Vaasa hated herself, but she leaned into his touch. If Reid was arrested, she would use every weapon in her arsenal to get him back. She didn’t care what it cost her. “I’m planning an assassination,” she confessed. “In exchange for her brother, Sachia’s crew will do the dirty work. Ozik and Lord Karev will die. You and I will narrowly escape. It’s meant to happen on the night of my formal engagement party.”
Roman’s lips parted. Closed. “Did you know that she was housing Reid of Mireh?”
“No, I swear it,” Vaasa whispered, hoping he might be delusional enough to believe her. “I met a salt lord, but that’s it. Karev met him, too. But Reid of Mireh was nowhere to be found.”
Her words seemed to confirm something to Roman, some detail she didn’t know clicking into place. “That’s why you insisted on going to the prison. To help Sachia find her brother.”
“Yes.”
“You should have asked me,” Roman said.
“I didn’t know if I could trust you yet.”
Roman curled his hand around the nape of her neck, still on his knees but rising enough to meet her almost eye to eye. His touch was gentle now, not a trace of a threat within it. “And now?”
“And now I know you’ll do anything it takes to help us win the throne,” she whispered back.
“Anything,” he confirmed. Roman stared at her, his eyes wild with fury and desire. Revulsion twisted in her abdomen, her hand still clutching that necklace with everything she had as he leaned closer. As his mouth approached hers.
No, no no, she thought.
He brushed her lips with his own, and Vaasa fought her body’s natural reaction to tense. She let him kiss her once, twice, and then she prepared to rip their mouths apart, to make some excuse about how she couldn’t risk this when everything was coming to a head.
But the carriage lurched, and Roman released her, backing up to his seat like a frightened animal. Vaasa looked down at her lap, putting a hand over her mouth as if she were surprised.
“No one will know,” Roman swore quietly.
Vaasa lifted her gaze, grateful for the space between them, the lingering taste of him brief and unwelcome. But it had to seem stolen, like some small thing she had allowed herself. She forced her body to stay open to him, as though the brief kiss had brought them closer, not further apart. “Has Ozik returned to the fortress?” Vaasa asked.
Roman frowned. “Ozik never left. He’s been locked in his quarters for days, hasn’t come out.”
Vaasa sat up fully. “What?”
“He claims to have a flu,” Roman said.
Vaasa clamped her lips together, confusion rattling her to the bone. Slowly, she released the necklace, careful to control the tide of magic that swept through her. Her breath caught, and she winced, placing her other hand on her throat, pretending it was only the pain. The magic stretched her skin, sunk claws into her abdomen. She didn’t want to breathe.
But she did.
Vaasa reached for that connection between her and Ozik, feeling for the cords still knotted around her insides. It was a shimmering beacon. Her own magic brushed upon it, and as Vaasa followed it, she allowed the channel to open the way she had a few times now. She waited.
And then it slammed across their bond, that miserable, awful keening. A tormented cry that echoed in her ears. All Vaasa could see in her mind was the curve of Julianna’s smile, the vivid pink of the flowers Ellena had strung together in a bracelet. Everything Vaasa felt and heard and saw was washed in vibrant crimson. The color smothered the cords. Vaasa squeezed her eyes shut, sure she could hear Ozik screaming in the haze of it all. Wetness rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t be sure if they were her own tears or if they were Ozik’s.
Something was terribly wrong. She needed to find Ozik.
“Vaasa,” Roman said.
She shook her head, tucking herself in tighter. “I’m just—” She swallowed. “Scared.” She wasn’t sure she could even form words through the wrenching of her soul.
“We’ll get you back to the fortress,” Roman promised.
Ozik, she whispered in her mind, just like she had in the mausoleum.What happened to them? What happened to Julianna and Ellena?
The cords tightened. The screams went quiet. Cut off, like someone slammed the door on the room where the sound emanated. Silence echoed in Vaasa’s mind. She breathed and breathed and breathed.
Ozik?she whispered across that binding.
His voice was a mere whisper in time, an exhausted push of breath.You are not the only victim of a bargain, Vaasalisa.
