if I were her, I’d try again to kill us right away.” I took a breath and stepped through the doorway that was the space in my head between me on two legs and me on four. In that breath, I became a six-pound house cat, black as the night around me, but the flail was still attached, absorbed into me as my clothes did and was still striking sharp pains into my back. As if I were going too slow.
“I hear you. Knock it the fuck off,” I grumbled. I took a teeth-grinding, running leap and ended up clinging to Maks’s belt, my dagger-like claws nearly cutting it in half. He scooped me up and tucked me under his cloak away from the rain. Gods, he smelled good, and the pain eased, leaving me with a strange sense of euphoria.
“Keep going west,” I said.
“West is going to take us toward the wall, or what’s left of it,” Maks pointed out.
“I know, but I made a deal and the flail is holding me to it. I have to take it to the Emperor. And I have to take it now.” I didn’t want to, but if I was being forced to go, I would try to find a way to kill him. Letting him out of his prison was a terrible idea. Just fucking awful. And that’s what he wanted the flail for—to free himself. Besides, my plan I’d had for Ishtar wouldn’t work on the Emperor.
You sure about that?
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Marsum in my head. He’d been the bane of my existence for most of my life, but in the end, I’d found out it hadn’t been him at all, but an older, more powerful Jinn that had been trying to kill me. Marsum had helped to save me and Maks, his son, and for that I would be grateful for the rest of my life. But that didn’t mean I would put up with his shit.
“Freeing the Emperor dooms us,” I said softly. Maks agreed with a grunt, not realizing that I was talking to Marsum.
If the Emperor got loose, well, to say both human and supernatural worlds would be in trouble was an understatement; that’s what Merlin had said. The Emperor wanted to rule, and that was why he’d been stuffed into his prison in the first place. Because his idea of ruling was making the humans subjects and food, and the supernaturals over them. All the while that he—the Emperor—did whatever the hell he wanted. Tyranny on a large scale was not something I would willingly sign up for even on a bad day.
My thoughts circled and the warmth of Maks’s body sunk into me, making me curl tighter against him.
“Did it ever occur to you that the Emperor was lying about the falak?” Bryce said, right around the time I was dozing off.
I blinked awake. “What?”
“Let’s be honest. The man that is your grandfather hasn’t been really honest with you up till now. He’s lied or given half-truths every time you’ve spoken with him. So maybe he was lying about the falak. Maybe if you kill the Emperor, the falak won’t be the terror he says. Maybe that’s just a way for him to keep anyone from killing him.”
Bryce wasn’t wrong. The Emperor had been the biggest liar of them all, and that was saying a lot considering I’d been dealing with Ishtar for years and the lies she’d spun to keep us close and complacent. If Bryce was right, that changed things.
&n
bsp; “I have no way of knowing. None of us do. And do you want to gamble the world on a hunch?” I stretched and leaned out the front of Maks’s shirt, hanging there and staring at my brother. The words of Titiana, the queen of the fairies, were still humming along in my head. And I didn’t like them. I didn’t like them one bit. Because the more I saw of what Ollianna was willing to do, the more I was beginning to feel like the Emperor might not be the biggest threat of all. And for the moment, he was still in a prison that he couldn’t fully escape no matter how hard he tried.
I grimaced. I did not like that idea that was curling through me. Or where it could lead. Death waited, it was just a matter of who that creepy bastard got first. I let out a long sigh. “Can we all just agree on one thing? No matter what happens, no matter if I live or die, one of us has to kill Steve.”
Bryce gave a snarling growl. “Gladly. He’s turned the pride against you. Hell, he turned Darcy against you!”
I grimaced but was also glad for the change of direction in the conversation. “She was only friends with me because there was no one else. Kiara was too young, and there were no other female shifters. It was a pity friendship. At best. She’d rather see me dead now too.”
I’d seen her and Steve in a vision of sorts, and she’d . . . been clear in her distaste for me as a shifter, as a person.
Maks wrapped a hand around me and I leaned into his touch, buried my face in the palm of his hand. Darcy had been my only friend for a long time, and I’d thought we were best friends. The kind that would end up old and gray together, laughing about the shit we got into when we were young.
I’d forgiven her when she’d slept with Steve while he and I were still married, because I blamed him, and she let me believe it was all him, that she tried to resist, but couldn’t because he was an alpha. But now that he had his own pride, her true colors were showing. She was a user of people, and that had included me when she’d needed me. Now that she didn’t think she needed me, I was out. I wasn’t about to have that kind of toxic shit in my life.
Emperor’s Throne: Desert Cursed Series, Book 6 Page 4