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The other man took a deep breath. “Then, by rights, she should be dead. I don’t know why she’s not.” I heard the confusion in the man’s voice, mingled with fear, despite his effort at composure. “The Blood Vow kills. It does not merely injure or weaken.”
“Yet here she lies.” Viktor’s voice was cold. “She lives, and you will keep her that way. She is of greater use to me now than ever.”
“Something is keeping her alive. But it is not my doing. I cannot promise—” The healer broke off as if he knew he’d made a mistake.
“You cannot promise?” Viktor’s voice, radiant with fury. “You will promise.”
“I promise to do all in my power,” the healer wheedled. “But you promised me. You promised me a cure. You promised me my wife and children would live, yet they remain caged. The plague—”
“Enough,” Viktor said coldly. “I will do what I can.”
I knew that tone. I’d learned it the hard way. I felt pity for the healer. I’d learned not to trust anything Viktor Drakharrow said. His words were poison, his voice a lie.
I thought back. I could remember when I’d broken the vow. I’d felt something deep within me compress and burst as I’d told Viktor that the wolf he saw before him was Kage Tanaka of House Avari. Poison had crept through me, choking my heart—just as I’d expected it to. It had been an ending absolute—and an ending that was meant to be my absolution. Yet here I was.
Pain stabbed through my heart. And Kage? Where was he? I thought of what Viktor had done to him, and the memory hurt more than any of my wounds.
“You said you had a way to cure this illness,” the healer pressed on, desperation in his voice. “You said you could turn them back. I have done everything you’ve asked. Everything.”
“And you live,” Viktor roared. “Be grateful.”
Poor bastard. The healer was clinging to a hope I knew must be false. His wife and children would die. Viktor had no cure for the plague. I knew what the healer must be feeling. I knew what it was to want to believe so badly. You cling to the hope that if you endured just a little longer, gave just a little more, your salvation might really arrive. But it never did.
Persis’s face again. His sweet violet eyes. His innocent, happy smile. He was out there somewhere. Just another coin in Viktor’s pocket, a hostage to my archon’s cruelty and caprice. Would I ever see him again? Or was my little brother already dead?
The light at the edges of my eyes dimmed. Blackness spilled over me again. I drew a shuddering breath.
“No,” the healer cried, sounding panicked. “Dammit, we’re losing her again.”
I heard Viktor cursing loudly. I tried to smile then, knowing I was taking away something he wanted. No, something he needed—which was even better.
Hands moved over my body. Voices rose. The world tilted.
Chapter 5
KAGE
Bloodwing Academy
A few days later
I woke with a snarl, every cell in my body humming with instant alertness. The air was clean. Clean, not smoky. I surged upright, hissing with pain as bandages pulled tight across my chest and the wound there flared hot. “What did you do?” My voice was thick and ragged; we’d put that down to smoke inhalation. “Where is she?”
The chair across from my bed scraped softly as the man who’d been sitting there rose to his feet, unhurried despite my desperation. His hair was pale white, like the first frost, half-twisted back into a bun on the top of his head and half falling loose around his shoulders, softening the lines of his face. His eyes were clear and blue and penetrating. Tall and slender with long limbs, some took his slightness for fragility. But there was steel there. Quiet, contained strength rather than brute force. That was, after all, the Orphos way.
It was also the Avari way. And it was the way I’d learned to read Lysander early on, without anyone else noticing.
“Where. Is. She?”
“Regan Pansera?” The man’s tone was too casual.
“Yes.” My voice was tight. “You know who I mean. She left with me. You were there.”
“I was.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Lysander,” I growled. “Not now.”
He raised his hands. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Nor would I expect a thankyou.”
