Battles of Salt and Sighs (Rise of the Death Fae Book 1)

by Val Saintcrowe

  Onivia licked her lips.

  Cassus was still speaking. “How are you here? Do you have free run of the place?”

  “No, I…” She swallowed. She didn’t want to lie, but Larent was right. She didn’t have a choice. He hadn’t given her one. “I sneaked down here to see you.”

  “Oh,” he said. “You shouldn’t have put yourself in danger because of me.”

  “I… I’ll go.” She turned and started away.

  “Wait,” he said. “Since you’re here, you can tell me about Magdalia.”

  “I don’t know anything about her.”

  “I heard the Croith wanted her, and that he was waiting for her here,” said Cassus. “I hoped to intercept the fae who had her, somehow take her away, save her, but… I guess I was too late. I’ve been watching the road here, and then—when no one was traveling—I decided to look at the villa itself. But I was too easily captured, I suppose.”

  “Of course you’re looking for Magdalia,” said Onivia. “Even after all these years, you still feel…”

  “I love her,” said Cassus. “I know, we were children, well, barely out of childhood, and I know she was indifferent to me, but I, well, it doesn’t matter, I can’t bear it, knowing she’s been taken by the Night King.”

  “I’m told he wants her magic and that she won’t be mistreated,” Onivia said softly.

  “But where does he have her?”

  “In the capital,” said Onivia.

  “Of course,” said Cassus. “That’s where I came from. If I would have stayed put, I could have helped her.”

  “How would you help her, Cassus?” said Onivia. And then she realized he might actually have a plan of some kind, and she didn’t want Larent to hear it, so she plowed on, not allowing him to answer. “Surely, it’s impossible to go up against the Croith. You would only succeed in getting yourself killed.”

  “It would be a worthy sacrifice if so,” said Cassus. “But I think I would have stood more of a chance than that. Of course, it doesn’t matter now, because I’m locked in this dungeon.”

  “Perhaps your brother—”

  “My brother funded the riots in the city, but even he is dubious about the death fae,” said Cassus. “They are killing the fish in the ocean, you know, using their magic to make the seas inhospitable, so chock full of dead things that the ships cannot pass, that the air is full of noxious disease that sickens. It has not been good for his import business.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m not sure his influence will be enough to free me,” said Cassus.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Can you come to me again? Could you also find a key? If you would help me, I would get to your sister. I know you are frightened for her as well.”

  “I am,” she said. “I don’t know anything about keys, I’m afraid.”

  “You’ll come with me, of course,” said Cassus. “We’ll both go after her. I’ll keep you both safe, Onivia.”

  “I… I wouldn’t count on my help, Cassus. I… In fact, I need to go now. The guards will be back in place soon. The changeover is short. I must go now, or they will discover me, and I’ll be punished.”

  “Of course,” said Cassus. “Do not put yourself in any further danger on my account.”

  “I…” She wanted to say something to him, something that would help, something that would lift his spirits, but… there was nothing. “Goodbye, Cassus.” She turned and fled.

  Larent caught her when she rounded the corner. He escorted her back upstairs, and back to his room. Then he deposited her on the couch and paced in front of her.

  “He’s your sister’s paramour.”

  “Hardly,” she said. “My sister never gave him any hope of reciprocation. He was desperately infatuated. It was a long time ago. I don’t know why he’d do something so foolish or dangerous.”

  “I heard him. He said he’s in love.” Larent paced. “I’ll inform the Croith. He’ll want to know.”

  Onivia’s heart sank. “What will happen to Cassus?”

  “I don’t know,” said Larent.

  “But couldn’t you…?”

  He turned on her. “What?”

  “Leave it be. He’s barely more than a boy. He’s no threat to the Croith.”

  “I think I’ll let the Croith decide that,” said Larent.

  “But there must be some way that I could convince you.” Of course, she knew there wasn’t.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  Her face fell. “I don’t know why I speak to you this way, truly. I know it’s useless, that you don’t care about me.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said in a flat voice.

  “So, it’s pointless to think that I could prevail on you in that way,” she said with a little laugh. “It’s only that Cassus is so young, and you sometimes seem to have some decency about you. I forget what you are.”

  A smile spread over his face. “That was well done, domina. I find that quite affecting. You may have more influence over me than you should.”

  She drew back, unsure of how to take this. What was he saying?

  Suddenly, he sat down next to her on the couch, too close. “It’s all the caresses, I imagine. Those little breathy noises you make when I put my hands on you. You’re a marvelous actress. You impress me, domina.”

  She hesitated a moment, and then she decided it hurt nothing to fully make an attempt to convince him. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, after all. “Yes,” she whispered, leaning close as well, “yes, it makes everything confusing, I admit.” She picked up her hand and put it on his chest. She feathered her fingers over him through his clothes. She’d never touched him like this. He touched her. She reacted and endured. But this was… He’d just admitted weakness and she wanted to see if she could exploit it. “You’re confused as well?”

  “Even if I am, I won’t betray my people because of it.”

  “Not sending that boy to the Croith is hardly a betrayal. He’ll molder here in the dungeons, safely away from the capital, and he’ll be quite prevented from doing any kind of mischief. You’d never have known his intentions if it weren’t for me, anyway. Just leave him be and forget about him.” As she spoke, she touched him. Her hand went lower and lower, down over his chest, down to his stomach. He was warm. He was solid. He was practically sculpted. “You have many other things to think about, after all, don’t you?” She gazed up at him from beneath her eyelashes.

  He laughed. “Oh, domina, how far we’ve come in such a short time. Would you have imagined yourself doing such things that first night with me? Look at what you reduce yourself to.”

  This hurt, but she refused to react to it. He was fighting that way because she was getting to him. She might actually win this. Her hand went lower, brushing down below his belly button. “Forget about that human boy.”

  “You know I can’t.” There was a hitch in his voice.

  And when her hand went even lower, he was hard, and that startled her, so much that she recoiled in shock.

  He laughed again. Then he vaulted off the couch and left the room. He went into his bedchamber and shut the door.

  She sagged against the couch. For some reason, she was struggling to catch her breath.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MAGDALIA WAS SURPRISED when there was a knock at her door, because no one ever knocked. It was superfluous anyway, because her door was locked, and anyone who came was equipped with a key to let herself in. Most of them were female fae who wordlessly served her and paid her no mind if she attempted to speak to them.

  She went to the door and rattled the locked knob. “I’m afraid I can’t let you in. The door is locked from the outside.” She’d watched when a fae had come in and removed the lock, turned it about, and then reattached it so that she could be locked in.

  A chuckle from the outside, and she recognized it.

  Duranth.

  Folding her arms over her chest, she turned and stalked across the vast and lush room to th
e window. She spent a lot of time here, gazing down over the courtyard at fae going to and fro, looking out at the ruins of the capital city beyond. The city wasn’t entirely ruined, of course, but it had never looked like this before.

  She heard the door unlock and heard Duranth enter, but she didn’t turn to look at him. She gazed out the window instead. “Come to take me to a bigger room?”

  He laughed again. “These were the csaerina’s chambers. Are they truly beneath you?”

  She had known it. Of course he’d done that, and there were all sorts of implications. He thought of himself as the new emperor and her as his wife. He wanted to be in her bed and he wanted her at his side, doing his bidding, ruling at his side.

  Of course it was ridiculous. He was like a child, playing at being a ruler, but he was fae, and fae were not meant to rule. He must be stopped, because he was pure evil. All the fae were.

  She could not let herself be seduced by his attempts to use her for his awful purposes. She had to remain strong. She was human, and she was better than he was.

  He was standing behind her now. “I wondered if you’d accompany me somewhere today.”

  “Is this a request?” She glanced up at him over her shoulder. “What has prompted this unprecedented courtesy?”

  “Your comment about being silly and flighty, of course,” he said, leaning closer. “Have I misjudged and underestimated you, my little Magda? If so, I long to be proved incorrect.”

  She turned to look at him. “What if I say no?”

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  She pressed her lips together in a firm line.

  “Aren’t you bored?” This was a pointed reference to her childhood, when she used to shout at the top of her lungs about her boredom and demand that someone go and fetch her Duranth to her, because he was her favorite playmate, the only thing that amused her.

  The thought of that hurt her. She didn’t need a reminder of his duplicity, how he had tricked her into thinking he was something other than what he was. His evil ran deep, and he must have always had it, even as a child. Perhaps, even that young, he’d been planning these revolts, planning to massacre humans and burn down the capital.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She turned back to the window, hoping he wouldn’t see.

  “Oh, dear,” he said, mocking her, “what is it I’ve said to upset you?”

  “Your existence upsets me.”

  This made him laugh.

  She turned on him again, tears spilling out of her eyes, and she dashed them away. Now, she was angry. “You pretended with me, Duranth, always pretended. Pretended to be my friend, when all along you wanted to destroy me and everyone I ever loved.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “That’s what you think?” He sighed. “You really are stupid.”

  She hit him.

  He caught her hand, crushing her smaller fist in his much larger one. He looked at her, a fierce expression on his face. “Yes, Magdalia, I have gone to great pains to seek you out and bring you here because my feelings for you are only pretend. I have clothed you in fine clothes and given you the best room in the palace, and that is because I don’t actually like you. Didn’t I kill my own men for you the other day? I suppose that was because I’m pretending as well.”

  “It was. You are trying to use me, to make me think that—”

  “We have had a number of conversations about how I can force you to do anything I like, and I have not used force against you once.” His eyes flashed.

  “That is part of your evil plan,” she said.

  “Oh.” He let out a wild laugh. “I see.” He turned his back on her and stalked across the room, heading for the door.

  “Are you leaving then?” she said. “Don’t you want me to accompany you anymore?”

  “You don’t want to accompany something as evil as me anywhere, I’m sure.”

  “Well…” She glared at his back. “Where did you want to take me?”

  He stopped, hand on the door.

  It was quiet.

  He bowed his head. Now, his voice was soft. “You are very wrong. You are one of the few people who can wound me with words, even now. You are the only person who I want to see me as…”

  “As what?”

  He turned around. “How could I be evil, Magda? What? Just because I have this magic? I was born with it.”

  “It’s unnatural.”

  “How? How is it any more unnatural than your magic? In fact, my darling, it’s the same. When you touch a plant and make it flower before its time, you call it growth, but growth is death. You hasten its end, just as I do. And when I touch a plant and make it wither, make it break up and fall apart in the soil, I hasten its ability to feed the new growth of a new plant, so I also make life.”

  She furrowed her brow, because that… well, that made too much sense. But then, he had always been good at talking, and that was what had gotten him in trouble with her father in the first place. That was what had cost him his cursed hand.

  “Nothing to say to that?”

  “I suppose I’m too stupid,” she said in a nasty voice.

  “My apologies, Magda, I shouldn’t have said that to you. You are not stupid.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say she forgave him. Forgiveness was the way that one responded to an apology, after all, but she wasn’t going to do that, because he didn’t deserve her forgiveness. All of this was a trick, and she could see that now.

  “The legions must come back and wipe you all out,” she said. “You must be back under our control. Look what you have done to the city. What havoc will you wreak on the world if left unchecked?”

  “The city was mostly like this when I arrived,” he said. “It was done primarily by human revolutionaries. They are the ones who started this. It is even human businessmen who are financing the war effort. So, if you think it’s all evil fae magic, think again, little Magda.”

  “But then you arrived and you took over,” she said. “Now the Croith—”

  “I want to take over,” he said, “but all men are beholden to their financiers. If you would help me, however—”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “Because I’m evil,” he said.

  “Precisely.”

  “Well, then, I now must insist you come along with me on this excursion I have planned. If you truly believe I am evil, I will want you to account for what it is we will see together.”

  “Insist, hmm? Is this when you start using force against me, then?”

  “Are you refusing to come?” He lifted his chin, waiting.

  She should refuse. She shouldn’t give in. But she was curious, and she was bored. And she couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said, about their magic being the same, about growth being death. “Well, as it happens, my day is quite clear of engagements.”

  He smirked. “Excellent news, dominissa.”

  “I suppose I have no reason not to accompany you.”

  He offered her his arm.

  She thought of taking Cassus’s arm in the capital and felt cold all over. What had she come to, considering taking the arm of a slave as if he were an equal? She couldn’t do it.

  Duranth uttered an annoyed sound, and then he stalked over and clasped her by the hand and dragged her out of the room.

  She didn’t resist, and she didn’t try to get her hand free from his.

  They went down through the palace, all the way down to the ground level, where a carriage was waiting for them, not an open chariot like last time, and she was pleased about this, because it was far too cold for an open chariot.

  They climbed inside.

  He let her sit opposite him on her own seat so that they were no longer touching.

  Inside the carriage, there was a stack of papers and a ledger, and he immediately began going through them, ignoring her entirely.

  The carriage ride was not too long, but he paid her no mind for the duration.

  They traveled out of the city gates to a ne
arby villa. It was in disrepair, the walls and part of the main house having been destroyed by cannon fire.

  There were fields and fields of corn, but it hadn’t been harvested in time and had withered on the vine. Some of it lay on the ground, rotting, other husks were browned and drooping from the plants.

  She gazed at the corn as they disembarked. “You took the workers from where they were needed.”

  “Hmm?” He was setting the ledger on the seat of the carriage.

  “The corn,” she said.

  “Ah, that,” he said. “Yes, it’s a pity that it wasn’t harvested. Interesting you noticed that right off.”

  “It’s not a pity, it’s a travesty, and it’s because of your rebellion. If that wasn’t happening, the workers would have been in the fields picking the husks.”

  “Well, cutting them down to feed them into machines, anyway,” he said.

  “Your financiers,” she said disdainfully.

  “Ah, you see, you are far less ignorant than I would have guessed.” He smiled at her. “Well, Magda, this is within your capability to remedy.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, not the corn on the ground, I suppose. That’s beyond your help. But the husks still attached to plants in the ground. Your magic could wind back the clock and bring back life to them, could it not? I have seen you do it before.”

  Her lips parted. “I… all of this? It’s fields and fields of it. I couldn’t possibly be strong enough.”

  “I could help you,” he said. “Together, our magic—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, I see what you are about, and I won’t ever, ever help you or use my magic to do anything you want me to do.”

  He nodded. “I see.” He shrugged, then, as if he hadn’t expected her to say anything different. “Let’s go inside.”

  He escorted her down the drive and into the house, which was in as much disrepair as the rest of the place, badly vandalized inside, and full of people—former servants and slaves, she supposed. Many of them were human, but there were also a number of fae. They were all rushing through the place, carrying various things—sheets, pots and pans, pokers for fireplaces.