Smart kid.
“In situations such as this you would bow to show proper reverence before asking a boon of your king,” Jakobi supplied, amused.
The boy nodded and knelt. When he rose, he said, “I’ve always wanted to train to be a soldier. Not one of the warden’s,” he added hurriedly. “I would like … I mean, is it possible to come back with you to the palace and train to be a royal guard?” He pushed back his shoulders and held his chin high. “Among our kind, the reputation of your bloodline is the merit by which individuals get judged initially, is it not? Therefore, I would like it to speak to my merit and value as a royal guard-in-training. I am of age. Or, at least, I will be shortly. My seventeenth Naming Day is in five days’ time.”
“No.”
The boy seemed stunned by the word. Malachi continued,flatly, “You will remain with your mother.” He shrugged off the hurt that flashed in the boy’s eyes. Malachi admired his tenacity, but he was too young. He’d become an obligation. Even a ward, of sorts. And there was no way in hell Malachi was assuming that responsibility any sooner than he had to. As it would be when he took a wife, he’d put off actually creating an heir—a youngling he’d then be responsible for looking after and keeping alive—for as long as he could.
Kadeesha, to no surprise, cleared her throat. She, evidently, couldn’t help herself when it came to inserting herself into business that wasn’t hers. “I think you should consider his request,” she said firmly.
Of course you do.“I don’t give a shit what you think,” snapped Malachi. She was overstepping. She was here to play a role, not offer unsolicited opinions about how he ruled. The reminder almost rolled off his tongue. But with her people and his around, he then might have an incident on his hands because she’d surely try to filet him for it. Then his Cadre would react, making her Nkita react. Tempers flaring in private was fine. But such an episode in front of onlookers wouldn’t do because then he’d need to respond with violence. His enemies would perceive anything less as weakness.
“Is the path you ask to pursue what you truly desire?” Kadeesha asked the boy, ignoring Malachi’s ire.
“It is,” the boy stated emphatically. His eyes shifted to Malachi. “However, only if my king allows it.”
Malachi thought he might’ve heard something about the boy’s king being an ass that the princess muttered under her breath. She was racking up quite the bill that she’d pay for later. But still he said nothing.
“If you owe me a debt for what happened back at the palace,then I’d like you to grant the boy’s request as part of your repayment,” Kadeesha told Malachi.
“That’s not how it works, love,” he returned. “We’ve already negotiated the terms of my repayment and you only asked that you and your Nkita accompany me here.”
“Thatisn’t how it works and you know it,” Kadeesha argued back. “I was the wronged party, so the debt is repaid when I say it is repaid.”
Malachi gnashed his teeth. He didn’t relish being beholden to anybody for anything. It was both a matter of pride and an unacceptable vulnerability. “If I grant this latest request, youwillconsider my debt repaid in full,” he told the princess.
“Fine,” Kadeesha said immovably. Dark amethyst flames flickered within the depths of her brown eyes—a tell he was learning meant that she was annoyed. Malachi schooled his expression, didn’t show that it made his cock jump. Revealing her actual—and maddeningly perpetual—effect on him was another unacceptable thing. However, he couldn’t lie to himself; each time she challenged him, he enjoyed the dance.
“Your boon is granted,” he told the boy. “On one condition: Areyouall right with his request?” he asked the stripling’s mother.
She gazed at her son with a mixture of worry and pride for an extended time before turning to face Malachi. “I am,” she answered at last. She turned back to the boy. “Make good choices. Do not forget who and where you come from. Make your father and I even prouder than we already are,” she impressed upon her son.
Once more, Malachi locked his expression down. The woman’s words were eerily similar to the last sentences Malachi’s own mother had ever spoken to him. He’d been a boy ofseven—not nearly seventeen—when he’d heard them and his mother had then erected a rune ward around him that she’d prayed would hold even in her death. Malachi scrubbed away the memory he tried very hard not to ever revisit.
He now apparently had a new soldier for his palace. More important, though, he now had names of soldiers inthisstronghold that needed seeing to.
“You both should go—now,” he said to the mother and son. “Same for all of you,” he commanded to the other servants. Turning to his Cadre, he grinned viciously.
“Now we truly begin the hunt.”
Chapter Seventeen
THE GUILTY SOLDIERS THOUGHT THEY COULD FLEEthe palace and escape punishment while Malachi questioned the servants.Hilarious.
He caught up with the treasonous pricks about a hundred paces south of Cygrove’s borders. Malachi surmised they’d been headed for the southern lands. The fact that they’d made a run for it toward the Stone Dominion was even more laughable. Surely they didn’t think he feared repercussions of crossing into another monarch’s territory uninvited to execute them?
“I will ask you only once: Why did Lady Niyarre send an assassin to kill the Aether princess, whom I’ve claimed as my possession?” Malachi asked after he and his Cadre had surrounded them in the misty woods. Perhaps just as effective in keeping the soldiers cowed, however, was the fact that Kadeesha and her Nkita hovered in the skies overhead, their enormous kongamatos casting shadows over the area. “I want to know the precise game she is playing at, I want to know her ultimate goal, and I want the names of every lord prime you know of who is conspiring with her.” That last part was the most pertinent informationhe needed to unearth and the part that pissed him the hell off. That anyone had thegall…
He stared down the ten fae who’d cease to exist in a few moments, letting his glacial gaze show them how grisly their deaths could be if this interrogation displeased him in any way. Let them see that the path their demise took could be blessedly quick or torturously slow. The idiots decided to be silent.
The latter it is.
Malachi considered signaling Kadeesha and the kongamatos lower, but tossed the idea aside. The kongamatos’ mere presence in the skies was threat enough, and he much preferred to make the warden’s soldiers shit themselves on his own.
Shadows slithered forward, swirling amidst the thick mists of the valley. The fae cried out from the icy burn Malachi knew his shadows left behind as they manifested into solid things that locked around the guards’ wrists, necks, and ankles like manacles chaining them in place. His shadows yanked each one to their knees, then snapped their heads back so their chins were tilted upward, the easily shreddable flesh of their throats bared.
As he walked forward, Jakobi muttered, “This asshole isn’t about to let the rest of us have any fun.” A round of grumbles from the rest of his Cadre followed.
