Gods, the temptation.It would destroy her arms if she injected it, but it remained a powerful advantage. “We could change the face of this land without an angry goddess. Reshape it properly. Make every Guildmaster and Praetor grovel.”
Kadra’s mouth curved. “An appealing prospect.”
He leaned against the doorjamb with lazy elegance. Only the dark intensity in his eyes showed that he knew how much this meant to her. That she still wanted a power of her own that would never be belittled or dismissed as coming from him. He wouldn’t stop her from taking this, no matter the consequences. Within both their hearts lived a wounded despot, eager to press its stamp on the world to prevent others from suffering the same pain they had.
But an emotionally scarred tyrant was still a tyrant. Dalvia’s wounds had made her take ugly, thorny roads that had stained her hands withgrief and blood, and resulted in unintended consequences like the dead in Arsamea.
Right now, hurting innocents seemed anathema to Sarai’s nature. But within the grasp of unfettered power, she could see the downward slope of decisions that would lead her there. They wouldn’t be simple ones, borne out of a desire to avenge and protect, but over time they would snowball and come a little easier and easier until she would look in the mirror like Noceo and Dalvia and no longer recognize what she had become—tearing the world to pieces to heal their wounds, long having lost sight of those in it.
I can’t.
For all her powerlessness, she valued who she was now too much to do that. She loved Kadra more than life to condemn him to that. Taking a deep breath, she crumpled the parchment and stalked toward the fireplace.
Heat stung her eyes. She raised a trembling hand over the hearth and dropped the first wadded ball of parchment in. Her breath caught as it erupted in flame.
She drew a deep gulp of air and unclenched her fist. The parchment clung to her palm at first, held in place by sweat and blood, before gravity tugged it free. It fell in slow seconds, glowing golden as it neared the firelight then a brilliant fiery yellow as it struck the fire in a shower of sparks. For a second, the writing on it deepened. One last showing, one final temptation of the power contained within those lines, as it hovered on the precipice between existence and obliteration. Then flame swallowed it whole.
Lightness expanded in her chest as she watched it burn to ash. She turned and raced right into a worried-looking Kadra’s arms and hugged him tight.
“I’m well,” she whispered into his neck. “I’m well, Kadra.”
Lifting her against him, he kissed her for a soft, adoring second. His eyes held a world of pride.
She sighed against him, completely boneless. “Gods, a boot just lifted off my neck.”
His eyes narrowed. “Whose?”
“Mine,” she said ruefully. “Still, it was a nice dream, wasn’t it? You and I terrorizing them all?”
He cupped her face. “I will always wage war with you. If you had kept her notes, I would have set fire to the world if it came for you.” His voice was fierce. “I have belonged to you from the moment I saw you.”
Heart in her eyes, she stared up at him.
“But this crisis is at an end, and I must ask before a new threat finds us.” The voice she loved so dearly was ragged. He made to step back, but she wouldn’t allow him to kneel, clutching him to her as he palmed her cheek. “Let me bind my years to yours. I can’t give you a quiet life, and I may never be a good man. But I will give you all I am and everything I will be.”
She took in his stern, beloved face and recalled it through their many first meetings. Fourteen. Eighteen. A market. A tower and a garden folly. An ice-cold god and a fierce lover. Some might call theirs too short a courtship, but she had known him even when she hadn’t had his secrets. There was no answer but this. “Yes.” The air that she had only just regained caught in her throat at the way his gaze changed, burned with hope and joy and yearning. At the warm spill of happiness that crinkled the corners of his eyes in the most stunning, genuine smile.
He circled her waist and lifted her off the ground. She laughed in delight and found his lips first, sealing their vow softly, a sigh bridging them when he stroked her nape and kissed her with increasing ardor.
A horrified sound from the doorway startled them apart. Anek walked straight out of the room.
“No, thank you.Tibi gratias ago. That’s enough existence for me today,” they called loudly as they strode off. “Come outside when you’re done withwhateverI absolutely did not see and will wipe from memory immediately.”
Huffing out a laugh, Kadra only kissed her again.
By the time they were all assembled in the compound’s courtyard, Sarai had had to rebraid her hair, and Anek looked traumatized. They had taken “Méherre’s” death hard, but life went on, they had told Sarai shortly afterward. They would too.
Cassandane folded her arms, casting a wary eye toward central Komis in evident dread of the upcoming trial they were holding there. “Did either of you happen to find Dalvia’s formula for Noceo’s stimulant?”
Sarai smiled brightly. “It was better left lost.” She tilted her head toward the hospital. “Imagine all the boil beetle venom we’d have to farm to produce it.”
“And I doubt people would be circumspect with its usage.” Cassandane’s shrewd gaze found hers. “Yes, it’s better left lost. Ready for our trial?”
“Fuck me,” Harion said gloomily, staring down into Komis like he could already see the five Guildmasters trussed up there for judgment—ones that he himself had indicted for exacerbating resource shortages in the north, leading to sedition. Retribution hadn’t been as enjoyable as he had hoped when the other Guilds had promptly turned their back on him. “The other Guilds will have me assassinated at this rate.”
“It won’t bethatbad,” Anek mused. “To think that one of the criminals is Albanus himself? I thought he was going to be your future father-in-law?”
“Happy to be associated with their money. Not happy to be associated with their crimes,” Sarai said. “The Guilds really aresodispleased about this, aren’t they?”
