“No. I’d even offer it to you as another accoutrement for your throne room, but when I am finished with him, there will be nothing left except ash.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
MALACHI DIDN’T WASTE ENERGY EXCHANGINGbarbed words with his cousin. As soon as he set foot on the arena sands, he nodded up to Nychelle, seated in a viewing box. Another thing Malachi didn’t bother with was sparing Cassius a glance. His cousin stood a few feet away, and Malachi could feel the heat of his glower. But Malachi paid the male who would be dead soon no recognition, keeping his gaze pinned on Nychelle as she bid a welcome to the lord primes and other nobles who’d come to bear witness. Well, hemostlylooked at Nychelle.
Kadeesha, seated beside his auntie in the damnable dress that hugged her so snugly it looked like she’d practically poured herself into it, kept drawing his eye … and causing a stirring that would be embarrassing considering what he was wearing … if such things embarrassed him. In the beginning, he’d been being an ass with the selection of dresses he’d picked out for her to wear during formal court events; he’d simply wanted to get under her skin. But now it was clear the joke was on him, because each sheer gown drove him insane with the need to rip it off her.
Soon, he promised himself.As in tonight.Right after he dealt with his cousin and several treacherous nobles.Thatparticular thought mostly snatched his focus away from theAether queen. Just thinking that title made him want to grind his teeth.How can she infuriate me and infatuate me at the same time?
Firmly shoving Kadeesha and everything related to her out of his mind, he shifted his focus and fastened his churning musings on the nobles seated in viewing boxes to the left and right of the box that Nychelle, Trystin, Kadeesha, her mother and Nikita, and his Cadre occupied. He was happy to see even Shionne and Jakobi were present. They’d returned from the Stone Keep to bear witness to the challenge as lord primes of their cardinal bloodlines.
It itched his ass that any among the traitorous lot still breathed, but he’d rectify that soon enough. His gaze traveled, specifically, over to Lady Niyarre and Lord Tareek, who occupied a box together. Arrenia was with them, and Malachi supposed that made them bold since Leisha hadn’t been able to get past the female’s mental ward. Even bolder, the Stone Warden leered down at Malachi, and Lord Prime Tareek shot him a look of pure disdain.Guess you don’t know about your daughter yet, you smug bastard.
He returned a feral smile to the pair that promised they’d die soon. For all their bravado, neither possessed the gall to hold his stare while it projected their impending deaths. Lady Niyarre blinked and turned away to speak to her daughter. Lord Tareek’s cool hazel gaze bounced to Cassius as he scrubbed a hand along his thick beard. Malachi grinned in earnest, relishing having rattled their nerves. Then he turned away from the nobles he’d placed on notice, and finally looked upon his cousin, who was about to depart this realm too.
There were two types of warriors: those who, when faced with an imminent threat, waited for their opponent to attack first, so they could discern how to best respond, and those who didn’t wait for shit, but moved to eliminate their adversary swiftly. In this, Malachi and his cousin shared an identical trait. He barreled at Cassius just as savagely as Cassius rushed at him. They were two hurricanes that slammed together, and it was as if a burst of energy exploded throughout the arena. It wasn’t truly magic, as the use of such power was barred from a challenge for the throne—the victor would cement their right to rule atop nothing except brute strength—but there was a charge in the air nonetheless as Malachi’s and Cassius’s hulking forms clashed in the middle of the sands. Malachi pushed Cassius away, fist colliding with Cassius’s throat, making him heave, but not incapacitating him enough that he couldn’t respond with a bare heel driving into Malachi’s left ribs, breaking one—or three, if the intense pain that radiated from the site was anything to go by. Malachi grunted, and returned the favor, dropping low and slamming an elbow into Cassius’s upper abs. His cousin stumbled backward while gasping for air in a ragged manner that told Malachi he’d accomplished the damage he intended.
Just like magic, actual steel—swords, daggers, knives, scimitars—was not permitted either.
And Cassius momentarily forgot that.
He reached for the tacky, jewel-handled broadsword he usually kept buckled at his waist. Before he could realize his error, Malachi hammered a jab to his exposed face, shattering his cousin’s left eye socket. He paid Cassius’s right eye the same attention quicker than his cousin could recover. He could’ve aimed lower, finished the job of crushing Cassius’s windpipe and incapacitated him. But he had a point to prove. Several, actually.He drove his fist into his traitorous cousin’s jawbone, splintering it next. Cassius’s sternum, upper ribs, right hip, left knee—Malachi cut him down piece by piece, blow by blow.
When Cassius was on his knees, hands braced against the sand, blood staining the fine grains and making them clump together, Malachi stooped, trying not to wince at how much it reminded him that he had some broken ribs. He brought his lips close to Cassius’s ear, so his voice wouldn’t carry to those Malachi wanted to keep in the dark a few moments longer, and he snarled quietly, “You are an idiot, cousin. Niyarre, Tareek, the other fools within the Cleric’s Rebellion—none of them actually support you claiming the throne. They turned you into their puppet. They sought to use you only to take me out—a task you never had a hope in hell of achieving, which you and the others should’ve known. Even if you had somehow achieved that task, Lady Niyarre planned to kill you. She planned to claim the Apollyon crown for herself. And she’s already been working with Rishaud, because he now steers the Cleric’s Rebellion, you dumb, traitorous fuck.” Cassius’s eyes widened—as much as they could in their destroyed, swollen state—with denial and shock. It was priceless. Malachi might’ve gloated if the situation wasn’t so severe. “This illustrates the difference between you and I, and why I will always be a superior choice for ruler,” Malachi lectured his cousin. “I am many things, but I make it a point to know not just my enemies, but all the Apollyonfolk’s enemies. Know them intimately, and discern who is truly for and against us. Those who are not faithful to either, I end them. I am not my father and never will be, and treating me as if I am was your first mistake,” he let Cassius know. “I’ll never be willfully blind, or leave my flank exposed.”
Malachi punched his fist into Cassius’s chest then, rammedthrough skin and muscle and sinew and bone. He gripped Cassius’s heart and ripped it out. His cousin’s body hit the sand only a tick before the vital organ Malachi tossed aside. He stood and looked to Nychelle. His auntie raised her hand, slashed it vertically through the air in a swift, downward line. It formally signaled that the challenge was finished. Malachi pinned his stare directly on Niyarre and Tareek, letting the lord primes know precisely who they’d fucked with. He didn’t return his gaze to Cassius. He kept it trained on the treasonous nobles as he formed a void scimitar in his hand and swung it downward, cleaving Cassius’s head from his shoulders so that there was no chance he could ever be healed.
You two are next, his icy gaze roared.
FROM HIS SEATat the head table that had been placed atop the dais, Malachi’s peal of laughter at Jakobi’s latest crack rang out around the feast hall. His table was composed of all of his Cadre, who’d taken up seats in the chairs nearest Malachi. Nychelle and Trystin occupied the opposite end of the long rectangular marble table. Theo, the boy Kadeesha had insisted return with them from the Stone Keep, sat near his auntie and cousin. So did Yashira and all of Kadeesha’s Nkita, save Leisha. She and Kadeesha were on Malachi’s end. Kadeesha occupied the position directly on his right and Leisha sat directly beside her. It wasn’t lost on Malachi that Kadeesha took up the position that he’d install his queen in when he had one. It was traditionally a place of power and respect among co-rulers, and he would’ve balked at the way it felt as natural as taking his nextbreath for Kadeesha to sit there, if not for their latest bargain. The position at Malachi’s right side was also the seat of honor he’d offer to a visiting monarch, or another court’s ambassador that he didn’t actually loathe. He supposed he and Kadeesha had established something of the sort. Their situation … It wasn’t an alliance, but they’d at least achieved a mutual understanding to stay out of one another’s way after he wiped Rishaud from existence.
Picking up his goblet of spiced cognac, he sipped the contents and eyed Nychelle and Yashira’s interaction. The two were engaged in a clearly intense conversation. Although it didn’t look hostile … which unnerved him for some reason. They kept their voices low and heads bent toward each other, so Malachi couldn’t hear what they discussed. But their dispositions were quite interesting. So was his auntie’s tinkling, flattered laughter that was lively enough to reach Malachi’s ears. Similar laughter from Yashira followed behind it. He made a mental note to question Nychelle about it later. It was peculiar that she’d taken to an outsider so immediately—or even at all. But then he was handed some manner of an answer when Yashira, clad in a blue gown that had a similar fashionable plunging neckline as Kadeesha’s and long lace sleeves, trailed her hand down Nychelle’s arm, left bare by the strapless black gown his auntie wore. Nychelle abided very few individuals touching her besides close lovers and the few she considered confidantes. Yet Nychelle leaned into Yashira’s flirtatious caress. And she threw the Aether female a heated look instead of rebuffing her. His auntie’s eyes then snapped to Malachi’s watchful gaze. She looked … not exactly guilty. However, she definitely assumed an above-reproach air.
Very interesting.
He took another sip from his goblet before tossing his dearauntie an indecorous grin that would absolutely get him gutted later. However, it was worth it after the endless shit she gave him for indulging in his own pleasures. He cut the amused pondering short, though, for now. He had serious business to handle, a show to put on.
He scooted his chair back from the table. The raucous chatter, the tinkling of glasses, the up-tempo music played by a band of drummers and fiddlers, all ceased as soon as he stood. In a calculated move, he held his arm out for Kadeesha. Before he could glance down at her and beckon her to rise, she was already doing so, linking her arm through his. She was now playing the hell out of the role she’d agreed to with their initial bargain, he’d give her that. He admired her skill while filing away—though not for the first time—how exceedingly dangerous Kadeesha already was and how much more of a force she’d evolve into once she fully settled into the role of Aether queen.
“Before I bested my late cousin in challenge, there were two attempts made on the life of a visiting Aether Court royal, Kadeesha Mercier,” he told the gathered crowd of nobles, as well as prominent craftspeople and merchants who also floated among the court’s upper echelon. “While ordinarily such actions would be below my purview, these attempts against Kadeesha’s life were made after I presented her to this court as an acquired possession. Which means someone tried to kill, twice, an individual whom I’d formally claimed as mine.”
He started with the lesser of offenses first because he wanted to watch Lady Remi Niyarre and Lord Voshon Tareek squirm. He looked their way—the fuckers were seated at separate but adjacent tables, and he could almost respect their stony faces as they listened—and continued with “The first attempt on Kadeesha’s life presented as an assassin. He wore the ink of a StoneKeep soldier in Lord Prime Niyarre’s army. The second attempt was a poisoned gown, the same one Kadeesha wears, that was carried to her room by Lord Prime Tareek’s very own daughter. Obviously, Stone Keep soldiers and Lady Keeya Tareek were questioned about these happenings since, as a fellow royal, Kadeesha is owed a blood debt on two accounts. And other interesting details were unearthed amid these interrogations.”
He looked around the room, at who was paying him rapt attention and who was squirming. Malachi didn’t need to explain himself so fully. But it was quite delicious seeing Niyarre and Tareek finally exchange furtive glances. The Stone Warden cleared her throat as if parched and took a small sip of water. She then vigorously carved into the venison on her plate, the metal knife loudly scraping against the silver dish. Tareek, the spineless bastard, glanced at the doors to the feast hall.
“There is no escape,” Malachi imparted, gaze skewering the fool.
Splotchy red patches broke out among the lord prime’s tan face.
The whispers erupted then. Many more individuals exchanged panicked glances, catching on. It was the exact ripple effect Malachi sought. The most powerful players in the kingdom were gathered here; let them all understand that even suspected treachery would be addressed much differently under Malachi’s reign than the softer stance his father had adopted. “My quarrel, to start with, is with Lady Remi Niyarre and Lord Voshon Tareek,” Malachi declared to the hall. “Lady Niyarre’s own soldiers confessed to her having sent an assassin after Kadeesha to remove the possibility of me using the prophecy concerning the Aether queen to amass greater power. Do you deny this charge, Lord Prime Niyarre?”
She’d abandoned her knife and fork. She took her time sweeping her sheet of bronze hair over one shoulder. She then angled her chin into the air. “Even if I did, it is not in any breach of Court Law. The crown and lord primes have always existed in a delicate balance of power that both sides attempt to manipulate when it suits them.”
“While that may be,” Malachi said, “treachery does violate Court Law. Actively attempting to put yourself on the Apollyon throne is treason. So was detonating a magical bomb at the palace gates and killing Apollyon fae. And so is conspiring with the Cleric’s Rebellion that has gone to ground and the fucking Hyperion king who now steers it from the shadows!”
“You have no proof of such accusations,” the Stone Warden shouted, leaping to her feet.
“The confession came straight from Lady Keeya Tareek after Kadeesha scented Deathbane on her gown and questioned her about who’d tried to poison her,” Malachi responded.
