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There might be a place in this kingdom for you, after all. The Patrei and his whole lawbreaking family will soon be forgotten.” I stared at him as I pressed the cloth to my temple and imagined how I would kill him.
Ways he had learned from the Komizar that were far slower than a pickle fork. Ways I had never dreamed of using before, thinking them depraved. They didn’t seem so anymore.
taskmaster. I had to get out of here and find Kazi. If they were holding her— It was something I couldn’t allow myself to think about for too long, but there was still no word.
I would kill both Paxton and Truko if they had harmed Kazi. And I wouldn’t make it quick. I didn’t need a powerful weapon to—
I remembered him saying one shot brought down the nave of the temple. Was he mistaken? One? The launcher I tested was powerful. It could take down a man with accuracy at two hundred yards, probably three men if they were standing close together, but one shot couldn’t take down a temple.
“Kazi is alone, maybe hurt, they’re holding her against her will, my family’s in hiding, the town’s overrun, and when they all need me the most, I’m here helpless. I have to get stronger, I have to go.”
“I have to find her.”
It was like they had stopped looking for me, which meant they probably thought I was dead.
They invited me in, they fed me, they added bones to my tether that I now wore the same as them. Meunter ijotande, they would say. Never forgotten. Day by day,
There was so much I didn’t know back then, that I knew now. Things I never would have known if not for Kazi.
When we finished my daily regimen, I usually sat on a bench in the sun and read to Kerry.
Who will write our story, Jase?
No wonder he liked hearing stories about Greyson. Like the first Patrei, Kerry didn’t let his young age hold him back from what needed to be done. “We’ll see,” I answered. I had an army of two, and one was a seven-year-old child.
Except, perhaps, the person who had secretly passed me the medicine in my cell, but even they were too afraid to come forward.
Think of them as quarterlords, Kazi. Play them. Feed their egos. Earn their trust. Throw them crumbs, then hook them behind the gills like openmouthed fish. And then cut their throats.
I was playing for Lydia’s and Nash’s freedom—and their lives. I was playing for Jase, and the vows I made to him and, by default, his family. His blood vow was mine. And I had yet another vow—to the queen. Find the papers and destroy them.
Oleez and the children were called from their rooms to join us. Everywhere he went, they went.
“Do you take responsibility for anything? You are the king.” He didn’t answer, but maybe that was answer enough.
time, Kazi. He is waiting. Watching. Swimming closer. “If I failed, I might as well not return home. I would face severe … consequences.” I cleared my throat as if the difficult memory were stuck there like a bone.
My stomach jumped to my throat. “What do you mean?” “Am I smarter? More desirable?” He stepped closer. “If he was only an assigned job for you, then you won’t mind if I kiss you. In fact, you’d probably be glad for it. A king is quite a step up from a Patrei, isn’t
“Well played, soldier,” he whispered, still pressing close. “I wouldn’t expect you to change your feelings toward me instantly—especially since I cost you your hard-earned job. I respect that even.
That while he hated Jase, some part of him wanted to be Jase. Power was only part of it. He wanted to be loved, the way Jase had been loved. The way Jase was still loved.
I want to grow old with you, Jase. Every one of my tomorrows is yours. I bend forward, my lips meeting hers. Bound by the earth, Bound by—
but if I spent one more day wondering where Kazi was, I would go insane. My dreams wouldn’t sustain me. I needed her. I needed to know she was safe.
You two seemed inevitable. That’s how it is with some folks.”
Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you’re not powerless. That you have some measure of control. Maybe that’s what makes you brave enough to face another day.
It didn’t matter how hard I held her or how crazy I got with wanting her back. It didn’t change a thing. Sometimes people leave us forever and there’s no getting them back.”
My neck flashed with heat. His words were too similar to something Kazi had once said about her mother. She’s dead, gone, Jase. She’s never coming back. But I still saw it in her eyes, the small sliver of hope she couldn’t extinguish. She was afraid to believe, but it was still there, like a saved wish stalk tucked deep in her pocket.
people needed me too. It gnawed at me every single day. The town, my family. Hundreds of people I had vowed to protect. Blessed gods, did I know. My father had drilled it into me since the day I was born. Duty. But if it took something crazy to save Kazi, that was exactly what I would do.
Find a way to increase it. With so much at his disposal, why did he need more—and quickly? Was it only to help the citizens as he claimed? Or was he worried about the seer’s prediction of a starving winter?
Banques had instructed me not to speak to Nash and Lydia on the way here—apparently neither of them wanted to be anywhere near me, and I had to ride several paces ahead of them between Paxton and Truko, with a buffer of soldiers just behind us. But when we turned at a switchback, both of the children had their eyes fixed on me.
Now, wedged in saddles with Banques and Montegue, the real reason they didn’t ride alone was suddenly obvious. He is using them for protection. Revulsion burned inside me.
Once Lydia and Nash ceased to be an asset, would they become a liability? A threat to his monarchy? Would they only become more Ballengers who might one day rise up and exact their revenge against him?
knew what I saw in her eyes, the juggling, the hatred, the show, the performance expertly spun in every breath and blink. She was someone I recognized—a survivor.
I wasn’t in the inner circle of trust yet. But I was getting closer.
He stared at my lips. The ones Jase had kissed.
Everything inside of me ached with Jase. I would never stop loving him. But my answer to the king was a quick smirk.
Lydia managed to whisper to me, “I’m sorry.” “Me too,” Nash said. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” I whispered back. “I’m going to get you out of here and back to your family. I promise. You just have to be patient and keep doing what you’re doing.”
In the event of an abduction, the children had always been coached to go along with their captors until help came to free them, to do whatever was necessary to survive. Oleez confessed it was not a plan she ever thought would come to fruition. She reached out and protectively brushed the hair from Lydia’s eyes.
“Coming!” I called back. “I hate the king,” Nash hissed. “Someday I will kill him,” Lydia concurred. “No,” I said firmly. “I will take care of that in due time. You just keep doing what you’re doing. And those things I said about your brother—” My throat swelled, and this time it was Nash who comforted me.
“The king made you say those things about Jase. I know.” His voice was tiny and wise, and I had to stab my nails into my palm to keep from choking.
They were survivors, but still children. “Where is he?” Nash asked. “When is he coming?”
I was the only one Jase had ever entrusted with the truth of the empty crypt. He had gone against everything he ever had been taught and the law of the land, to grant the last wish of his sister.
Either come in or go away. I stepped back, startled by the faint voice.
Desperation could make you incredibly stupid or incredibly strong, or maybe both.
Jase. My heart said he wasn’t dead. This was not his realm. He is alive. But my head told me something different. The clink of his ring on the floor when Banques threw it still made my throat swell. I closed my eyes, trying to will away the pain, banishing thoughts of rings and remembering my vow to Jase instead.
And with No Neck’s order, I left the voices behind and went to face the new ones that were waiting for me at Tor’s Watch. How many of them might be dead too?
“I can walk. I can ride. It’s time,” I answered. And if I could get to it, I had at least one weapon and a bag of ammunition waiting for me. That would get Paxton’s attention. And if I could reach that one weapon, I could get more.
She also instructed me to avoid washing my face or the dye would fade faster. If I was lucky, it would last for two weeks. Hopefully I wouldn’t need it that long.
“You lying devil! What the hell have you done? Where is she?” Wren flew at me, slamming me up against the wall, her ziethe circling my neck. “I told you to watch her back or I’d come after yours!”
