“They could with yours and Mariah’s help.” Ciana knew her argument was desperate. Knew Ydros could hear the pleading in her words. She had to try them, anyway.
Ydros frowned. “I am a scholar. A historian. A strategist. I am not one who takes risks, especially when I am not confident in the outcome. I have thought of all alternatives. This is the only path forward in which my people and I survive.”
“You are agod,” Sebastian growled, still kneeling on the marble floor. “And not just to Vatha, but to the entire continent. How can you give up on all those people?”
Ydros’s lip curled back from his teeth. “I am not giving up on them. Kol has promised that in exchange for my allegiance, he will not harm the innocents. Only those who stand against him.”
“And you believe him?” Sebastian scoffed, sitting back on his heels. “For an ageless god, you are a fuckingfool.”
“Careful, Armature,” Ydros said, voice deadly calm. “You are alive because you are more useful to me breathing than you are dead. But if you test me, not only will your life be forfeit, but the lady’s as well.”
Sebastian blanched, eyes darting to Ciana in horror before slumping forward in silence.
Rage boiled in Ciana’s belly, earnest and wild.
“Nik,” she tried again, fighting to meet the king’s gaze. He didn’t look at her, though he flinched at his name. “Please. Thisis your kingdom. We were going to build a future between Vatha and Onita, abetterfuture. It’s not too late to fight for it?—”
“How dare you continue to address the king?” Ydros snarled, voice booming through the room. “You, who spent your whole time here manipulating him with your pretty smiles and flirtatious glances. Did you think I did not see through your ruse from the very beginning?”
Blood rushed to Ciana’s ears. “What?”
Ydros scoffed. “Please. You know exactly of what I speak. You are no courtly ambassador sent to broker a peaceful new relationship between two kingdoms. You came here to court the king, to manipulate him into giving him access to what you really wanted: the archives.”
Ciana was rooted to the floor. Words failed her, fear and regret and shame building in her stomach.
Ydros leaned forward. “You dangled something in front of Niktael that you knew he wanted but would never give. How long have you been sleeping with the Armature? He was never just a bodyguard to you.” He sneered in disgust, brushing his deep red braids back from his face. “And do not try to deny it. I cansmellit on you.”
A nightmare made real; that’s what this was. Ciana was sure that if she slapped her face, or stomped her feet three times, she would wake up. She’d be back in that cozy little study room in the archives, surrounded by the rustling of leaves and paper and the scent of pine and leather.
But when she found Sebastian’s distraught, devastated gaze over the madness, she knew this wasn’t a dream.
This was real. This was her horror, and it was real, and she was alone.
Her eyes drifted back to Niktael. Hoping for just a single sign of her friend.
“What happened to keeping the gods out of the affairs of your kingdom?” she addressed him, one last time, trying to contain her bitterness and fear. Tears burned in her throat, pricked behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “You’re a good man, Niktael. A good king. I never meant to hurt you. Please, don’t do this?—”
“I intervene when I must,” interrupted Ydros. “Such as when I must protect this kingdom from obedient little whores like you. So willing to spread her legs whenever her queen commands it.” He sniffed, chin lifting. “Pathetic.”
Those words.
Ciana had thought she was healing. That all the vicious horrors of her past were being forgotten. That by some blessing of the gods, she would be allowed to move past it all, to forge a future for herself unmarred by the stain of violence.
Until one of those gods said the very words that had been whispered to her long ago in the darkness of her room, in a place she should’ve always been allowed to feel safe.
Whore. Pathetic.
Ciana dropped her head, chin hitting her chest. She sagged against the guards who held her. Somewhere in the distance, Sebastian’s voice rumbled out again, though Ciana didn’t hear the words.
She did hear Ydros’s, though.
The god stalked down the dais. He was tall, with broad shoulders and an imposing presence that washed over her, drowned her, crushed her.
“Here is what is going to happen next,” he said quietly, the room stilling. “You and the Armature will be kept alive—for now. I know you found something in the archives and sent word to your queen. I can only assume it was information on the weapon my fellow gods and I created in the First War. I don’t particularlycare about that, though; the weapon is no threat to me, but your queen is.”
Ciana didn’t respond. Her mind was quiet and empty, her soul crushed and cracking.
“I have been tasked with stopping your queen before she has any chance to act. Kol has laid the trap; you both will help me spring it.”
