Moresuffering.
Bloodlust paints his vision red.
He drops a knee and jerks Kyzari up by the scruff of her dress, her body a dead weight as he whips his arm and strikes it forward, her head snapping back from the force as the softest whimper slips from her lips.
He strikes again.
Again.
Breaking his knuckles against Kaan’s young while remembering the flat eyes of his mah when he found her dead on her pallet—gone.
Picturing his pah’s face splitting with each fisted blow, renowned for being almost identical to his second-born son, who now sits the bronze throne.
Wears the bronze crown.
Veya’s shrill screams become distant background noise as Arkyn paints himself in Kyzari’s blood.
Only when her heart is barely beating does he pry back and force himself to straighten, suffocating the feral urge to mulch her into the ground. Rolling his head from one shoulder to another, he draws deep, heaving breaths through his open mouth.
Savoringthe taste of his revenge.
“Put her back in the cell,” he drudges out, taking a moment to admire the blood smeared all over his trembling fists before he loosens his grip on the weald.
Pockets it.
The guards get to work on Kyzari’s lock, grab the princess by her ankles, and drag her back into her cell, leaving a crimson smear.
Arkyn’s head snaps to the side at the sound of Veya’s soft, pathetic cry.
Bunched on the ground, she meets his gaze with tears streaming down her cheeks, her face contorted with despair.
“My Fire Lark needs her diadem back.” He delivers his next words like a spread of flames. “You, my dearsister, must keep her daughter alive until the time comes to hand over the stone. Or don’t. Doom the world to ruin. Your choice.”
With that, he spins and bleeds into the dark.
Cart wheels grind over loose stones, a contrasting symphony to the patter of snow hitting the canopy, interrupted only when Noeve pulls a sizzling draw on her smoke stick.
Other than that, silence.
No howling wind or grunts of disapproval from the big, fluffy colk pulling us along. No creaking of the cart’s old joinery as it’s pushed from side to side, because it’snotgetting pushed.
“Strange. In all my phases of carting folk along the Path of Daes, I’veneverknown the air to be so still,” Noeve croaks, blowing a long puff into the air, one hand loosely draped around the reins. “Clode’s been grinding Bulder’s edges through here for eons. Most aren’t old enough to remember, but the Path was once twice as wide.” Another deep, sizzling suck. “I had it in mind she planned to keep blowing until she broke all the way through.”
Frowning, I look over my shoulder, lifting the flap that separates Noeve and me from the others in the stowage compartment, shielded by the taut leather arch.
Pyrok’s taking up the most space, snoring on his back, sprawled across the plump, feather-filled sacks Noeve’s carting to Gore. An open flask is in his hand, against his sternum, threatening to spill.
I look at Ahvi bundled with his head on a sack, his hatchling coiled in a prickly knot against his chest. Both are half covered by a furry throw, slumbering beside Raeve, who’s perched at the end with her back against the side. One leg dangling out the cart, she’s poised like a dragon protecting her clutch—spine straight, chin high as she scans the path behind us, dancing a dragonscale blade between her fingers. Every now and then, her lips move … quietly shaping words I’ve seen her shape before.
“I don’t think Clode has a choice,” I murmur in response to Noeve’smusings, about to drop the flap when Pyrok starts tossing his head back and forth.
“I’m sssorry. So sorry,” he slurs through his slumber, face crunched. “Why didn’t you tell me how fuckin’sadyou were?”
Raeve stills, watching him toss his head a few more times before she turns to me, concern swimming in her big blue eyes.
Quick as a blink, she snatches the flask from Pyrok’s lax hand and pelts it out the back. “He’s got more than one, right?”
“At least two others.” I’ve never seen him drink this much, though I can’t remember the last time he came so close to Gore. Given everything, I guess it stacks up. “But he’ll hate you for it,” I tack on.
