by Jack Whitney
Draven’s pipe. And a small amount of the herb from his garden.
It was what was written on the note inside the bag that made her nearly throw it out the window.
In case your favorite needs help bringing you to your end again.
“Asshole,” she muttered.
Willow told her the bath was ready soon after. Aydra excused Willow from the room, and then she sank herself deep into the warm water. The pipe twirled in her hand as she thought about whether she wanted it that night. There wasn’t much of the herb. She would have to be selective.
Finally she sat it on the table by the tub and simply sank herself beneath the water.
The dress her brother had chosen stared at her from the bed. The navy blue color she didn’t mind. But it was heavy, bejeweled, and she didn’t much care for such things.
So she grabbed for one of her own navy dresses from her closet and put it on instead, hoping he was stupid enough to only remember the color of it. Her dress tonight was form-fitting, long sleeved, and totally open on the back, V-ing at the dip in her hips and hugging her curves. She took her hair out of the plait and fluffed the curls before grabbing her crown from the vanity.
The note Draven had left stared back at her from the bedside table. She shook her head and left the room, only to find Lex leaning against the opposite wall waiting on her.
Lex frowned upon seeing the look on Aydra’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Fucking Venari,” Aydra mumbled as they descended down the hall.
“Letting him get your panties in a twist without even being in the room,” Lex mused. “Interesting.”
Aydra glared at her. “Not like that. He gave me his pipe and a small amount of the herb we smoked the other night.”
“And he’s an asshole for doing that because…”
“Because he also left a note with it. Said ‘in case your favorite needs help bringing you to your end again.’”
Lex snorted. “He has a point.”
Aydra shoved her sideways. “He has no business in my sex life. Period.”
Lex continued to laugh as she pushed her hands behind her back. “Have you seen your brother yet?” she asked, changing the subject.
“I haven’t. I’m sure he’s not happy about my not going directly to him.”
“Suppose we’ll find out.”
They reached the Throne Room a few minutes later, and Aydra had Lex wait at the bottom of the stair for her.
Rhaif was pacing in front of their chairs when she reached the threshold. He paused in his step and did a double-take at her, eyes narrowing beneath the hood of his thick brows. She saw his jaw tighten, and his fist clench at his side.
“Do you enjoy disobeying me?” he managed in a low tone.
She strode deliberately across the room towards him. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I asked that you come here after your arrival,” he smarted. “It has been over an hour.”
“We traveled for near five days without having the opportunity to bathe. I thought you’d not want to smell my stench or have it cling to your best capes,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “What did you want? Why here?”
“I wanted a report for how the mission went,” Rhaif replied. “Did you rid this land of the creature?”
“We did,” she answered. “The Venari was helpful for once. His instruction on how to kill the creature was thorough.”
“And our brother? Where is he?”
“On his way with the Venari to the villages. I told him I would send an escort to come back with him in a few days so that he was not riding across the Hills alone.”
Rhaif gave her a nod, and then he started crossing the room slowly towards her. “You know, my men were hurt by your words before you left.”
“Which words?”
“When you called them useless.” He paused just in front of her, his fiery eyes searing through her. “I think you should apologize.”
She balked at the word. “Apologize? For what? For doing their job for them?”
“Why should they have thought the Venari was telling the truth after years of their not being helpful and betraying this crown?”
“If they cannot heed the orders of our three crowns, then what good are they? There are plenty of Belwarks out in our streets that would love to be part of the royal guard.” She took a step back and shook her head at him. “I will not apologize to them because they are ignorant.”
His nostrils flared, but he did not say anything in response. Instead, he took in a long look of what she was wearing, and his brows knitted together once more. “Is that what you’re wearing to banquet?”
“It is.”
His jaw tightened. “I’ll have Willow’s head. This is the second time this week she has failed.”
“Willow has only ever done as you’ve ordered. Just because I refuse to wear the dresses you have her put out for me does not mean she has not done her job.”
He gave her another deliberate once over then, and she raised a brow at his blatant stare.
“Spit it out, brother.”
A deep exhale left him, and he straightened up, pushing whatever it was he was thinking about to the back of his mind. He extended an arm to her. “Come. We will be late.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE BANQUET WAS grander than she’d expected.
She was weary of the extravagance, cautious of whatever it was her brother was up to. Something didn’t feel right in her bones. She felt him watching her most of the night, and she only began to forget about his gaze when she was reprieved by one of the Ambassadors of Scindo Creek’s daughters. Aydra found herself immersed in conversation with this girl as she told tales of her own village, of the journeys she’d taken with her father to the Village of Dreams and to the Hill towns. It seemed the woman had had a life of travel that Aydra found herself envious of, and Aydra invited she and the Belwark who had accompanied her back to her room later that night.
Aydra retreated to her room not long after her exchange with the Belwark and Dreamer, eager to have a few moments to herself before the true festivities of the night. Willow had drawn her another hot bath, this time with salts and lavender flower, to which she was grateful for. Her muscles ached of the long journey on horseback. She sank into the warm water and allowed the scent of the purple flowers to fill her nostrils, relaxing her stresses and murmuring her into a trance.
She tried to think of greater things than the shake of the Infi being pulled back into the ground, of whatever it was her brother was up to. Even going as far as to pull herself beneath the water, letting her breath catch and struggle before emerging back into the cool room. The pipe stared at her beside the tub, but she didn’t reach for it. She wanted to be sober when her new conquests found their way into her bed later that night.
The moons light cascaded through her open window. It was raining, but the clouds did not reach the moons in the far distance. It was an odd sight to see, the light reflecting off the droplets as they poured outside. The raven sat on the windowsill just out of the rain, merely keeping her company as it usually did. She wondered what Dorian and Draven were doing, if Draven was getting her younger into trouble or if he was actually taking care of him. Dorian was as free spirited as herself, and she knew he could look after himself. But she would feel better about it when the Belwark escorts journeyed to retrieve him in the morning.
Only when her fingers began to wrinkle did she emerge from the bath and wrap her black silk robe around her body. She let her hair down from the plait and started moving the pillows off the bed that Willow insisted she keep up there.
A small smile rose on her face when she heard her door open, and she didn’t bother looking up from the bed to see if it was indeed the Belwark and Dreamer from Scindo that had joined her.
“Someone is eager to please tonight,” she muttered, pulling the sheet back.
The person didn’t speak, and she almost frowned at the shadowed being standing
against her door. “Are you going to stand there in the dark or should you like to come join me?” she asked.
She heard a boot step forward, and she looked up, only for her stomach to drop.
Lightning cracked outside.
Rhaif was standing in front of the door, half of his face lit up by the moons, the other half still shadowed by the curtains of her bed.
She felt her face pale, her heart begin to throb, but she stood her ground as she walked around the bed towards him. “Brother,” she managed, tightening her arms over her chest. “I thought you would have been pre-occupied with the dancers.”
The thunder shook her room.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he began to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. He’d removed his royal garb and was wearing a loose white night tunic. Aydra’s jaw tensed.
I am here, her raven called to her from the window. If you need me.
Wait for me, Aydra whispered incomprehensibly back to it.
Rhaif’s eyes darted from the raven to her upon hearing the noise, and he huffed amusedly under his breath.
“What do you want, Rhaif?” Aydra asked in a soft voice she didn’t recognize.
He finished turning his sleeves, and then he shoved his hands in his pockets, shrugging slightly and allowing his fluffy black curls to fall over his eyes. “Simply answering your cry for attention,” he told her.
The noise in her ears turned to ringing.
“My cry for attention?” she repeated. “If I ever cry for attention, it is not meant for you.”
He almost looked upset at her words, and his bottom lip pouted just so. “That hurts, sister,” he said softly. “You know I would never do anything that you didn’t want.”
“And what exactly is it you think I want?” she managed.
A small smile curled on his lips, and he walked over to her fireplace, taking the poker out and taunting the fire in its depths. “This new title is getting to your head, I think,” Rhaif said. “My men are beginning to question me.”
She watched the fire poker glowing red hot in his hand, and she felt her weight shift. “Your men were useless this week,” she replied.
“Are you saying they disobeyed me?”
“I am saying they did not believe the Venari simply because of who he is and thus had no regard for his warnings. They did not search that beach. I watched them half the night.”
Rhaif’s brows raised, and he turned back to face her. “And here I was under the impression by your screams that you were otherwise pre-occupied that night.”
Aydra’s jaw tightened. “Something you’d like to get off your chest, brother dear?”
—His arm was around her throat.
He’d moved so quickly, she hadn’t seen his shadow cross behind her. She choked on her own breath as his forearm pressed against her trachea, his body firmly flush against her back. He grabbed her other arm before she could move and yanked it back, nearly popping it out of joint. Her hands grasped at his firm forearm around her neck.
“Rhaif—”
The lightning flashed again outside her window.
“Did you think you would get away with the stunts you’ve pulled this week?” Rhaif hissed in her ear. “Did you think you could mock me and undermine my authority without punishment?”
Thunder rumbled.
Her raven cried out for her.
She wriggled against his grasp, but his skin was heating beneath her flesh, and her insides convulsed at what she knew would come next. She closed her eyes and felt for her raven at the window, willing her subconscious out of its body. She allowed the raven’s core to consume her thoughts and mind.
If only for a few moments—
Smack!
Rhaif’s hand seared across her face, and she blinked back into herself, realizing she was somehow on the floor, robe disheveled. She saw his feet come into view, and she looked up through her strangled curls to see him standing over her, shirt removed to reveal the taut skin against his trimmed torso. His hands blackened, and the color grew up his skin like spiderwebs embedded in his golden flesh. His eyes blazed literal fire, and the blue flame curled into life on his muscles.
The true form of the Promised King.
“I know you’ve figured out how to escape your body to one of your pets,” he said in a low tone. “Not tonight. Tonight, you will remain here when I punish you for what you’ve done.”
The swell of angered tears rose in her eyes, and she felt herself shaking. “You’re just like him—”
Smack!
Aydra shook off the sting of his hand and pushed up on her hands again. “We promised we would be different from them—Better—”
“We are better—”
“Then explain to me how your threatening me with fire is any different from what Vasilis did to Zoria? To me?”
Rhaif stopped his advance and stared down at her. His head tilted, and he crouched down slowly in front of her.
“Because Zoria never asked to be punished,” he said slowly. “And you have done everything you can so that you will be.”
She balked. “You think I ask to be punished—”
“You have begged every day this past fortnight for this,” he cut in. “Embarrassing me in front of the Council. Calling my men useless and galavanting off with the Venari of all people. Blatantly disregarding my requests and taking our brother on quests you should have left up to Belwarks to begin with. Do you know the Council actually asked for you to be subdued?”
“Their fear is not my problem.”
“Admit it, sister. You have craved for this moment. You want this.”
“No one wants this,” she managed.
He reached out towards her, his gaze softening as his thumb brushed her cheek. “And you were doing so well, too,” he mused softly.
She flinched at his touch, and then spat in his face. “You’re vile,” she said in a shaky voice. “Despicable—”
He wiped the spit from his eye, and she felt her breaths begin to quicken once more. The right corner of his lips quirked upwards, and his eyes traveled deliberately over her body.
“Scream for me.”
His hands grabbed her ankles and the pain of fire searing into her flesh caused an unwanted shriek to emit from her lips. She grabbed for anything—the bed, the ground, the rug— but to no avail. He pulled her backwards and hoisted her body up over his shoulder. His skin burned her, and all she could do was will herself not to scream, completely paralyzed by the pain of his flesh burning hers as he carried her off towards the servants’ tunnel.
She felt the comfort of her raven slowly drifting away, replaced with a numbness she couldn’t shudder out.
Lies.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AYDRA’S SKIN WAS stiff and raw. Burns plagued her entire form, but the worst of it was across her stomach where he’d thrown her over his shoulder to carry her to his room. Vomit had evacuated her insides more times than once since he’d left her back on her own bed, exhausted and subdued from the events.
The only good thing to have come from the night before was that once Rhaif had released her body and thrown her on his bed, she’d managed a breath enough to send the raven after him, and it had cut Rhaif’s cheek deep with one of its talons.
Her punishment for it was the heated iron cuffs he’d crudely placed around her extremities.
She’d had the raven take a pail to Arbina’s pool to get water from it, the only thing that would heal the burns on her body. Despite her giver’s waters being poison, it was healing to her children, and Aydra knew she would need it.
The red marks around her wrists and raw of her skin stared back at her as she poured the last bucket of the water into the tub. She hadn’t stopped shaking. Every move she made was precarious, subdued… Flashes of blue kept shattering her mind, her only relief being when her raven would reach out into her core and try to pull away some of the pain.
Once the tub was full, she clenched her teeth and made her legs move, one after the
other into the water’s depths.
An audible scream evacuated her lips as she stepped in. Her form shuddered, core evaporating into her gut. A debilitating seizure grasped over her straining muscles. The pain of the liquid wrapping into her skin was nearly as paralyzing as his fire had been.
“Morning, my—fuck—Aydra!”
The noise of Lex’s voice made her nearly fall into the water. Aydra grabbed the sides of the tub and steadied herself just as Lex came running to her. She couldn’t hold back the shriek from her lips when Lex put her hands on her dry shoulder.
“Don’t—” Aydra could hardly form words as the agony swept her bones. She stilled a moment to gather her wit, vomit pulsing up her stomach and into her throat.
“What the—who did this to you?!” Lex demanded in a voice Aydra had never heard of her.
Aydra’s eyes closed and she forced herself into the water. “Don’t touch the water,” she said quickly as Lex started to reach for her again. “It is Arbina’s poison waters.”
“Aydra—Did…” Lex’s voice trailed, and Aydra knew she was figuring it out. “Did Rhaif do this to you?”
The water wrapped around Aydra’s body, and she surrendered to the pain paralyzing her muscles. She couldn’t speak. The agony of her flesh mending itself beneath the liquid making her shudder. A nauseating chill rose on her spine once again, and she pulled herself up quickly to the side of the tub where her insides evacuated onto the floor.
Lex started to reach out for her hair, but Aydra muttered a quick “No, don’t—” and she grabbed her hand before she could—
The water on her fingertips burned Lex’s wrist.
Lex flinched backwards.
“Shit,” Aydra realized. “Lex, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”
Fire glowed beneath Lex’s flesh, and she picked at the ash formed from where a water droplet had sat on her skin. “It’s fine,” Lex assured her. “I’m fine.”
Aydra leaned back and closed her eyes. She heard Lex leave her side, and then felt the plop of a chair beside the tub.
