“Yes,” she sputtered, her voice cracking.
“If you ruin this for me,” he warned, low and deadly, “I’ll hang you from the Sanctum myself. You and I could have been allies. I want you to remember that the next time you think about double-crossing me.”
Vaasa stayed absolutely still, and to her relief, Lord Karev’s weight lessened on her. He loosened his grip on her hair. His fingers left her scalp. Magic filled her body like a well, and she choked it back.
She should attack him. Kill him right where he stood. Vaasa rose from the smooth floor, shaking, and measured the space between them, wondering how many steps it would take to reach him, how much power would be necessary to choke him the way he had just choked her. Yet all that came was measured breath as her mind spun. Worked. As she did her best to survive this very moment as unscathed as she could.
If she let out her magic, she had no choice but to kill him, and there wasn’t a soul in this city who would believe she hadn’t done it. Not when it was only her and him in this mausoleum.They were looking for a reason to burn her at the stake. The city thought too much of her, the nobles too focused on the rumors they’d all whispered.
Power twisted in her gut, the cords that bound her to Ozik growing thicker, more menacing. They hummed with her rage. It all mixed in her body, the oil and the mist, the two power sources seeming to come alive. She felt him there at the other end, felt his power as if she could wrap her hands around it and pull.
As if it was hers to wield.
The door creaked. Vaasa whipped her head to the entrance. Roman sprinted in, looking more frantic than Vaasa thought possible. She held her ground, the fog of rage swirling in her mind.
His sword was drawn, and he looked between Lord Karev and Vaasa.
“Don’t worry, Sentinel,” Lord Karev drawled, his voice echoing through the stone chamber, far sturdier than before. “She turned in the Icrurian scum herself. She’s been safe in this room with me while we waited for the city to clear.”
Tears pricked at Vaasa’s eyes, but she didn’t say a word. She just stared at Roman. His gaze dipped to where she touched her neck. “Reid of Mireh was working with others,” Roman confirmed, only speaking to Vaasa. Delivering a report not to the lord, but to her. “I’m told they fled the scene.”
Sachia. Melisina. Koen. Vaasa couldn’t dare ask for clarification. Only one thing was clear: Lord Karev had orchestrated the arrest. He had somehow put it together.
She’d been a fool to believe two Icrurians could stay hidden in this city for long.
Vaasa’s chest rose and fell with her measured breaths. She had so little information, any assumption would be its own risk. Instead of spiraling, she schooled her features. The necklace in her pocket grew heavier. The tangled mess of magic in her bodystarted to expand. She would need to play every second correctly if she intended to survive. If she had any chance of getting this necklace back to Amalie.
With a salacious grin, Lord Karev stepped toward her. Vaasa twitched.
Roman took note of it. And like every time before, he said nothing. He did nothing. Not even as Lord Karev gripped just above her elbow, fingers digging into her muscle sharply. What was meant to be a guiding touch quickly transformed into a drag, and Vaasa stumbled over her feet. He pushed open the doors, and cold wind slammed into Vaasa’s face.
The moment they were in sight of the other sentinels, Lord Karev’s touch softened, and he caressed up her bicep before strolling away to where his own carriage waited.
Vaasa filled her lungs with biting air, fuller with each step he took away from her. He climbed the stairs of his carriage. On the left, her own carriage waited, manned by two fortress sentinels. The same ones who had taken her and Roman back the other night.
Men who were loyal to Roman.
“Heiress,” Lord Karev called, leaning out of his door with a tight grip on an iron handle.
Everyone around them turned to hear Lord Karev speak, and she understood the title to be a summoning. A demand. Vaasa halted, fist clenching. She lifted her eyes to meet his.
“I’m delivering our execution order tonight,” he said. “The Wolf of Mireh loses his head tomorrow.”
Our.Despite the rage that curled in her body, the sheer temptation to untether her magic and show this man what real power looked like, Vaasa nodded. She could kill every man in their vicinity. Could smother the breath from all their lungs. If she didn’t find a way to escape, this was how she would spend the rest of her life.
Roman approached but kept a healthy distance, likely aware that any proximity in front of Karev was the quickest way to be dismissed. Somehow, in the span of a few days, the lord had situated himself as the holder of the crown. It didn’t seem to matter that he wasn’t legally emperor or that they weren’t married—the moment this city was presented a nobleman with a semblance of a claim, they bowed.
Vaasa swallowed her fury. Longing burst through a dam within her; to be who she was before she’d come back here, to climb into Reid’s bed, to feel the trickles of magic upon her skin. She wasn’t certain if anything would be different, if their ending would have changed, but if she had just let herself love him, she would have had Reid for longer. She knew it now just as much as she’d known it on that platform staring up at Ozik.
But memories did not make the pain of loss worse. They made it worthwhile.
She should have loved him with every tremor of fear, with every quake of her cowardly bones. She should never have left him this morning.
“Tomorrow,” Vaasa managed through the tightness of her throat.
Lord Karev smiled with fabricated approval. “I believe we’re going to have a wonderful marriage.”
Vaasa bit the inside of her cheek so sharply, the metallic tang of blood trickled onto her tongue.
