His nostrils flared and he looked paralyzed. It surprised me too, how much it pained me to use him as a fail-safe.
“When you ask”—his teeth gritted—“I will do as you wish.”
“In blood,” I demanded.
He reluctantly took Angeline out of his boot and nicked his finger, only letting a few drops escape. “I vow to kill youifyou ask me to, not when.”
As soon as his blood hit the cobblestone, every muscle in my body relaxed.
His jaw tightened. I threw my arms around his neck in a rushed embrace that nearly knocked him from his feet. He only grunted in response before awkwardly wrapping his arms around me.
I stepped back with my hands still resting on the sides of his forearms, hating the burden I had dealt him. But it could be no one else. “Thank you, and I am sorry. When the time comes, do not hesitate.”
“If, not when,” he reiterated. “This better be a last resort. Because I hate it.”
“Of course.”
We followed Fenris and quickly caught up with him since he had stopped to look up at a grand structure. The building’s large half-circle windows were crafted of beautiful stained glass. In the glass were depictions of five women—I quickly recognized them.
“That’s the Temple of the Order. Every capital city has one,” Emmerick explained.
I gazed up at the pictures of us commemorated in glass. Firose with her locks of gold next to a Lynx, flames ablaze behind her. Wyeth with her hair covered by a green hood, holding a vining plant. Cassidee in armor and sitting atop a Griffith with her sword to the wind. Amara wore a crown of sunlight.
I stopped in front of the last pane. It was of a woman in black robes and black hair, not unlike my own. Dreary, dark. Atop her head were horns that spiraled. From what abstract detail the glass offered, it seemed sharp canine-like teeth jutted from her mouth. She held a star in her right palm, and her left clawed hand gripped a broad sword held to the night sky.
“Is that supposed to be…”
I put my hand over my mouth.
“That one is you—I told you that you weren’t what I expected,” Emmerick answered over his shoulder, seeming to want to put distance between us after my ask of him. As if I would ask him to kill me there on the streets of Luz in broad daylight. He walked ahead, greeting a Luz guard and falling into a conversation that I couldn’t hear.
Fenris’ mouth twisted into an infuriating smirk as he stepped beside me to see the glass more closely. He spoke the first words between us since that morning in the arena. “The all-feared High Enchantress of the Central Corridor.”
Peace Prevail.
“Horns…They remembered the horns.” I paused. “And the teeth and claws…like a wolf.”Like Van.
I glanced at the ink that contained him on Fenris’ arm before turning back to the glass imagery. Fenris stopped observing the glass and turned his attention to me. It made my stomach flip in a way that infuriated me just as much as that smirk. He was a monster—my heart needed reminders of that.No, not my heart, my body—my traitorous, stupid body.
“Who remembered horns and sharp teeth?” he asked quietly.
My lips quirked upward. “The men I’ve let into my tower, my bed…”
I couldn’t kill him, but I could at least kill his ego. I was foolish to ever think that he wanted me for more than the power below my skin.
He bristled. “You bedded men while sporting horns and sharp teeth? I would payverygood coin for that experience.” Sarcasm coated his voice, but his fists clenched and his jaw tightened behind his smirk.
Let him think what he wanted.Yet my tongue betrayed my thoughts, unable to stop myself from correcting him. “No, I didn’t.”
He braced as if waiting for me to continue, and his brow quirked upward in expectation. I owed him nothing, but the words fell out with a sigh.
“Stray travelers sometimes made their way into the clearing of the tower. Usually looking for a hot meal or place of refuge—so I would invite them up. If they could scale the walls, they would be rewarded. So it became a game of sorts.”
“So you slept with all of them?” There was an edge to his voice.
“Some, not all of them.”
His shoulders stiffened.
