It was not my turn, but I asked anyway. “Why did you give it to my mother?”
He stepped back. “The kingdom was turning, the tides changing. Long had Luanthians been a plague, but after the assassination of Queen Mishana, the King's hatred grew and festered. I could feel what was coming, the tension that sowed its way through these lands. She was mine and I wanted her to be protected. Never would I have let the flame take her from me.”
“Have you heard the whispers that follow the prince you travel with?” He asked suddenly, voice quieting.
“No.”
A smile, slow and knowing, started to form. “Be careful of the company you keep, little liar. You’re not the only one with secrets to hide.”
I took a step forward, my jaw clenching. “What do you know of Kairen?”
“There are rumors floating here and there that he is a rebel sympathizer.” Another drag, surely he’d had enough? “I’ve always found that even the most egregiously spun tales always hold a kernel of truth.”
My shock must have been evident because he laughed, cold and without any true feeling. “If I’ve heard, surely his father has, and it would be such a pity if your little quest were to end with you all tied to a stake.”
I didn’t know what to say, my mind was too jumbled. He stepped back and the sand died down, taking another pull of his pipe, deep and slow.
It billowed from his mouth as he spoke. “I tire of playing, our game is finished.”
I stepped back, Bran's steadying hand gripping my arm, his quiet voice asking, “Are you okay?”
“Leave, and do not return.” Wraith's face twisted, eyes narrowing. His breaths came slow, his eyes heavy-lidded as he relaxed upon his dais of plush pillows and silken sheets. “A harbinger of memories I do not wish to recall. A taunting of things that once were and never will be again. I do not wish to see you again, little liar. Leave my desert as your mother once did and never return.”
We turned to the door yet his voice came again, softer. “I do not know how my grandfather helped create The Fever, he always refused to say. There is a woman who goes by the name Misha, I hear she hides away in the north these days. She may have the answers you seek.”
“Why are you helping me?”
His shoulder lifted, taking another long pull of his pipe, the next sentence said around smoke and a sad smile. “I have many regrets and I do not wish for history to repeat itself.” Hesitation filled the words that followed as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to say them. “And I think you’ll find Misha a veryinterestingperson to speak with.”
Chapter Thirty Two
Amareshi swam before me, a bottle of liquor swinging from my hand with each street I walked. It was a beautiful city, so full of life and wonder. My teeth tore at the spiced beef my mother had spoken of with such tantalizing words, the taste rich and flavorful. It mixed heavily with the grief that lay within my belly.
Kairen and the others had been on the other side of the door, questions and demands awaiting when I had exited, but my steps had not stilled. I had pushed past the Solerian Prince to escape the truths that burned like a hot branding upon my soul. A rebel? A traitor? Was there any truth to it?
My memories and new realities were like a tangling of thread within my mind. My mother. A woman who had been gentle and graceful in all she did, truth. A woman who did not bend, did not break. A truth.
And now? Also a woman who had been enslaved to a man with vicious eyes and opium upon his breath, truth. A dancer who had escaped across the desert from dangers I would never know, only to end up tied to a stake in the end. Another truth. A damning truth that festered andflamed the raging fire that always seemed to burn within me. A rage that was ever present becausehowcould life be so utterly unfair?
I brought the bottle to my lips once more, my steps leading down a dark alleyway, the empty skewer tossed to the street. Voices laughed somewhere in the darkness, two forms dimly lit in the light of the moon.
The smell of herbs wafted to my nose from the rolled parchment they smoked as I passed. My feet stumbled, body falling into the back of the man I passed.
He turned, his hand shoving me down the alleyway. “Watch it, drunkard.”
My lips curved, hand tightening around the bottle. Oh how the Goddesses blessings manifest in such mysterious ways. I turned just as his attention went back to the man he spoke with, the bottle I held flinging end over end until it shattered against his head. He dropped to the sand below.
Rage burned sharp and bright in my chest, the man’s friend uttering a curse as he stepped towards me, a blade being drawn at his side.
The shadows hummed beneath my skin, sharpening the haze of the drink I had nursed now for hours.
Energy tingled its way across my fingertips, buzzing beneath my skin. A fight is exactly what I needed, what I craved. The blade arced beautifully through the night, slashing as the moonlight reflected off its sharpened edges. I moved, too slow, and it skimmed my bicep, tearing through the fabric of my dirtied linen shirt. Once white, now browned and torn.
The sting of pain was delicious as he pulled back, another strike. My hand shot for his wrist at the same moment, twisting and twisting until the blade dropped to the ground below. My kick sent it skittering across the sand, down the alleyway and lost to the darkness.
“There,” I crooned, my fists rising. “Now we can do this fairly.”
His next hit was a song of pain ricocheting through my skull, the taste of iron in my mouth as I returned the favor. A laugh spilled from my lips as he shoved me against the stone building, the ache of my back and bones sharp as my sore skin scraped and tore.
