KADEN
I threw open the door to the Komizar’s meeting chamber, sending it crashing against the wall. Three brethren standing near him drew their weapons. The Komizar remained seated behind a table piled with maps and charts, and our gazes locked. My chest heaved from my flight through the stable yard and the Sanctum.
My Rahtan brethren kept their daggers gripped in their fists.
“Leave,” the Komizar ordered. They rightfully hesitated. “Leave!” he yelled again.
They reluctantly sheathed their knives. When they closed the door behind them, he stood and walked around to the side of the table and faced me. “So you’ve heard the news? I’ll assume you’re here to offer your congratulations.”
I lunged. I knocked him to the floor, and furniture toppled around us. He pulled my knife from its sheath, but I slammed his hand against the floor, and the knife flew across the room. His other fist caught my jaw, and I fell back, but my knee met his ribs when he came at me again. Glass shattered, papers and maps rained down around us, but my rage finally prevailed, and I pinned him down, holding a shard of his broken lantern to his neck. Blood seeped from my hand as the sharp edge cut into my own flesh.
“You knew! You knew how I felt about her! But everything you already had wasn’t enough! You had to have her too! As soon as I turned my back—”
“Then what are you waiting for?” His eyes were fiercely cold. “Slash my throat. Be done with it.”
The glass shook in my fist. One slash, and I’d be the next Komizar. It had been expected for years, one Assassin after another rising to power. We sealed our own fates, training our successors far too well in their duties. My hand bled across his neck.
His eyes didn’t waver. “That’s right,” he said. “Think carefully. You always do. That’s one thing I’ve always been able to count on with you. Think about all our years together. Where you were when I found you. Think of all the things we’ve worked for. All the things you still want. Is a girl really worth it?”
“And yet you marry her? Make her queen? She must be worth it to you! What happened to all your talk of flabby domestic lives? And royals? Venda doesn’t have royals!”
“Your anger clouds your judgment. Is that what she’s done to you? Poisoned you? My decisions are based solely on what will benefit my countrymen. Where do yours come from?”
Only Lia. For me, Venda hadn’t existed as I flew into this room.
He looked at me calmly, even with jagged glass at his throat. “I could have had you killed the minute you burst through my door. That’s not what I want, Kaden. We have too much history between us. Let’s talk.”
I glared at him, my lungs burning, heated seconds ticking by, the pulse of his neck steady beneath my hand. Only one small vein separated me from Lia. But it was true—he could have set the Rahtan upon me the second I walked through the door. Even as I came through the gates. He could have been ready with his own dagger. We have too much history between us.
I let him up. He threw me a rag to wrap my hand. He surveyed the broken carnage of his study and shook his head.
“You’re the one who brought her here. You’re the one who said she’d be useful to Venda. You were right. And now the clans have welcomed her. To them she’s a sign that the gods have favored Venda. She’s a symbol of old ways and promises. We got more than we bargained for, and now we must use it. We have a long winter ahead of us, and most supplies must go to feed our army. But the fervor of the masses won’t waver if she feeds their superstitions.”
“Why a marriage?” I said bitterly. “There are other ways.”
“It was the clan’s request, brother, not mine. Think. Have I shown any interest in her before now? The clans welcomed her, but some were wary, thinking it could be another trick of the enemy. They wanted evidence of a true commitment on her part. Marriage to their leader has the permanence they desired. I consulted with the Council. They approved it. You question not just my judgment but that of the entire Council?”
I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t believe the Council would approve this, but without me here, why not? Malich was probably the first to call a yea. And from the day the Meurasi welcomed her, I should have known this could become a possibility. The Meurasi did not welcome outsiders.
“Don’t worry, things won’t change much. I’ve no interest in the girl beyond what she’ll do for our countrymen. You can even keep your pet in your quarters for now if you’re discreet around the clans. They must think the marriage is real.” He paused as he righted the footed oil lamp. “But I must warn you,” he said, turning back to me, “she’s developed a genuine kinship with the clans. When I proposed the marriage, she embraced it. She was eager, even. She saw its worth too.”
“Embraced? Under threat of her death?” I said sarcastically.
“Ask her yourself. She saw that it afforded her two advantages—greater freedoms and sweet revenge against her father. Certainly you of all people can understand that. Betrayal by one’s own kind is a wound that never heals. Use your logic, you smitten ass, and pull yourself together.”
I looked at him, my calm returned. “I’ll be asking her. You can be sure of that.”
He paused as if something had just occurred to him. “Devil’s hell, she’s not bearing your brat, is she? I hope you’re not that stupid.”
He assumed, as I had led him to believe, that Lia and I were sleeping together. But the Rahtan were expected to take precautions so as not to be saddled with those flabby domestic lives he so greatly scorned.
“No. There is no brat.” I spun and stormed out.
“Kaden,” he called as I reached the door, “don’t push me too far. Malich would make a fine Assassin too.”
* * *
She leaned over the basin splashing her face, her shoulders stiffening at the sound of my footsteps behind her.
“Did he force your hand?” I asked. “I know he did. I don’t even know why I’m asking.” She didn’t answer and dipped her hands in the water, washing up to her elbows. I grabbed her arm, spinning her around, and the basin tipped over. It split in two when it hit the floor. “Answer me!” I yelled.
She looked down at the broken halves and the water pooling at our feet. “I thought you already had the answer to your question and didn’t require mine.”
“Tell me, Lia.”
Her eyes glistened. “Kaden, I’m sorry. I’m not going to lie and say I don’t want this. I do. You know I don’t love the Komizar, but I’m not a foolish dreamy-eyed girl anymore either. The truth is, I’ve become resigned to the fact that I’m never getting out of here. I need to make a life for myself—the best one I can. Just as you asked me to. And if we’re going to be honest”—her voice wobbled, and she swallowed—“the Komizar has something to offer that you don’t. Power. There are people here, like Aster, the clans, and others, that I’m actually coming to care about. I want to help them. With a little power, I might. I remember you telling me that you didn’t have the choices I thought you did. I understand that now. So like you, I’m taking advantage of the choices I do have. Marriage to the Komizar offers benefits that you can’t give me.” Her eyes narrowed. “And as an added bonus, the news of the marriage will cut at least my father to the core, if not all of Morrighan. There’s some sweetness to that. Believe me when I tell you that my hand was not forced.”
“In just a week’s time, you decided all that?”
The glisten in her eyes receded as if on cue. “A week is a lifetime, Kaden. It can wipe a whole world of people from the face of the earth with the falling of a single star. It can transport a tavern maid living in a seaside village to a scorching desert with ruthless cutthroats as her companions. So in comparison, really, does my small decision to marry a man for his power require more than a week’s thought?”
I shook my head. “That’s not you, Lia.”
Her lip lifted in disgust as if she had suddenly grown weary of being sympathetic. “You’re hurt, Kaden. I’m sorry. Truly. But life is hard. Pull your Vendan head out of your ass and get used to it. Didn’t you spit out very similar words to me back in Reena’s carvachi? Well, I get it now. So should you.”
Her voice was cold, detached—and what she said was true. Everything sank inside me, falling like she had cut both my breath and muscle loose. I looked at her, even the words on my tongue lost somewhere in the tumble, and I turned away. I walked back out the door, down the hall, not seeing anything as I went, wondering how she’d become so … perfectly royal.