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My blood turns to ice in my veins, and I remind myself that I am doing this to keep something like that from ever happening again.
“Mother.” Her false title is bitter on my lips. “Knows I would never trust you where my sisters are concerned. I am certain she expected me to accompany you.” At least, I hope so.
If she believes our deaths were an accident, she will believe her plans intact. She will have no cause to suspect that Einar knows the truth, and no reason to punish my sisters when I am gone. I cannot free them, but they will be as safe as they ever were. Safer, even, no longer held as collateral for their oldest sibling.
I repeat these things in my head like a mantra, giving me the strength to move forward.
“I hope not,” Damian contradicts my thought as though he heard it. “I did so enjoy watching Aika waste away day by day when your last mission ran long.”
“Aika is too important for her to poison now.” I say it as much for my own benefit as his, though I’m not sure how true it is. Madame has made no secret that I am her most valuable asset, for reasons I can now only assume have to do with this, with the Jokithan throne.
“Perhaps.” He shrugs, jostling me. “But there are other ways, wounds she can heal as quickly as she inflicts them. Though, I do hope she will let me have that honor. She might even be happy enough with me to grant me Melodi’s hand at last.”
My youngest sister is Madame’s only daughter by blood, and Damian wants nothing more than to be tied to her forever through a bond that cannot be broken.
“I will die before I let that happen,” I say quietly.
Another truth, one that emboldens me to prod Gideon into a canter. I am in no hurry to meet what is sure to be a painful demise, but neither do I see a point in prolonging the inevitable. And itisinevitable.
I have walked a thousand roads of possibilities, and every single one of them has led me here. To death.
Chapter Two
Zaina
We manage to keep to the path by the grace of the green and purple lights in the sky, making up for the sliver of a moon hanging above us. I push out thoughts of the last time I sat under the surreal-looking glow, warmed by eiswein and Einar’s steady presence.
Tonight, the only heat comes from my fur-lined cloak and the revolting man at my back. Miles slip by before Gideon slows to a walk, giving Damian another chance to needle at me.
“Has the king managed to put an heir in you, or did the alchemist have a little too much fun back then?” His fingers slide around me, prodding at my lower abdomen.
I wrench his hand away from me, my fury warming me despite the bone-chilling temperatures of the midnight air. Even the despicable man who had purchased my virginity had known better than to cross Madame bydamagingme, outside of the criss-crossed scars he had left where Damian’s fingers had been.
But I say nothing. My pain is like a drug to him, one I refuse to supply him with tonight. Damian chuckles softly in my ear.
“Or perhaps the problem is on his end. It’s too bad Mother is so set on a true heir...but there’s always later.” He lets that statement dangle in the air between us, and I choke down the bile rising in my throat.
Though I refuse to be grateful to Damian for anything, his reminder serves an important purpose. Madame wants an heir even more than she wants this rose back, and it gives me a grim satisfaction that I will quite literally die before supplying her with another child to torture for her own ends.
Damian sucks in a breath like he’s about to speak again, but I spur Gideon into a canter again, effectively ending any semblance of a conversation. If Khijhana couldn’t be here, I’m glad that I at least have Gideon’s comfort for a little while longer.
Thinking about my chalyx smothers me in a fresh wave of despair, so I force myself to focus on the task at hand. The fact that things have gone according to plan so far is no guarantee that they will continue to do so.
It was a calculated risk to assume that when I asked Damian for a week, he would make the unreasonable counteroffer of a day.One that paid off,I think, glancing up to look at the black outline of the Old Moon.
It was another uncertainty that he would allow me to come without protest, but that had worked out as well.
The biggest gamble has yet to come, though. I am betting hundreds of lives on little more than an unpredictable hestrinn and the ghost of a legend.
We ridehard for another few miles, and I know the moment we are close. Gideon’s impressive pace begins to slow by the tiniest increment, his ears twitching as he listens to something in the distance.
"What’s the matter with him?" Damian's calm voice is impatient, but not necessarily suspicious.
"I don't know. Maybe he's tired." I very intentionally had not stopped to give him a break in a while, though I know he has plenty of stamina left.
But Damian doesn’t. He sighs behind me.
"Well, we can't have him keeling over before we get where we need to go. Where did you stop for water last time?"
