“Don’t be a fool.”
“I’m getting tired of you ordering me around.”
“Normally, I’m all for a good fight,” Kiva cut in, “but Malkin’s seen Caylus.”
I sidestepped Samra. The two soldiers had pulled Caylus through to the front of the crowd.
Malkin’s full lips spread into a smile worthy of a fox. I wanted to break his jaw.
“Caylus Zander,” he said, his voice saccharine. Dangerous.
Caylus didn’t respond.
Malkin rose. A long blade at his hip shifted as his hand settled on the ornate hilt, white as bone and inlaid with swirls of gold and black coral. He descended the dais, slowly, purposefully, each step a statement of power, of control. He stopped before Caylus, and my fingers went to my bowstring.
Malkin reached out, taking Caylus’s chin in his hand. A shudder rolled through Caylus’s shoulders, his muscles going taut as Malkin tilted his face up, then to the side, as if inspecting wares for purchase.
When he let go, Caylus let his head drop. His chest rose and fell in quick bursts, and my mind raced back to the night he’d told me what Malkin had done to him. The torture, mental and physical, that he’d endured at this man’s hands for so many years.
Seeing them together now, I knew he hadn’t told me everything.
My mind worked quickly. Even if I put an arrow in Malkin’s chest, the guards might turn on the crowd, and Caylus was in the center of it.
“You owe me a great deal of money,” Malkin said. His voice, his movements—they were all gentle, like sharp teeth grazing softly along bare skin. “Perhaps you’d like the chance to fight for it? We were just getting ready to organize some…entertainment.” His eyes slid to the bloodied man on his knees.
Still, Caylus said nothing. How much of what Malkin said even registered?
Malkin tilted his head. “If you win, I’ll grant your freedom. If you lose…” He crouched before Caylus, leaning forward to whisper something in his ear. Caylus jerked back, the two guards on either side of him forced to brace themselves to keep him still. Malkin’s fingers brushed Caylus’s cheek in a soft caress before he stood, a satisfied smile spreading across his lips. As if the reaction was all he’d wanted.
Malkin waved a hand. One of the guards pulled out a knife, shearing Caylus’s shirt from his body in one cut and leaving a glaring red line in its wake.
Corded lines crisscrossed Caylus’s back, their pale white stark against what little golden skin remained untouched. Someone had whipped him, savagely and more than once. Most of the scars were old, but a few were still the thick rises of wounds healed in recent weeks, likely dealt days before Caylus escaped to Illucia.
My stomach churned. But it wasn’t the scars that made my throat close and my breath catch. It was the way Caylus’s shoulders sagged, the way his head hung. Quiet. Withdrawn.
Defeated.
Fire danced along my skin, hot and sharp. Res’s concern flared along the bond.
“Thia—” Samra began.
An arrow flew a breath from Malkin’s face, thudding hard into the throne behind. I’d nocked another one before it even struck.
The hum of voices died. A hundred pairs of eyes swung toward me, Malkin’s included.
“Let him go,” I ordered.
His gaze slid over me in the slow movement of a knife skinning an animal.
“A friend of yours, Caylus?” he asked. “Not the Rhodairen princess I’ve heard so much about?”
I aimed the arrow straight at Malkin’s heart. “You have one chance to leave my people be. Board your ship, leave Isair, and never set foot on Rhodairen soil again.”
Malkin tilted his head. “And in exchange?”
“She doesn’t put an arrow in your heart,” Kiva growled.
“How magnanimous of you,” Malkin said with a laugh. “But I think you’ll find you’re greatly outnumbered.”
