“It’s this way!” Yezedi hissed, heading to the hall on the right. They both looked identical—plain grey walls, sterile white floors.
Klaus shook his head. “No. I know it’s this way.” He gestured to the left.
Scarko slumped between them.
“Klaus, you can’t find your way out of your own socks sometimes—”
They froze as someone appeared from a door on the hall to the right, the one Yezedi had wanted to lead them through. Someone tall, in a black prison guard uniform, hard jaw line, greying, tidy hair. He looked like the human form of a rock, Scarko thought fleetingly. She almost wanted to laugh. This dream was wild.
At once, Yezedi and Klaus straightened, gripping Scarko more roughly around her upper arms. She slumped to her knees and they tugged on her, faces stern.
The prison guard strode toward them, eyes narrowed as he searched Yezedi and Klaus’s faces, took in their uniforms. Yezedi’s was two sizes too big, Klaus’s too short in the arms and ankles.
“Just getting this one to piss in a bucket. Smells so bad in solitary you can’t breathe,” Klaus said with what Scarko thought was real revulsion in his words. A smile formed on her cracked lips.
The real guard drew closer, the sword on his hilt catching the light from a lamp overhead.
“I don’t recognize you,” he said to Yezedi.
Klaus laughed. “She’s new. Not much help, really,” he gestured to Scarko, sagging between them. “Having to carry her myself.”
The real guard looked to Scarko for the first time. “The Vraka girl,” he mused.
Was he as dumb as a rock, too? Scarko wondered.
But then his eyes snapped back to Klaus and roamed over Yezedi. He unsheathed his sword. “Where is Liam? Erik?” He took another step toward them, his jaw set, eyes narrowed, roaming over Klaus’s and Yezedi’s stolen uniforms.
“Look, we really didn’t want to do this, but—”
Before Klaus could finish his sentence, Yezedi let Scarko go, and thrust her hands out wide, a wall of flames conjured between the real guard and the three of them. It licked the ceiling, singeing it black.
“Great,” Klaus muttered. In one swift motion, he slung Scarko on his back, and together, he sprinted with Yezedi down the hall opposite the man, the fire raging behind them amidst the guard’s screams of rage.
Klaus ran, Scarko jostling on his back. “I told you it was this way,” he ground out, and sure enough, two doors ahead with glass windows showed darkness outside. Scarko grinned. This was a good dream, she thought.
She wondered when it would end.
As Klaus powered ahead, Yezedi sprinted beside them, hands ready to open the door for the three of them. Three guards skidded in front of them, blocking the exit, swords drawn.
“Halt!” the middle guard commanded, and Yezedi groaned.
“I really didn’t want to burn this whole damned prison down,” she muttered, thrusting her arms out wide again as Klaus jerked to a halt, just out of reach of the guards’ swords. More fire spewed from her fingers, and the guards darted out of the way. As quickly as the fire had sprung up, it died out, and Yezedi flung open the doors, screaming at Klaus to hurry. He did so, going through the double doors with Scarko on his back, and Yezedi sent another wave of fire crashing behind her as they made their way out into the darkness of Kezda.
Scarko took a deep breath, close to Klaus’s ear.
The outdoors smelled of the sea, the cold frigid against her skin, as all she wore was the prison jumper. But it was enough to be free, she thought, enough that in her dream, she got to see the outside once more.
17
An Intimate Moment…Kind Of
Penance is pain. The words from the Holy Writ rushed over her as she turned over in a soft bed, pulled a sheet over her head and kept her eyes closed, feeling her entire body throb with her movements. If penance was indeed pain, she had suffered enough pain to last her a lifetime. No more penance, she thought. She didn’t care what Vojtech said.
Wake up. A voice, not hers.
Her eyes flew open, and she pulled the blanket from her head, blinking in the darkness around her. Was this still a dream, like all the others in the Kezdan prison? She wasn’t in solitary confinement, not that she could see, but she didn’t trust her eyes. Yet, the pain felt so real, in her head, her throat, her wrists—the manacles gone, she realized with a start.
And that voice…she hadn’t heard it in the prison, not when she decided she would rather die than get thrown back in with the Praeminister.
She shuddered, and slowly sat up, looking around.
She was in an unfamiliar room, large and expansive. An entire wall of windows, curtains pulled back, showed her the moon over empty streets. Large brick houses, well-kept lawns, and there, half-hidden from view by a cathedral spire, was a square courtyard.
Mill Square.
The hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end, and she drew her bruised knees closer to her body, looking down at what she wore—a black robe, long sleeves, trailing down to her ankles. With a stifled gasp, she realized she recognized the loose robe.
But no one else was in this room. The wooden floors were clean, a few decorative rugs thrown about, an armoire on one wall, and a single candle burning in the window pane of the wall of windows. It smelled of herbs here, earthy and subtle. The blanket from the bed she had pulled up now to her chin was thick, dark red.
She had never seen this room before.
The last room she had been in had been at the Kezdan prison. She glanced at her palm, the one with white scars, and a few more recent wounds. One from the shard of the clay jar she had been about to stab into her neck, to let herself bleed out in the Kezdan prison.
Frowning, she tried to recall what happened next. Yezedi had come, and Klaus. Her friends had dressed as guards, had used their magic to get out of the prison. But that had been a dream.
“It wasn’t a dream.”
She jumped at the voice by the entrance to the room, opposite the windows, the door opened just a few inches. Beyond it, she could see a smooth, pale face, eyes nearly white, two ivory horns curling upwards from long obsidian hair.
Her mouth fell open as the Djavul came sweeping into the room. Gracefully and quickly, he crossed it to her bed, reaching for her hand with long, pale fingers.
She extended one hand, and he clasped it in his own, bent down and brushed a kiss against it.
“This is real?” she asked quietly, her voice still hoarse.
Vojtech nodded, adjusting his silk black cloak, and sitting beside her on the bed, his long legs stretched out before him on the wooden floor. He still held her hand in his, and his light eyes swept over her, appraising her.
“Yezedi?” Scarko asked, her hand nearly trembling in his as she thought of her time in the prison. The Praeminister. “Klaus?”
Vojtech smiled softly. “They are both well. Downstairs.” He frowned as he continued, “Although the guards that tried to stop you…” He sighed. “Not so well.”
She had so many questions. Everything Zephir had told her, everything she didn’t know, and Rhodri…but as she gazed at Vojtech, she could think of nothing to say. Nothing at all.
“I’m sorry,” Vojtech said after a moment, glancing down at their entwined hands.
She took a rattling breath. “For?” she asked.
Vojtech’s eyes swept up to hers, and he reached out the hand that didn’t hold hers, tucking a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. “For sending you here. Alone.”
“But the gods—”
Vojtech shook his head, stopping her words. “I know.” His voice was soft. “What hurts?” he asked.
Everything, she thought.
“Nothing.”
He laughed softly. “You’re a bad liar, Scarko Kadezska.”
A shiver went down her spine at her full name on his lips. “Everything,” she admitted.
A dark shadow crossed his face. “I shouldn’t have sent you here.”
What if he thought her weak? That she couldn’t assassinate one boy, one boy without any magic of his own? An orphan on Kezda’s streets?
And yet those things that boy had told her…and Rhodri…
“I’m sorry I failed you.” She couldn’t stop the apology, even as the doubt tried to sort itself out in her mind.
Don’t be sorry. That voice that wasn’t hers. And it was…angry.
Vojtech looked stung by her apology. “Don’t.” He let go of her hand and stood, walking slowly to look out the window at the port city’s streets.
“Where are we?” she asked.
He didn’t look back at her as he answered, “We borrowed this house.”
Scarko wondered if the owners were dead or alive, but she found she didn’t quite care. Her mind was muddled, her body throbbed. All she could think of was her failing, and her confusion.
“I didn’t kill him.” She felt it best to get that out of the way now, rather than later, lest the Djavul decide he didn’t want to bring her back to the Order after all.
He still didn’t turn to her as he spoke, hands clasped behind him, hair hanging down the middle of his back, thick and dark. “I know. I suppose that’s why he’s locked in the basement of this house as we speak.”
“He—what?”
Finally, Vojtech turned to gaze at her, a quizzical look on his face, as if there was something he hadn’t quite figured out yet.
“He betrayed you. I’m sure you know that, considering Klaus and Yezedi sprung you from that wretched cell. He lured me here, to find you, with blackmail. Clever, I suppose.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “But Emil and Alexander found him as he left the prison yesterday to visit you. He might be immune to our magic, but he’s not immune to a blow to the head.” He sounded as if he were merely reporting the weather, musing on whether or not it might rain.
“He told me that he knew you.” Scarko fiddled with the fabric of Vojtech’s borrowed black robe. She found that even as she said the words, part of her didn’t want to go down this road. And there would be more, still, with Rhodri. But for now…
Vojtech nodded, pursed his lips. “In a way.”
“That you loved his mother.”
His eyes flashed to her, and she felt her entire sore, aching body go still. Inhumanly fast, he crossed the room to her, peering down at her with his nearly-white eyes.
But Scarko didn’t stop. “Said he was kidnapped, with his mother, sold into a brothel. You didn’t come for them.”
“That’s a lie,” Vojtech hissed. “I came. When I found her, she was not…who she had been. She did not want to come back with me.”
Scarko’s heart twisted. It was almost worse than Zephir’s version of events. “You left her? At the brothel?”
Anger passed over Vojtech’s face. “What would you have had me do, Scarko?” His words were an angry taunt. “Drag her, kicking and screaming, through the Skov forest? Across the Gotheberg desert?”
“Drug her with mindeta?” Scarko suggested.
The Djavul laughed, low and unamused. “Since you seem to have lost all of your morals in the few weeks you’ve been in Kezda, I assume that does, indeed, seem like a good plan to you.”
“He told me other things, too.” Her next words were part of a lie, and that voice in her head, that musical lilt that belonged to Rhodri, seemed to approve. “He told me that the Order used raptum and mindeta on its own.”
Vojtech took her chin in his hands, gazing down at her. She didn’t look away from his stare, didn’t try to pull from his gentle grip. “Is that so?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“And do you suppose it was wrong to try to strengthen my military? The Missionaries? To help us all sleep better at night?” His eyes roamed over her face. “Surely you didn’t mind the mindeta they poisoned you with in your cell when it helped you sleep?” His voice was crooning, but something dangerous lurked in it, too.
“But raptum calls for…”
“Raptum is no different than your hunger for blood, Scarko,” he said gently. “I never killed any of our own for it, but none of you are immortal.”
She turned her head away, and he let her go.
He reached for her hair, stroking it between his hands carefully. “I didn’t listen to the gods once, when they told me to kill that wretched boy’s mother, when she came trying to blow up my Order. I didn’t listen because I saw goodness in her. I thought she could change things. She did. She is why we no longer use raptum or mindeta.” He sighed. “But she died anyhow, didn’t she? It’s why I sent you, just how they wanted.”
This was why he was a slave to his visions, to his gods. He had lost Zephir’s mother for betraying them.
Scarko turned to him again, and he let his finger trail down her cheek, over her lips. Despite her pain, despite the ache in her head, she felt a burning longing as his finger traced the pattern of her mouth. He bent gracefully to sit on the bed beside her, pressing his forehead to hers, his cold finger still trailing her mouth.
“You have so many bruises, Scarko.” He trailed his finger along the side of her head, the one that had ached so badly when she first came to in the prison. She flinched, and he moved his hand to her lips once more, his thumb pressed into her lower one. His eyes were on her mouth as he spoke. “I should never have let you go. Let them do that to you.”
She could smell him, fresh earth, clean, comfortable.
“Vojtech, it was my own stupid—”
“Shhh,” he pressed his thumb gently on her lower lip, eyes still on her mouth. “Don’t say those words. Not about yourself. And besides, there will be time for penance later. Now…” His fingers trailed down her chin, coming to rest on her throat, feeling her pulse beneath his hand.
He looked to her eyes once more, his own pale pink lips parted.
Her hands trembled at her side; all thoughts of the prison, the pain, the Praeminister, Rhodri—they were gone for the moment. She could only think of Vojtech, of how he had welcomed her to the Order, how he did not recoil when she fed, how he had cared for her in his own way, the only way he knew how.
He dipped his head, tilted it as his lips hovered over hers. He waited, as if in question, as if daring her to meet him halfway.
She pressed her lips to his, closing the inch between them. His hand tightened, gently, on her throat, and a groan came from his own throat as his lips claimed hers, cold and soft at once, his tongue parting her mouth. She let him, her own tongue wrapping around his. Her hands had ceased to tremble, and her body felt warm, flushed.
Don’t.
That voice. Rhodri’s voice. Full of pain. Her eyes flew open, but there was nothing, no one else. Just her and Vojtech.
One hand still on her throat, he wound the other in her hair, pulling her toward him, and his tongue ran over the length of her teeth. She pulled his bottom lip in her mouth, and without warning him, bit down, hard.
He groaned louder, and the taste of his blood filled her mouth, hot and sweet on her tongue. She moaned against his open lips, and his hand on her throat went lower, past the bird skull necklace, between the open robe she wore, cupping her breast in his cold hand. She shivered, and he abruptly dipped his head, pushing her back gently on the bed. He let his hair fall over her exposed chest, scraping one horn against her throat, trailing gently down her chest, circling over her hard nipple, and then…
Don’t. Please.
Rhodri. He had…pleaded.
She gasped, and backed away, knocking her head against the headboard of the bed, the Djavul’s hands and horns off her, the taste of his blood still on her tongue. Her eyes were wide, and she was panting.
Vojtech sat up, his brow furrowed, completely in control once more save for that small movement.
“Scarko?” he asked gently, as if nothing had happened at all.
“I’m sorry, I—”
He stood gracefully, his black robes billowing around his towering figure. “I’ll come back in the morning. Until
then, you are well guarded, and Klaus and Yezedi will be glad to see you tomorrow.”
He walked from her bed as she tugged the blankets over her chest.
“Goodnight, Scarko.”
As if nothing had happened at all.
18
Yezedi is the Wisest
Yezedi found her way to Scarko’s bed as the sun rose over the wealthy district of Kezda. She wore a beige cloak, her braids spilling down her back, sharp cheekbones like mahogany cream in the early morning light that streamed in the large bay of windows. She climbed into bed beside Scarko, propped up on one elbow, hand tucked under her chin.
“Rise and shine,” she said quietly, with a smile. Cold seemed to radiate off her body.
“Where have you been?” Scarko asked, rubbing her tired eyes. She did not sleep after Vojtech had left. Rhodri had not spoken again in her mind. She realized that night, after he had gone, she would not tell Vojtech of him yet. Could not.
Now, she leaned back against the headboard, looking to her friend.
“Gathering your meals,” Yezedi said in response to her question, wrinkling her upturned nose.
“Thank you,” Scarko paused, “for saving me.”
Yezedi shrugged. “It’s what friends are for.”
Scarko smiled. Friends.
“About that slap I gave you…”
Scarko rolled her eyes. “I don’t want an apology because you won’t mean it.”
Yezedi looked as if she were considering, then sighed. “You’re right,” she admitted at last, laughing.
Quiet blossomed between the two of them, the sounds of someone clunking about downstairs, of hooves on cobblestone streets outside. In the distance, Scarko could see emerald green soldiers walking about the square, Vokte police alongside them.
“Does anyone know Vojtech is here?” she asked, drumming her fingers on her covered stomach.
Yezedi smiled. “Only that horrid Zephir Crista. And he’s…indisposed, so…no.”
“What has Vojtech done to him?” Scarko asked, curious.
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