Maeve looked back up at Kietel. Her eyes desperate to close. To sleep. “Satisfied?”
He stared at Nicklefrost. “Unbelievably.”
Maeve wasn’t given a bath or a change of clothes. She sat uncomfortably opposite Kietel in his study for dinner. Maeve looked down at her plate, attempting to calmly eat. Dinners with Kietel were all she was given.
“You told Nicklefrost to hurt me.” She said.
She had realized it hours ago in her cell.
“I have it on good authority you need a little spite to strike.”
“I feel strange thanking you.”
Kietel stopped eating.
She jumped successfully. Without panic and without falling. And Felden had not pushed back into her mind like Kietel had. She remained in control until Kietel fired on her.
“I would like to make an offer,” said Kietel.
Maeve’s brows raised.
“Fight with me,” he said.
“You mean fight for you.”
Kietel broke their gaze, cutting his steak. “I imagine what it would be like to have you at my side, altering memories whenever necessary. Jumping through minds in a deadly manor. I wonder how powerful you could be with training and discipline. Just how far could you bend memory and time?” He sighed. “Makes me regret having taken you in this way. For I know that Pureblood pride will not allow you to join my cause. I fear you will waste that weapon of yours.”
Maeve was quiet for a moment. Reeve had called her a Warrior. The Orator’s Office had already named her Bellator. And now, Kietel named her a weapon.
Maybe she could be all those things. At Mal’s side.
“I read an essay you wrote last fall,” she said. “I was so inspired. So hopeful. None of us dared talk about it. Talk about you. Almost like it would jinx your existence.”
“I may not be The Dread Descendant, but I still intend to right the wrongs The Orator’s Office has done. Magic needs no law. No Officials no Committees.”
Maeve’s throat tightened.
He pointed a finger at her. “And you agree.”
“Of course I agree,” said Maeve with slow calculation. “How could I not?”
Kietel leaned back. “Have they picked one for you yet?”
Her eyes slid across the table. She scowled. “No.”
“Ah,” he said. “When is your twenty-second birthday?”
“In October.”
“Very soon then. How will your Dread friend feel to see you betrothed to another? Will he rip them apart too? Like you claim he will do to me?”
Maeve averted her gaze to the centerpiece of the table. Kietel continued.
“I remember what it was like to be your age, decades ago though it was,” he said. “I remember how I loved. So carelessly. Without a thought for reality.”
“Reality?” She asked softly. “If I am to breed” she spat, “then why not with him? If the goal is strong magical bloodlines. . .whose is stronger than his?”
Kietel stared at her. “I don’t need convincing. It is not my thumb you are under.”
