A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire

I rolled my eyes. “Then why ask if he’s okay if he’s not hurt?”

Kieran started to reply, but Casteel beat him to it. “He’s a worrywart. Constantly fearing that I’ve been injured or that I’ve overexerted myself. Wanting to know if I’ve gotten eight hours of rest and eaten three square meals a day.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” Kieran replied drolly.

Casteel flashed him a grin and then motioned to me. “Come. Your gift awaits.”

Having no idea what the two of them were going on about, I trailed after the Prince, beginning to suspect what my gift was. Retribution. The rich iron scent of blood was heavy in the air. Fresh. The sickeningly sweet floral undertone lingering beneath the blood confirmed my suspicions before I even saw what awaited me in the cell Casteel had stopped in front of.

Chained to the wall, arms spread wide and legs bound, stood Lord Chaney. He’d definitely seen better days. One eye was gone. Deep gouges streaked his face, caused by the knife I’d wielded. Blood leaked from his parted mouth in a continuous trickle. His shirt had been split open, revealing that the gash I’d seen earlier was part of three deep slashes in his chest. Claws had also scored his skin just below his throat and across his narrow torso. The shackles around his wrists and ankles were spiky, digging into his skin and drawing blood. He had to be in immeasurable pain.

There wasn’t an ounce of pity in me as I stared at the vampry.

“You didn’t kill him,” I said, and the Ascended opened one eye. It was more red than black.

“No.” Casteel leaned a hip against the bars, angling his body toward mine. “I wanted to. I still do. Badly. But he didn’t wound me, it wasn’t my skin he tore into. Not my blood he stole.”

My heart was hammering once again as I dragged my gaze from the vampry to Casteel.

“Retribution is yours, if you want it,” he said. “And if not, I will be your blade, the thing that ends his miserable existence. It’s your choice.” Reaching into his boot, he pulled a blade free and held it between us. It was my wolven dagger. “Either way, this belongs to you, whether it finds its way into the heart of an Ascended today or not.”

Wordlessly, I curled my fingers around the bone handle, welcoming the cool weight once more. I looked into the cell again.

“He doesn’t speak now?” I asked. The Ascended hadn’t been able to keep quiet before.

“I tore out his tongue,” Kieran announced, and both Casteel and I looked at him. “What?” The wolven shrugged. “He annoyed me.”

“Well,” Casteel murmured. “Okay, then.”

The Ascended made a pitiful whimper, drawing my gaze back to him. All the empathy welling up in my chest nearly strangled me.

But it wasn’t for the monster before me.

It was for Mrs. Tulis, whose neck he’d snapped without even so much as a thought. And for her son, Tobias, who I knew no longer had a future. It was for the man the knight had slaughtered on Chaney’s command, and those who’d died. It was for the ones who lay in the room off the banquet hall, and for the woman who was most likely dead by now. The burn in my throat and in my eyes was for the boy, who the Ascended had killed just because he could.

Just because he wanted to.

“Open the cell,” I ordered.

Kieran stepped forward and unlocked the cell door, and my feet carried me in.

Perhaps this was wrong. Definitely not something the Maiden would do, but I wasn’t the Maiden anymore. Truthfully, I’d never been. But even so, a life for a life wasn’t right. I knew that. Just as I knew that the hand that now held the dagger had held the hand of the wounded, easing pain instead of causing more.

Casteel or Kieran could end Chaney’s life, as could any number of those within the keep who were also owed retribution. The blood didn’t need to be on my hands.

But blood had been spilled because of me.

I stopped in front of Lord Chaney and looked up, staring into the one burning eye. There was so much coldness there. The emptiness was vast as he glared at me, straining against the shackles, drawing more blood as he attempted to reach me. A reverberating, whining groan emanated from the Ascended. If he could get free, he would come at me like a Craven, teeth snapping, tearing into my flesh. He would kill me in his hunger, consequences be damned. What I was to the Ascended wouldn’t matter. He would feed and feed, and if he hadn’t been the one to come to New Haven, he would continue to kill and kill. I stared into the eye, and all I saw were his victims’ faces, knowing that many more would remain nameless.

The dagger practically hummed against my palm.

What I’d done to Lord Mazeen had been an act borne of grief and rage, but it still had been an act of revenge. There had been something in the core of who I was that had allowed me to strike the Ascended down. Whatever it was, it was something that Casteel recognized. It was why he had given me this gift. He knew I was capable, and maybe that should disturb me. It probably would later.

Or maybe it wouldn’t.

I no longer knew what would haunt me, if what used to keep me up at night still would. I was changing, not just day by day, but hour by hour it seemed. And what had governed me before when I wore the veil, no longer ruled over me now.

I held Lord Chaney’s gaze. I didn’t look away. I didn’t say a word as I accepted the Prince’s gift, thrusting the bloodstone into the heart of the Ascended.

I watched until the red glow faded from his eye. I watched as his flesh cracked and peeled back, flaking off and scattering as the shackles clattered against the stone wall. I didn’t turn until nothing remained but a fine dusting of ash, drifting slowly to the floor.

Sometime later, I sat at the desk in the library, skimming the Atlantian records. I barely saw the letters, even the ones I could read. My thoughts were in a million different places, and I couldn’t focus. Sitting back in the chair, I sighed heavily.

“Is there something you wanted to discuss?” Kieran looked up from whatever book he had been thumbing through. Casteel had left him in charge of me while he met with the families of those who had lost a loved one. He hadn’t asked if I wanted to take part, but I had enough common sense to realize that my presence would either be unwelcomed or a distraction. What he was doing right now wasn’t about me.

“Or is there something you want to ask?” Kieran added. “I’m sure there is something you’d like to ask.”

I frowned at the wolven. “There’s nothing I want to ask.”

“Then why are you sighing every five minutes?”

“I’m not sighing every five minutes. Actually, there is something I want to ask,” I realized, and his expression turned bland. “This bond you have with Casteel. What does it actually entail? Like are you able to know his thoughts? If something were to happen to him, does it happen to you.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised by how incredibly random that was, but I am.”

“You’re welcome,” I quipped.

He closed the book. “I can’t read Casteel’s thoughts, nor can he read mine.”

Thank the gods.

“I can sense his emotions, probably in a way similar to how you can read others. And he can sense mine,” he continued. “If something were to happen to him, if he were weakened severely, the bond would allow him to pull energy from me.”

I tipped forward. “And when he was held captive?”

Kieran didn’t answer for a long moment. “When he left Atlantia, I had no idea what he was about. He didn’t want me to go, expressly forbade it, actually.”

“And you listened?”

“He forbade it as my Prince. Even I have to obey at times.” He grinned. “I wish I hadn’t—hell, if I’d known what he was going to do, I would’ve done everything I could to make him understand how idiotic it was. And if that hadn’t worked...” Kieran drew a leg off the coffee table. “I knew he’d been injured when I suddenly fell sick, without any warning. I knew it was no simple injury when the sickness robbed me of all my strength. I knew he’d been captured when I could no longer walk, and no amount of food or water could ease the hunger or keep the weight on me.”

“My gods,” I whispered. “He was held for—”

“Five decades,” Kieran said.

“And you were…you were ill that entire time?”

He nodded.

“Is his brother…is Prince Malik bonded?”

Kieran’s features hardened and then smoothed out. “The wolven he was bonded to died while attempting to free him.”

Sitting back, I dragged my hands down my face. “What would happen if he were to die? If you died?”

“If either of us were to die, the other would be weakened but would eventually recover.”

“So, what does the bond really do? Passes energy between you if you need it?”

He nodded. “The bond is an oath that requires that I obey him and protect him, even at the cost of my own life. Nothing alive today supersedes those bonds.”

“And will he do the same for you?”

“He would. It’s not required, but all elementals who are bonded would.”

Thinking that over, I carefully closed the record book. “How did the bonds get started?”

“The gods,” he answered. “When their children—the deities—were first born in this land, they summoned the once wild kiyou wolves and gave them mortal forms so they could serve as their protectors and guides in a world that was unknown to them. They were the first wolven. Eventually, as the elementals began to outnumber the deities, the bonds shifted to them.” He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Not all elementals are bonded. Delano isn’t bonded to an elemental.”

“What of Casteel’s parents?”

“Their wolven died in the war.”

“Gods,” I whispered. “And Alastir? Is he not bonded?”

“He was until the war,” he said, and that was all he needed to say for me to know that whoever he had been bonded to had not survived. “The bonding doesn’t often occur now. It’s not required of a wolven, and many have simply chosen not to. And if it were still required, there are simply not enough wolven for that to occur widely.”     PrevNextTip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between pages.

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