A sword from the embers, p.61
A Sword from the Embers, page 61
part #5 of An Heir Comes to Rise Series
“I love you,” she thought over and over, but she heard nothing back. “As eternal as the moon, I love you, Nikalias.”
His groans of pain formed her tears that fell silently.
“Are you ready to come with me now, Tauria?”
Every bone and nerve and muscle locked tight in protest. Every thought screamed against it; every instinct cried out to deny. But this had to happen. She had to go to Fenstead, or it had all been for nothing.
“We have to make sure he lives, or it will mean war,” she tried—one last attempt to at least know without a doubt that Nik would be okay before they were torn apart.
Too much blood. She begged for it to stop, seeing each measure he lost as a countdown to his fading life.
“You come with me now,” Mordecai warned, his body pressed to hers from behind, “or I resume the attack in my belief you still side with them.”
“I saved you, not him.” Tauria found the bite of her voice, only out of her devastation at watching Nik lie back with aid at the Waterwielder’s instruction. Some of the cuts on his clothing, his face, she had allowed with her rainfall of glass.
She had harmed him. It was a truth she would forever harbor like a permanent wound.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Nik.”
“Love.”
She perked up at hearing his voice in her mind.
“Don’t go with him. Please.”
Nik was in so much pain, yet still he fought for her. His head lolled, the panic in his emerald eyes striking so deep.
“I’ll come back. I’m smart, remember? I can do this, and now he trusts me. I’ll find the ruin and I’ll come right back. You stay alive. Do you hear me, Nikalias? You stay alive for me to find home again.”
Though she was headed to the land of her birth and reign, it meant nothing without him.
“I’m coming with you,” Lycus cut in from her side.
Tauria shook her head. “When the time is right, I will send for you. It may be a while as I assess the state of the kingdom before we reintroduce our citizens and make them believe it is safe again in my rule. Tell no one of my whereabouts. Your role right now is to keep this a secret.”
She spoke the command only for Mordecai’s sake, the wreck of her mind, soul, and heart crying out for Nik to understand her next move on the board. They were so close.
Lycus’s face twitched with a protest, but as he held her eyes, he saw her silent plea.
“Tauria,” Nik said to her mind quietly as he faded into unconsciousness, and she realized the Waterwielder had retrieved some tonic that was taking him from her.
Tauria captured his fluttering gaze. The air wanted to choke her. The ground threatened to swallow her. She felt she had failed him so truly she didn’t know how she would ever repent.
“You are so brave. I…I’m going to come for you. I promise.”
Those were the last words Nik spoke before his eyes slipped shut and her world was silenced with them.
CHAPTER 86
Zaiana
Zaiana sat with eyes closed, head tipped back, while the moonlight caressed her face. She listened to the music she could hear faintly if she focused. The celebrations for the comet were well underway. There was peace in the songs they played, and while she listened her mind drifted afar. She allowed her thoughts to run wild just for one night.
She’d once believed her pitiful notions could be locked away and no one would know. That solace had been taken from her now.
Still, she couldn’t tame her thoughts of fantasy with the music that coaxed them out, and she imagined what it would be like to dance. She’d seen it before—the clumsy but joyful type in small-town inns; the elegant and whimsical movements she’d spied through castle windows; the intimacy of two lovers who’d stolen a moment in the night, slow and without any care for specific steps, only what moved them as one. Zaiana wondered what it would feel like to be held in such a way. To step out of her combat leathers for the first time to wear something beautiful and glittering.
Her childish whims were snuffed out like a candle.
Zaiana’s eyes opened with the shuffling that started down the passage. She kept her eyes on the brilliant moon, hoping her lack of attention would get him to leave as quickly as he stormed to her cell.
“You’re missing out on the celebrations,” she drawled to Kyleer.
A rattle snapped her attention, straightening her head, as Kyleer jammed the key into the lock. The resounding click of it opening stunned her. She used her back against the wall to rise but barely got to her feet before his hand gripped her chains, the other wrapping around her throat.
It all happened so fast she blinked with bewilderment as he held her to the wall, green eyes blazing while he pushed out hard breaths. Her bound hands stayed locked above her head.
Neither of them spoke for a few long, electrifying seconds. Her chest rose and fell deeply to have him so close with no bars.
“You’ve been gone for weeks.”
“They forbade me from seeing you.”
“Then you shouldn’t be here.”
“He should never have gone for your thoughts,” he snarled.
His anger stunned her. She waited to see the trick, yet his fury wasn’t directed at her.
“You shouldn’t care.”
“I can’t stop,” he confessed, the sharp lines of his face easing to something far softer. His hand over her neck slowly moved around her nape. “I am undone by you. Annihilated by you. I can’t stand it.”
“I have done nothing.”
“You don’t need to,” he ground out. But then his forehead creased with pain before it fell to hers. “I want to kill you because the only way to find peace is to know I cannot find you. Then just as quickly as I imagine that possibility, I want to follow right after you.”
Heat gathered, and she swallowed hard.
“I thought you were smart, commander,” she whispered.
Something wild flared in his eyes when he pulled back, his fingers curling in her hair, but not in a painful grip. “I don’t want to be smart with you. I want to be reckless and daring, and I want you to fight me at every turn, because nothing feels more alive than this.” His nose grazed her cheekbone, breath breezing across her ear. “You feel it too.”
The answer rushed in too fast, too certain, for her to fight it. The agreement that curved her body into his subconsciously. She didn’t want to slip away from his shield, though she could have.
She said nothing. Did nothing.
“I want to be the last,” Kyleer went on in a low, husky murmur, “to ever lay a hand on you.” Rough fingers trailed her hips, under her sweater, to graze her bare skin. Zaiana’s lips parted with the warm vibrations. “To ever bring you pleasure.” Up over her ribs, and she didn’t want him to stop climbing, but he paused under the curve of her breast, his thumb brushing between them. “You have no idea how much it makes me hate you.”
“Then you have your answer. Kill me, Kyleer.”
It was a dare for him to try.
His eyes narrowed, then something in him let slip his final tether of control. “Gods, you are insufferable. Exquisitely, punishingly insufferable.”
Kyleer’s mouth slammed to hers, his body molding with hers against the wall, immediately drawing out a moan, and as she opened her mouth his tongue slipped inside. She unraveled, she exploded, feeling a warmth that grew at the feel of him; a frenzy that reacted to the taste of him. It became a beautiful wonder how everything that had plagued her for days, that had her plotting revenge on them all, dissipated for him. She only cared about what he gave her in that moment.
She shouldn’t feel this way. He was just one male. One who’d tormented and tortured her mind, but also offered it a reprieve. One whom she despised, the enemy, yet who had become a presence she didn’t want to admit she yearned for.
Kyleer let go of her chains. Her arms dropped around his shoulders, but still bound she couldn’t tangle them in his brown locks like she’d so desperately wanted to do for months. His tall, built form made her feel so small, but it fueled her lust. She wanted to feel every contoured part of him, yet she was unable to do anything but surrender.
His large hands hooked around her thighs and her legs wrapped around him. The angle, his broad body—she clung to him as though he could shield her from the world and douse her in bliss for eternity. Zaiana kissed him as if she were nothing more than a dark fae with a burning passion. It didn’t matter what she was—the color of her blood, the fact she could unglamour her wings, that she would always be his enemy and they would never be accepted beyond this cell. It didn’t matter, but Kyleer deserved better. She didn’t expect to grow feelings for him as she lured him right into her trap.
She certainly didn’t expect to fall with him.
Love was a fickle thing, a master of deception. A powerful force with a silent snare. Zaiana didn’t want to believe the beginning of such a cruel attachment was what had started to creep through her defenses. She wanted to deny, to feel the lust but not the breakable emotions that attempted to entangle her.
Yet she was tired of fighting. So tired of the war in her mind that never ended.
Her eyes…they burned. Hot and with such a distant feeling that when the tear fell, she whimpered. She deserved to feel its pathetic ache.
Kyleer pulled out of the kiss, his forehead resting against hers while he panted, cupping one of her cheeks in his calloused palm. A palm that had felt cruelty just like hers, but which had dealt it far more in return. The pad of his thumb brushed away the betrayal that she cared. For him.
She had allowed herself to care, and it had carved a new void that would never heal.
“I want to take you right here, but you deserve better.”
She didn’t. She didn’t deserve anything.
Her stomach twisted and twisted. Was this guilt? It felt vaguely familiar, but she’d never had it root itself so deeply and spread so rapidly.
Her eyes dropped, and her lips pinched together to stifle her sob.
Kyleer spoke so gently it was unbearable. “We’re going to do this together, Zai. You and me. We’ll convince the others you’re on our side.”
Zaiana shook her head, and her exhale tunneled her into the coldest detachment of her existence. “I’m not on your side,” she whispered. “I can never be.”
It was time.
Zaiana moved fast.
With a cry against an agony far deeper than the cut of metal, her wrists pulled apart with such force she snapped the chain between them. It wasn’t without great effort and resistance that she dragged her magick forth, past the blanket of the Niltain steel on her wrists.
Then she struck.
With a hand on his chest, her lightning heated to the surface and gripped him fully. Kyleer fell, and she with him. They crashed to the ground, where she straddled him. His hands took her wrists, but his strength was diminished with the shockwaves she pushed through him.
She could kill him—should kill him. It was her order.
More tears gathered as she watched his bewildered eyes fill with so much pain, but not from her lightning.
He pinned her with betrayal.
“Look at me, Kyleer,” she said through gritted teeth, failing to keep her voice from wavering at the stab of her chest. “Really look at me. I am not good. Not like you. Not like them. I am a monster, and I’m only disappointed you fell for the beautiful guise.”
“How?” His choked voice pinched her brow.
“I’ve been building a tolerance to Niltain steel since the day I found out it could harm me over a century ago. I wore it. Small pieces at first, until I could stand pretty bracelets like these. Then I trained through them. Gods, it was agony, but it was nothing compared to how the material could be used against me if I didn’t master it first. When I could build back my strength and speed, it was a harder challenge to surface my magick past its restraints. But I never stopped until I conquered that too. All I had was time. And sometimes, it was nothing compared to what I would endure under the masters’ hands anyway. At least my own torture made me stronger. Brought me to this day right here. Put you right at my mercy in thinking I was vulnerable.”
Zaiana should have killed him and made her escape already; she was wasting precious time. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from leaning in closer, trembling as she watched his fierce, beautiful face contort with the electricity she coursed through him. It bounced flashes of amethyst across his features, and despite everything, hatred and anger were not written in those pleading eyes.
“What would we have done?” She spoke softly, the question one of sorrow, for herself as much as him. “There would have been no place for us. No acceptance for a villain with a hero.” She took his hand and placed it on her chest. “Listen, Kyleer. I don’t have a heart to give.”
“Why didn’t you escape sooner?” He strained for the words, but she didn’t ease her attack.
Zaiana held those green eyes, wishing they were filled with loathing or revenge, yet all they gave her was a sadness and disappointment that threatened to stop the air from reaching her lungs. “You have all been unaware of the plans that have been in motion around you this whole time, and it was my pleasure to watch you all try to figure out what was right in front of you.” She should have stopped there, yet those mossy irises she’d come to find peace within dragged forth more words faster than sickness. “And maybe because even monsters can fall to weakness…” she confessed, knowing they would never face each other again, and what would it matter anyway if they did? “For a moment, perhaps you became mine.”
She didn’t know when she had allowed herself to care for him enough that the thought of taking his life hurt. She had lived through torn flesh and cruel punishments, but this pain touched one place very few had before.
Her heart.
The withered, cold, black thing that occupied her chest cried out at the thought of killing the warrior beneath her.
Hurt. It cleaved through her so deeply she might have believed she had a soul after all as she pictured the light of hope and longing in his hopeful irises winking out forever. Even now, through his hate and pain and betrayal, he still looked at her with a slither of a plea, as though he clung to something she could never give him.
“I expected better of you, commander.” A cold detachment washed through her all at once, steeling her expression and darkening her mind. She looked to him now with nothing but indifference. “Goodbye, Kyleer.”
Zaiana’s hand curved around his neck until she found the spot to send a precision shock that gripped the right nerve. Kyleer’s whole body tensed, his final wide-eyed look one that would brand itself in her memory.
Then he fell limp.
The silence rang loud. She breathed heavy, unable to tear her eyes away from how peaceful he looked despite her attack. He was beautiful. But Zaiana had to go, had to leave him, because there was no telling how much time she had.
Yet she couldn’t move.
Her hands fisted his jacket, and she leaned her forehead down to his chest. Then, for just one moment, she broke.
She stole a kernel of time to surrender in her war, accepting that misery would always be a product of cruelty. That no matter how many triumphs she made, it would never be enough to balance the sacrifice of feelings she was told she couldn’t have. Right now, they were barreling down on her, drowning her, torturing her, but she accepted it all for the warrior beneath her skin who didn’t deserve to fall victim. This was the single time she’d been consumed with regret not only for what she’d done, but for who she was. Who they’d made her.
Zaiana took three long breaths.
One to entomb anything she’d felt within this cell.
One to sever the attachment that had begun to thread around her.
One to welcome the darkness once more.
Zaiana straightened, dipping into his pockets, though she thought it was a long shot. She patted him over before groaning in frustration when she didn’t find her iron guards. Without another minute to waste, she had one last place to search.
She stood and exited the cell, locking the door and taking off with the keys down the dark hall. With the celebrations in full swing, the guards were sparse, but she didn’t bother to be cautious, knowing she would be the least of their worries any moment now.
Coming up behind the first guard, Zaiana clamped both hands on his shoulders, her thumbs pressing into the precision points on his neck. “You have two other prisoners—where are they?” she asked calmly.
The other guard was halfway to drawing his sword when she cast her hand toward him with a lethal blast.
“I have very little patience,” she said in the fae’s ear.
His fear vibrated through him. Seconds ticked by, and she was just about to snap his neck when he spoke.
“This way, darkling.”
The voice that called through the darkness she knew. With her lightning, she sent the fae under her grasp into unconsciousness before begrudgingly following the sound. Zaiana found him, only a flood of moonlight streaking across his hard face while he stood with his hands in his pockets.
Izaiah Galentithe.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing? There’s no going back,” she taunted.
“You upheld your end of the deal; I’ve upheld mine,” he said coolly.
“That remains to be seen.”
Instead of replying, Izaiah twisted, and she marched after him. They came to a cell, and when the occupant spied her, he shot to his feet.
“About time,” Tynan groaned.
“Yes, it has been a rather strung-out torture,” she remarked, jamming the key into the lock.
Zaiana knew they wouldn’t have set them free. Not with their knowledge of Faythe being alive. Her plan had only been for them to survive captivity with her—something she wasn’t certain would happen until an unexpected ally came to visit.
“Where’s Amaya?” she snapped at the commander.
