The loud click of a solid door at the far end of the room draws her attention and I bolt. Ducking beneath low branches heavy-laden with a myriad of blooms, I round tall bushes covered in thick waxy leaves. I head toward any of the open windows that will allow passage to the northernlawns. My stomach wells with dread when her laugh chases after me, the female following close behind.
Each window slams shut the moment I reach for it. Every attempt to dart toward an opening and claim my freedom only ends up costing me precious inches of what little space remains between us. Until I am standing face-to-face with Vos, my back pinned against the cool stone wall of the palace.
“Shivaria!”
I want to weep when Xeyvian’s voice comes from the farthest side of the room, just as I hear the skirmish begin between the male I treasure and what I can only assume is a squad of Drakai. I won’t let myself consider his fate if it is the Vatruke and not the La’tari assassins he faces.
“So disappointing,” Vos says softly, her face contorting in mock sadness. “Will you only run? Or will you show me what the ancients would have me fear?”
I lunge at the female, swinging the pointed tip of my blade into my palm as I strike out at her chest. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink, as I thrust the dagger toward its mark only to be halted the moment it pierces her flesh. A single drop of blood beads and falls between her breasts.
Her head tips to the side curiously, her eyes squinting in confusion when she asks, “Why do you hold yourself back,Valtoura? You know as well as I do that your human form is not strong enough to wield those blades against the might of my power.”
Her eyes fall to the blades. Icy tendrils spread through my body, her gift threatening to tear the blades from my hands. My brow pinches down as they begin to slip, and I struggle to hold my last defense. It is no use to fight the might of her power. I know I’ve lost even before the blades fly free, one slicing a deep gash into my palm. They clatter, bouncing upon the stone path that I hoped would lead to my freedom, until they are lost to my sight, tumbling into the darkness.
Even as I think it, I know it is only a vain hope that the general will reach us before Vos ends me. Any hope I hold of making it out alive dissipates with the seconds that pass by. He won’t make it in time, if he makes it at all.
It is panic or madness, I am not sure which. Though, only madnesscan explain the thoughts that cross my mind when I strike at her with nothing more than a closed fist. Not a single lesson I’d ever received about warring against a feyn leads me to believe that this is a good idea. And yet, when my fist collides with her nose, there is satisfaction in the way it bends unnaturally. The fragile bones within give way to the battering ram of my arm with a loudpop.
A slurry of feyn curses come from the female as her hand flies to her nose, attempting to stanch the heavy flow of blood gushing out. It is enough. The moment her eyes flicker shut I dart away, sure that I can hide myself somewhere in the dense foliage around me until someone more equipped for this battle comes to aid me.
“Youwilllive to regret that,Valtoura.” Her voice comes from behind me, and in it I can hear the blessed distance I have put between us.
“Sleep well,” she says. A pang of dread wells deep within me when, in the flicker of a windswept flame, a large stone slams against the side of my head and my eyes shutter into darkness.
CHAPTER 40
OUT AT SEA
Present Day
Iwake, choking on a heavy stream of water that pours from above me. I scramble out from underneath it, expelling the liquid from my lungs in a series of ragged coughs. A thick fog clings to my mind and my skull pounds with a splitting headache. I hardly notice the familiar roll of waves swaying the floor beneath me.
I heave when the pungent odor of decay fills my nostrils. There is little light for my eyes to adjust to in the dark, dank belly of the warship. A small, flickering lantern by the door across from my cell casts the faintest glow, the small space I am confined to full of far more shadow.
“Awake at last,Valtoura,” Vos purrs from where she stands over me.
She is bracketed on either side by two male feyn. Both with black hair, both sharing her features, and both graced with the same strange shape of Kezik’s ears. The larger of the two holds an upended jug, setting it aside when he kneels before the bars dividing us.
My current position, splayed out on my belly, is far too vulnerable, and the world spins as I attempt to rise, pushing my torso off the floor. Ifalter in the upward motion, remaining on my knees, my hand cradling my head tenderly where a sharp pain emanates from my temple. There is no mistaking the slick of blood I find there, but all my lessons about tending wounds are far from my mind.
“Valtoura?” the kneeling male says in mock surprise. “I expected more from the ancients.”
“Have a little caution, Nix,” Vos warns from behind him, her finger sweeping across the small stain upon her chest where I nearly ended her with my blade. Or so she allowed me to believe. “She may be caged, but she still has claws.”
His head tilts to the side, a small bit of loose hair falling from where it’s partially bound to hang before his eyes. The male, Nix, is cut from the granite of Terr, far larger than any feyn I have ever seen. His is not the toned, nimble form I am accustomed to expecting from their kind, but the thick, brawny mass of the warriors I had been raised alongside in La’tari.
“Are you sure that this isValtoura?” asks the male remaining by her side, clearly skeptical in the tale the female wove about our meeting.
The curious face he levels at me sparks the memory of the last and only time I’ve ever seen him. It was upon Yshka’s balcony, the night I’d sought out Ishara’s home in search of allies. The hair on my arms stiffens, a world of revelations crashing into my mind. The Vatruke have been in A’kori longer than I or anyone else realized, working with the only house with the name and power to usurp the feyn throne.
Vos looks me over, hesitating to answer. I know the look, I have seen it countless times in my life, resting upon my own face every time I look in a mirror. The female is unsure of herself, and I grasp at the moment it reveals.
“I am notValtoura,” I say weakly, and maybe I shouldn’t because I’m sure it is the only thing keeping me alive. Though the fate I might have among the Vatruke if I claim to be what they say is enough to raise the bile in my stomach.
“Iwassure,” Vos says, and I can hear the question in her voice, no longer convinced of what she believes.
“If you are notValtoura, then what are you?” Nix demands.
