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“Arin, if he’s dead, there’s nothing you can do, and if he’s alive, then you need that antidote.”
But I wanted to be with Lark. I wanted him to know that hate hadn’t been all I’d felt for him. I’d hated him so much because… it hurt, and it hurt like it did because that was love, wasn’t it?
Noemi probably saw the brief flicker of pain cross my face. “I’ll go,” she said. “You do what needs to be done and find Razak. Lark won’t be alone.”
I nodded. And pushed through the pain.
CHAPTER33
Lark
Sometimes,a wisp of sand dusted the temple floor, deposited by a puff of desert wind that had found its way through the half-open door.
Fire devoured me from inside. I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, my body was ablaze with Razak’s poison. I lay on my back, tears leaking from my eyes, and I watched the murals of art shift like desert sands across the temple walls. Vicious battles played out, until the sand was stained red with blood, as Razak had said. But they didn’t fight for the King of War, they fought for its crown.
That was what everyone had missed, what nobody wanted to see.
It was never about the kingdoms, just the crowns.
Dallin, the God of Order, had gifted four crowns to the four regions of the shatterlands. Love, War, Pain, and Justice. Together, they’d bring harmony. But when Dallin vanished, the four courts descended into discord, where we’d been ever since. Or so the story went. But it was just that, a story told to children, generation after generation. I knew stories. And I knew, in the end, most were made from lies. Some good lies, some bad, somemixedwith the truth, to sell the tale. But lies, nonetheless. Somewhere, in the tapestry of war playing out above me, a kernel of truth lay hidden among War’s lies.
Or maybe I was dreaming and dying, and all of this was madness. I’d have laughed if I’d had the energy.
Boots crunched on sand. Someone approached, slowly. Not Arin, so I wasn’t to be saved. Such a shame, I had so many more songs to sing.
“Oh, my poor, sweet, bastard prince.” Razak’s shadow fell over me, turning my blood cold. He smiled, cocked his head, and showed me a new vial between his fingers. Its contents sloshed back and forth.
The antidote.
He’d had it on him this whole time.
Of course he would. So that if I’d poisoned him—as he’d suspected I would—he’d have the cure on hand.
He knelt and swept my sweat-soaked hair from my cheek. “You keep trying to die. It’s really rather inconvenient.”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t crawl away, couldn’t even tell him how much I hated him with my last breath.
Where was Draven? The man was a cumbersome tool, but he’d chased after Razak. Had Razak killed him? Arin would be sad. They made a strange pair, but Arin would have tried to make it work because of that big heart of his. The heart he’d locked in a box to keep away from the world.
“When I learned I had a brother…” Razak stroked my cheek. “My first thought was how to kill you. I was father’s son, his only son, and you weren’t going to get in my way. But then I saw you, when they dragged your mother in. You were so quiet, clinging to her skirts. So afraid of everyone but her. I knew then, you were mine.” He paused, briefly looking up, perhaps at the door. Some drums sounded, so far off they may have been my heartbeat stuttering out of rhythm.
“Father planned to kill you too. Bastard sprats like you were a threat, he said. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have swung in a noose alongside your mother. I own you, Zayan. Your body, your mind. Every part of you belongs to me. You die when I allow it, and that day is not today.”
He dug his fingers into my cheeks, forcing open my jaw. After using his teeth to pull off the vial top, he poured the silklike liquid between my lips and slammed my jaw shut, clamping it closed.
The antidote swam around my tongue, bitter and cold.
He tossed the vial and pinched my nose. “Swallow.”
If I died, I’d win.
It would be easier to die. I’d tried to fight him, but he was always one step ahead in our dance.
His top lip curled. “Swallow, dear brother. There is much still to do.”
My chest and head throbbed, my lungs now ablaze. I didn’t want to die, even if it meant he won. I wanted to live, although I wasn’t sure what for. Razak was right. He did own me.
But not all of me. Not my heart. Another owned that. A prince made of honey and sunshine.
