“I, like every last one of us here, am fully capable of owning anything I do,” Jakobi told Malachi tightly. “You don’t always have to play shield.”
Malachi ignored that. It was an old argument they weren’t going to have again right now. At least, that’s what he thought.
“Jakobi is right,” Shionne asserted. “Plus,youneed to walk a fine line between the acceptable level of brutality any monarch would use to reasonably smoke out and quell traitors and also not giving those who believe in the prophecy further cause to think it will come to pass.” The stubborn female raised her chin a fraction. “Iam more than capable of carrying out an inquisition in whatever manner is needed and standing behind it asmydecisions and actions thatIdecided upon as the fist of the crown.”
Malachi worked his jaw. He hated having politics dictate his actions—and then almost laughed at the ridiculousness of a king having such thoughts. “Fine. Have it your way,” he eventually told Jakobi and Shionne. What he spoke next to the entirety of his Cadre lifted his mood. “As for the fates of Lady Niyarreand the other lord primes at court, we’ll wait to take care of them until after Cassius’s challenge is put to rest. That’ll give any guilty primes time to hear about the inquisition and get sloppy when they hastily move to double-check that their own tracks are covered.”
He didn’t despiseallpolitical games, he mused. There was something to be said about the satisfaction that came with being the one pulling the strings, especially when those strings would prod his enemies straight toward their demise.
Chapter Eighteen
“IT’S. SO. HUGE!”
The stripling they’d brought with them gasped, looking up at the palace, green eyes aglow in wonder. The pitch of Theo’s deep voice was at odds with the childlike giddiness that underscored his words. Yet his levity was infectious. So infectious that Kadeesha found herself admiring the Apollyon palace with a similar zeal, and she didn’t even much like the court since it stood as a symbol of the king who called it home. However, she had to admit the Apollyon palace cut a striking figure each time she beheld it. And its beauty had nothing to do with the glimmering slabs of prized onyx and polished stone it was made of. It was magnificent because the place was a fortress in every sense of the word. She’d never seen a palace that was more unassailable. The hulking mountains standing sentinel at its back in the north were already protection enough. But whoever had scouted the land and advised where the stronghold should be built made brilliant use of the raging river cutting a path to the palace’s east, its turbulent waters crashing against the stone wall on that side. The south and west had no natural barriers, and the palace might’ve been easily assailable from those directions if notfor the wide moat that surrounded it, which Kadeesha suspected was deep enough to need to swim across. Which left only two ways into the palace: either via the drawbridge they stood upon or by flight overhead. And even then, myriad archers were stationed atop the walls and gargantuan towers. As if that wasn’t daunting enough, stone and onyx sculptures of great legendary beasts ran the length of its battlements, making the Apollyon Court’s stronghold both more arresting and intimidating.
“Careful. I might start to think you fancy being here by the awestruck look on your face,” Malachi spoke low into her ear. His deep, quiet timbre was like soft thunder, and it traveled straight to between her legs. She locked her knees, intent on banishing the sensation.
Not that she had much success.
When she turned his way, Malachi’s piercing brown stare held its usual arrogant gleam—an observation that should’ve helped, not hindered, her goal.
She scowled. “Not at all. I’m merely gauging how much firepower it’d take for my kongamatos to burn the whole thing to the ground if I were to fly them overhead.”
The Apollyon king scoffed. “You may think your beasts infallible, but my archers are well trained and shoot arrows forged by void magic, which I’ve demonstrated works very well against a kongamato’s fire. I promise you, Princess, my castle is as impenetrable as it looks.”
Kadeesha raised a brow. “Are you certain of it? Perhaps we should test your confidence, Your Grace? We can call it a security trial: my war serpents against your archers. We’ll see how fortified against enemies you truly are.”
“I’ll pass.” Malachi responded dryly enough that Kadeesha gleefully surmised that, his boasting aside, he wasn’t onehundred percent certain his archers could fend off an aerial assault from her squadron.Good to know.
An amused chuckle caught her ear.
“What is so funny?” she snapped at Malachi, very much done with his ego and his games.
“Your desire to slit my throat in my sleep if not for your binding oath is showing,” he answered smoothly. Just as silkily he added, “Oath aside, it’s a good thing that the only times you’ll be sleeping beside me are after I’ve fucked you so thoroughly that you’ve passed out.”
The stiletto tips of her nails pricked her palms when she curled her hands into fists. She imagined punching him. She imagined crashing her fist into his ever-smirking jaw, perhaps shattering it so she was spared of hearing his high opinions of his cock. “I imagine,” she said as silkily, refusing to give Malachi the satisfaction of seeing her ruffled, “that when the oath no longer stands, you’ll still want to sink your cock into me so badly that you will surely be as foolish as any other idiotic male and jump at the opportunity, believing you can control me and the situation. When you make that mistake,Iwill rideyouinto a stupor and, as you said, slit your throat in your sleep. Then, I’ll have your head. Perhaps I’ll do you the honor of turning it into a war room trophy, since you seem to love such adornments so much.” She uncurled her fists to study her nails, then looked up at Malachi, returning his arrogance in equal measure. “Another thing I’ll let you in on is even though I’ve told you how I will maneuver you to your death, it matters not. Because your ego will still make you think you can somehow enjoy the screwandbest me. I am going to relish staring you in the eyes and watching the light fade from them as you lament underestimating me and not being a wiser member of the cock-swinging club.” With thatshe strolled off, leading her sisters through the palace’s heavily guarded gates without waiting for Malachi to take the lead.
The earth trembled as she passed beneath the raised portcullis. She turned around to glare at Malachi, wondering how the hell he managed this latest trick with his void magic—only for the ground to once again lurch beneath her feet. Then it shuddered more violently. It took her brain a few ticks to catch up with what her eyes beheld: that Malachi was gazing around, bewildered himself.
“What’s happening?” she shouted over the cacophony of shouts from the guards on duty. It couldn’t be a land temblor, could it? They rarely occurred on this side of the Yunnas, were mostly common among the lands south of the range. She was pretty certain it wasn’t. But that meant whatever was causing the tremors was of a magical source—and not Malachi as she’d thought. Then who? Was it an attack? Some trick? Malachi’s rival cousin messing with him via some rune magic? Or was it void magic, as she’d first thought, but not from the Apollyon king?
Her mind was running through all the options so she could brace for whatever came next when the drawbridge behind Malachi started to roil. Then, it buckled, as if collapsing under some invisible weight. Behind it, chunks of silver stone and black onyx from the palace’s wall blasted through the air. Theo, standing paralyzed nearby, screamed. Kadeesha flung herself at the boy. They crashed to the ground and she pinned him under her, using her body weight. She slid her body upward so her torso covered his head, the most vulnerable body part on an immortal fae, as it was one of the few things that couldn’t regenerate with time. An endless deluge of stone and onyx debris smashed into the ground around them, smaller rocks pelting her back. Samira shouted her name, and, on blind instinct, shejerked both Theo and herself to the right just in time to avoid a boulder bigger than her head slamming into her. She threw up an impenetrable column of aether flames around herself and the boy, keeping them safe while incinerating every boulder that flew near. She cursed herself for falling victim to shock and not doing it sooner. The aether flames left her surrounded by a hazy purple wall. Kadeesha squinted her eyes, a nearly futile effort to sharpen her sight amidst the chaos raining down on her head, and looked around wildly for Samira and Leisha to erect a protective column around her sisters. She sighted Leisha, although barely, a few dozen paces to her left, and aether flames roared up around her second, ensconcing Leisha in a protective cocoon.
She then looked to where she’d last spotted Samira. Her third no longer stood to Kadeesha’s right. She yelled her sister’s name, even though Kadeesha knew it’d be impossible to hear her from within the tower of roaring flames and over the shuddering earth, which continued to groan and bellow as if thunder emanated from its very core. She kept searching the space around her, kept combing through the hailstorm of castle chunks hurtling down around them.
When the havoc stopped, when the earth stilled, when she could at last sever her flames and get a clearer view, Kadeesha leapt up and began searching for her sister in earnest.
“Samira!”
HE’D KNOWN THEquaking earth was no land temblor the moment the shudders began. He’d sensed the detonation of the staggering magic a heartbeat before all hell brokeloose. But there’d been no time to unravel the source, no time to warn anybody around. Now, he stood with breaths ragged in his chest. He stared down at Zayvier’s bloodied, mangled form. He tried to unsee Zayvier’s neck bent at a gut-churning angle and the left side of his face bashed in with chunks missing from it.He’s fae. He is immortal. He can heal.Malachi had to keep telling himself that, keep up the reassurance, or else he might rip the world to shreds in blind grief and rage. Zayvier’s still form shifted into that of his father’s headless body lying bloodied at the foot of his parents’ bed. Then, Malachi saw his mother’s headless corpse beside his father’s. Their heads lay inches away; the bloody stumps of their necks had made the younger version of himself who’d witnessed the horror vomit. He’d been there when his father’s high cleric, a supposed close friend, had swung the blade made not out of void magic but onyx and steel, a feat of metalworking that gifted a non-magical blade the ability to slice through flesh and bone as easily as if cutting silk and the power to withstand attacks from weapons forged from magic. In those last moments, his father had tried desperately to save his wife. But his efforts, the ferocity with which he’d fought, hadn’t been enough—
Malachi firmly shook himself out of the waking nightmare that he hadn’t slipped into since he was seventeen. Not that the memories weren’t there, but Trystin had found a rune around that time that could bury the images and nightmares that haunted Malachi deep in the black void of his mind. Apparently, seeing Zayvier broken had made the wretched things spring free. He snarled, because he couldn’t deal with that bullshit right now. He dropped to his knees beside his friend, placed his hands above Zayvier’s most life-threatening wound—the one affecting his head. The broken neck, a mature fae could survive. Buthis partially bashed-in skull, his mutilated brain … that posed peril. Malachi’s throat felt like it wanted to close. He swallowed. Blinked. Clawed past the grief rising up and all around him like a tidal wave. He pushed his void magic out of his palm, directing it to encircle Zayvier’s head. He shoved all the willpower he possessed behind the command that he bellowed out loud: “Heal him!”
Shadows slithered and writhed across Zayvier’s gravest wounds.Void magic and the darkness born from it destroys. Yet it also creates. And this has been its nature since the birthing of the faefolk from the black Void itself, his father had noted frequently when instructing him in his youth. Usually his void magic manifested as a terrible, icy, pitiless force that penetrated down to the bone, burrowed into the soul, and shredded both if Malachi willed it. But during the infrequent times that he chose the other facet of it, the part of his magic that bolstered life instead of annihilating it, the darkness that poured from him radiated a heat that left him feeling like a black inferno burned from within him. Malachi rarely drew on the healing aspect of his power, preferring to lean into his destructive urges. He also didn’t relish the physical discomfort. But heneededhis ability to heal to make itself useful now.
He hadn’t earnestly prayed to any Celestial in a long time—not since his parents’ deaths that a prophecy attributed to the Celestials brought on—but he let go of his pride and madly prayed to Nyaxia to help him keep Zayvier, a scion of Her court, on the right side of death so that he could keep advancing the court that had always remained dutiful to Her. He was rambling, he knew he was rambling, but the Celestials must operate according to give-and-take as the faefolk and all powerful species did, right?
Malachi grunted against the agony that lashed through his skull, the cost of healing another. He shook the pain off and focused with greater intensity on Zayvier’s mutilated head, swearing an oath to the Celestials that he’d endure an eternity of torment if it pleased them in exchange for Zayvier’s life. Time seemed to stand utterly still and race by too quickly all at once. A roaring kicked up in Malachi’s ears at the extended time it took—much longer than normal—to start to see the missing chunk of Zayvier’s head begin to reform. But it did eventually. Malachi’s heavy exhale echoed beside several others. The intermixed sounds made the rest of the world beyond Zayvier lying injured atop the rubble snap back into focus. He didn’t dare turn his head, lest a break in concentration halt the healing that had finally taken root. But he reached out with his senses and catalogued the rest of his Cadre that huddled around him. A second wave of relief rolled through him because the others were alive, more or less whole, and conscious. “I’m fine here,” he gritted out, the immense concentration causing pain to lance right behind his eyes. It struck sharp enough to make him need to blink away a brief dizzy spell. “Go!” he ordered his Cadre. “Go help whoever is injured and in need.”
