She eyes me with suspicion, hand still at the ready to throw a plate when needed.
“Please. Otherwise Loegria and Alarice are both doomed. And the Kilandrar will find me and kill me.”
She’s still looking at me, her dark eyes shining with empathy instead of disgust.
An understanding passes between us, and for the first time, I feel seen—honestly seen. This is my chance, and I take it. “I need a cover story for this journey to the Waste, and I humbly request your help. I’ll do whatever you ask of me in exchange. This is a business proposition, so name your terms. If you want payment, I will see that it’s tripled. You said you want to get out of this town, to travel? You have no obligation to marry me once this is over. It’s just for show.
“I left the capital with war looming, and every day I’m away is one my father spends preparing to face the Usurper without me. But this is the final, necessary step. I have the Rings of Fate, and I need to get them out of me before Penrith invades.”
Aren keeps watching me cautiously, as if calculating many things at once. If she says no, I’ll need to rethink my whole plan. I’m not sure I’d have a plan at all.
“What will happen to the unification treaty if we don’t get married?” she asks. “After we’ve gotten the blessing from the Oracle?”
“Worried you’ll actually have to marry me?” I smile to lighten the mood, but the expression feels tight, like a grimace. I’m getting this all wrong. “Once I deal with the Rings—and pay you handsomely for your help, of course—we can always say that we discovered our insurmountable differences during the Wedding March. They don’t tell you this, but that’s one of the reasons to have a Wedding March: drag the newly betrothed couple from town to town for weeks on end and see if they kill each other. I’m told my parents almost did, several times.”
Aren laughs, a bright and welcome sound, and I’m almost convinced she won’t murder me during our journey.
“As long as we part ways before the wedding and there’s no divorce, it won’t be the worst scandal. The people are on edge because of the Usurper; I say why not give them something harmless to gossip about? I’ll go straight to my grandfather’s court, offer my profuse apologies, and meet a bevy of noble Alarician ladies who I’m sure will be thrilled I’m available once more.” I can’t help rolling my eyes. Aren laughs again. But then her eyes flick toward something over my shoulder, widening in alarm.
All at once, I’m ripped backward with such force, the air rushes out of my lungs. I’m briefly airborne before crashing into a nearby table. Pain pops along my back, sending white dots across my vision as I slam into another table, knocking it over.
My ears ring, and pain radiates up my spine. Tears blur my eyes against my will. Dazed, and gasping for breath, I lever myself upright. I come face to face with a creature of darkness. My stomach drops.
They’ve found me.
It’s the monster that haunts my dreams. I can see through its body to the other side of the tavern as it takes solid shape. Gray dust and dirt swirl around it like a humanoid tornado, growing stronger with each passing second. Tentacle-like appendages extend from its form, reaching for me.
Unblinking coal-black eyes stare back at me, strangely still and unchanged, as this creature made of wind raises itself up for another attack.
I sigh.
The Kilandrar are back.
Chapter Sixteen
Aren
What the hell is that?The creature came from nowhere, melting out of the air like fog, and when it threw Dietan against the wall, all I could do was scramble out of the way. Shaking, I duck behind the bar, peeking over the top of the counter.
This can’t be happening.
Kilandrar aren’t real. Despite being told the contrary, my brain refuses to believe the truth. And now one of those fuckers is in my bar.
We don’t have tornadoes here in the valley. I’ve only heard of the destruction a tornado leaves in its wake—how it darkens the land, rips through fields and homes alike, tears trees from their roots, shredding everything in its path until there’s nothing left. Nothing can be done to stop it.
And that’s what’s inside the Raven’s Beak. A living tornado stands before Dietan, growing darker and larger as it feeds off the air in the room. The fire in the hearth weakens, and the flames lunge outward, sucked into the creature’s vortex, before they sputter out.
Everything falls into darkness, but I can still make out its shape, swirling with the embers of the dead fire it consumed. It’s stronger now, its winds battering the windows from the inside, shaking the glasses on the shelf above my head and the floorboards beneath my feet. The roof is threatening to tear away like opening a jar of preserved peaches.
Its winds howl like a wild animal, and dear Goddess, that’s the Kilandrar speaking.Prince of Loegria…it says in a voice akin to screaming, keening gusts cutting through a gap in a window. I clamp my hands over my ears to cover its terrible sound.
Dietan scrambles to his feet and, to my shock, spreads his arms as if to shield me from the Kilandrar—but he looks injured and is moving too slowly.
The Kilandrar grabs Dietan and lifts him up. His feet dangle helplessly as he tries to grapple with the creature, but there’s nothing solid for him to grab. The Kilandrar’s arm encircles Dietan’s throat. There is a horrible noise, like the rushing of wind through a hollow tube.
Dietan’s mouth works helplessly, gasping for air that won’t come. His eyes bulge; his feet kick. He strains, trying to pull away, desperately pushing against the creature, but he’s caught in the air, as helpless as a fly suspended in a spider’s web. Baring his teeth, he claws at his own throat.
It’s stealing the breath right out of his lungs. It’s killing him.
