“Found the page?” She dropped his hands and backed away. “When did you find it?”
He immediately regretted the slip of his tongue. “That’s not important.”
“When did you find it!”
He winced at her scream. “In the Blue Capital.”
Her mouth fell open as pure betrayal and hurt contorted her features. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He tried to answer, but no words would come out.
A gasping breath left her. She stumbled backward and crashed into the table, nearly knocking over the oil lamp.
He rushed to her. “Yavi.”
“Get away.” She shoved him, gasping for air. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me!”
“Yavi, calm down.”
“No, you don’t get to tell me that.” She wrapped her arms around herself as if something had cracked inside. “You have known this whole time we were free, and you kept it from me.” Tears pooled in her eyes full. “Is this why you have been more attentive? To keep me complacent in this life? Bed me daily, and I’ll forget about everything else, is that it?”
“No, love.” He reached out to her again, but she jerked away. “I’ll find a way to help you escape.”
“Me.” Yavi’s face crumbled as she sobbed. “You always say you will set me free, but notus. You will never turn your back on him, will you? There is no hope for us. No hope for our future when you have already chosen this one. Why can you not understand that this is wrong? Why do you refuse to see?”
How could it be wrong? Von had been raised strictly by the laws of the God of Urn. He knew each one by heart, where they had been hammered like nails. Obey the God of Urn. Seek the God of Urn. Revere the God of Urn. Lest you be damned.
Von clenched his roughened hands, riddled with scars he’d earned serving his master. He was bound to this life. “This is the holy law. I made a vow.”
“What of the holy law regarding marriage?” she demanded. “You also made vows to me.”
He had no answer to that, too dumbfounded to reply. Which vow superseded the other?
Yavi shook her head, staring at him as if she didn’t know him. “You want to be his slave. That is who you are now. I’m nothing to you.”
“You’re my wife.”
“No,” she hissed. “I’m the mistress who warms your bed in secret whenever you wish. Tarn is the one who ruts you.”
He inhaled a stunned breath, his fists clenching. “I understand your anger, but you will not speak to me that way, Yavi.”
“Or you’ll have me whipped, master?” She faced the table again as more tears fell.
“I promise you will not always be a life-servant.”
While Tarn claimed Yavi as his slave, she truly belonged to Von by holy law. The right to free her was his. They only had to wait for the opportune moment she could escape.
Yavi scoffed. “You cannot keep your promises to me, Von. All of your pretty words are empty. All of your assurances are lies. He will always come first. No matter what I want or what you say, whatever Tarn commands you obey. He could order you right now to ride across the world on any errand he demands and you would do so without question.”
“Not without question,” he said, and his tongue soured.
That was the thing about lies. Sometimes they tasted like truths until one swallowed enough to tell the difference.
Yavi laughed, but there was no humor in it. The light of joy had left her eyes, and the warmth had left her face. She looked at him, and her distant gaze broke him in two.
“Alhaya,”she murmured. “You’re shackled to him, Von. Forever. Even with the key in your hand.”
Chapter 37
