That wasn’t going to stop her.
Nothing was going to stop her, because she had nothing left to lose. At some point, Teague would decide he was done with Thad’s connections, and would kill her brother. At some point, he would push Sebastian too far—give him something even his devotion to Ari wouldn’t allow him to do—and then with the contract broken, Teague would kill them both.
She was facing the most dangerous evil her kingdom had ever known, and she was going to be the weapon that brought him down.
She would be iron and bloodflower. She would be trickery and deceit.
She would uncover the secret he’d left behind at birth, and she would speak it.
And when she was finished with Teague, there would be nothing left.
FORTY-THREE
SEBASTIAN STOOD OUTSIDE a tiny clay house on the outskirts of Kosim Thalas, his stomach in knots.
Until that morning, Sebastian hadn’t been aware that anyone but Teague himself could collect a soul, but apparently, as with all of Teague’s magic, it was a simple matter of blood contracts. A new contract had to be drawn up giving Sebastian the power to collect soul debts in Teague’s stead. A short while later, Sebastian’s bloody fingerprint was on another contract, and he was armed with a vial of fae magic, an incantation written out on piece of parchment, and a stern warning from Teague that the magic only worked on those who’d signed away their soul, so if Sebastian tried it on Teague himself, it would backfire and kill him instead.
Sebastian didn’t dare fail to collect this debt. Not when he was contracted to collect on any debt owed to Teague. And not when a whiff of disobedience on his part would cause Teague to end the princess’s life.
But even though Sebastian wanted to do anything to save Ari, he was having trouble scraping up the awful will to enter the house and take the soul that had come due. He’d been standing outside, watching the sun slowly chase shadows across the strip of grass that separated the house from the road for over an hour, and he was no closer to going inside.
Kora Mitros. He stared at the name on the contract Teague had given him. Kora, who ten years ago wished for a house of her own, paid in full.
How was that wish worth her life? Her soul?
And how was he supposed to look her in the face as he claimed what was owed?
He’d thought that only wishes that took a life cost a soul. When he’d said as much to Teague, the fae had laughed and said that some people were willing to pay anything for their wish, so why should he refuse them?
He closed his eyes as pressure expanded in his chest. His body tensed for a fight, though this was one enemy he didn’t know how to defeat.
For weeks now, he’d waded through the filth of east Kosim Thalas, doing the bidding of the monster he loathed. It felt like he wore the stench of it beneath his skin where it would never come clean. There was blood on his hands, and he wasn’t completely sure all of it belonged to the guilty.
Kora Mitros had made her bargain and signed it with her bloody fingerprint. There was no doubt about her complicity in the deal.
That didn’t make it any easier for Sebastian to knock on her front door.
What finally galvanized him into action was the memory of the princess’s face as he’d told her she wasn’t facing this alone even while he was leaving her behind with his father.
The trust in her eyes. The connection between them that let him drop his guard, even with his father at his back. He couldn’t bear to fail her.
He didn’t know exactly how it had happened, but he couldn’t escape the truth—he was so far past friendship with her that he had no idea how to find his way back.
He’d been careful since the moment a few weeks ago when he’d lost his mind and nearly kissed her at the stove before being interrupted by Teague. He’d tried to stay close enough to be her friend, but far enough away to keep himself from wanting the things that he could never ask her to give.
Turned out there was no distance far enough to keep him from wanting.
He couldn’t be the one to push Teague into finishing the incantation that would kill Ari. If that meant he had to collect Kora Mitros’s soul, even though it felt like losing part of his own, he had to do it.
Girded by this decision, Sebastian approached the house and knocked on the door. It was opened almost immediately by a short, softly rounded woman with graying black hair and skin just beginning to wrinkle.
Sebastian swallowed around the lump in his throat and said, “Kora Mitros?”
She nodded.
He tensed, rolling to the balls of his feet in case she decided to run. “I’m here on behalf of Alistair Teague.”
Her face crumpled, and she slowly stood aside to allow him in. The tears that slid down her cheeks felt like a knife in his chest.
“I’ve been expecting you,” she said, her voice catching. “I’ve said my good-byes.”
His stomach churned, and he had to grab the wall to stay on his feet as dizziness hit.
He couldn’t do this.
He had to.
Kora had signed her life away for a house.
The princess had made a bargain in hopes that she could stop Teague and save both her brother and her kingdom.
“Why?” He forced the word out, desperate to hear something that would make her guilty of foolish greed. Something that would make his task a little bit easier. “Why did you sign the contract?”
Tears dripped from her face and plummeted to the floor, but her voice was steady enough as she said, “I had nothing. No shelter. No food. How was I going to take care of my babies?”
“Babies,” he whispered.
“Six and eight at the time. Now they’re grown enough to take care of themselves.” She smiled, grief stricken and proud. “They have jobs in the market. They have this house. They’ll be all right.”
He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t see the incantation past the tears in his own eyes.
Here was a mother who’d done the unthinkable to buy herself enough time to raise her children in safety and security, and she would pay for it with her life, while his own mother had turned her back on her sons time and time again without a single consequence.
“I’m ready,” Kora said quietly.
Sebastian shook his head and stared down at the parchment and vial he held. “I can’t.”
He didn’t know how he would save the princess from the consequences of his failure, but he knew with absolute certainty that he couldn’t take Kora’s soul.
He also knew that the princess wouldn’t want to be safe at the expense of this woman.
“What will the Wish Granter do to you if you don’t complete my contract?” she asked.
He couldn’t answer.
“I signed the contract. I understood the cost.” She stepped closer, and he backed into the wall behind him. “This was my choice to do for my children.”
Maybe he could find someone else—someone who no longer deserved to live—and take their soul instead. Maybe Teague couldn’t tell the difference.
Even as he scrambled for other options, he knew the truth. The contract was in Kora’s name, sealed with her blood. The magic would only work on her.
Kora gently put a hand on his arm. “What is a nice young man like yourself doing working for the Wish Granter?”
He clenched his jaw to keep from yanking his arm away from her touch and said quietly, “It was the only way I could help someone very close to me.”
“I wish you could spare me,” she said, tears spilling over again. “I wish I could let you. But you don’t deserve to be punished for my sake. And neither do my children.”
He frowned at her.
She tapped the contract he held. “I read the terms and conditions before signing. He said most don’t, but I wanted to know exactly what I was getting into. It said if I tried to break my contract early, my soul would be due immediately. It also said that if at the end of ten years I failed to pay my debt for any reason, my daughters would pay inste
ad.”
Sebastian closed his eyes and fought to breathe past the noose of panic that wanted to suffocate him.
“I never dreamed there was a way to avoid paying, so I never thought my girls would be in danger.” Her hand gripped his arm with fierce strength. “I have to pay this. I signed it. Not my girls. Not you. I’m ready.”
He wasn’t. He never would be.
But they were trapped by the terms of the contract. By the magic that wouldn’t let Sebastian bend the rules and take someone who deserved it more.
He wanted to push his horror and regret into a box and lock it away where he couldn’t be touched by it. He wanted the luxury of not caring when he looked into Kora’s calm, tearstained eyes.
It wouldn’t come.
Instead, his hands shook as he opened the vial. His voice caught on the words Teague had taught him to pronounce as he slowly whispered, “Ghlacadh anam de Kora Mitros agus mianach a dhéanamh.”
She stiffened, her mouth dropping open as if surprised. A brilliant light glowed beneath her skin, gathered in the center of her chest, and then slowly separated from her body. The life blinked out of her eyes, and her body hit the floor with a thud as the cloud of light hovered in the air above her for a moment, so achingly bright that Sebastian could hardly stand to look at it. He held up the vial, and the light streamed into it. When all of it was safely inside, Sebastian closed it and then sank to the floor beside Kora’s body, his shoulders shaking.
There were no words for the way everything inside him churned and tumbled. The way he wanted to open his mouth wide and scream his horror, but couldn’t unlock his jaw enough to make a single sound. There was nothing but a terrible, racking pain that scoured him from the inside out until he thought he’d promise anything just to make it stop.
The blood on his hands from the beatings he’d given in east Kosim Thalas was a tiny drop of water compared to the ocean of guilt he was drowning in now.
He needed to run, but there was nowhere to go that wouldn’t cost the princess her life.
He needed to escape, but there was no escape from the storm raging beneath his skin.
He needed a way out.
He needed help.
He needed Ari.
He straightened Kora’s body, closing her eyelids and folding her hands across her chest, and then he climbed to his feet, wrenched open the door, and began running toward the villa.
FORTY-FOUR
ARI STRETCHED, SLOWLY working each muscle from her neck to her toes. She’d been sitting with nothing but the thin mattress between her and the stone floor of the cage since the previous night, and it was now midafternoon. She was stiff, she was sore, and if she didn’t get a chance to relieve herself soon, she was going to embarrass herself in front of Jacob Vaughn.
“I need to use the bathroom.” She spoke into the silence that had stretched between them for hours. He’d tried to goad her into speaking a few times, but when she’d silently stared at her lap as if too depressed to talk—as if she wasn’t sitting there planning how to hurt him and get away—he’d given up.
Now, he barked out a laugh. “I don’t care what you need. Piss on yourself and sit in it.”
She was dangerously close to having to do exactly that.
“I’m also hungry,” she said, as if he’d already offered to meet her needs.
His lip curled. “So starve.”
She lifted her eyes to his and gave him her best impersonation of Mama Eleni’s you-are-unworthy-of-this-pie look, even though the thought of Mama Eleni and how frantic she must be to find Cleo sent a bright shaft of pain through Ari.
Fury followed hard on the heels of that pain. Jacob had Cleo’s blood on his hands, just like Teague. Jacob had whipped her until she couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but lie there and bleed until Teague snapped her neck.
Ari wasn’t going to cower in front of the man who’d helped kill Cleo.
“You don’t fool me,” she said with quiet intensity. “You don’t have the power to decide if I starve. You don’t have the power to decide anything at all. You’re nothing but a babysitter for Teague. Less than one of the villa guards. Less than even a street runner.”
His expression flattened, and he slowly climbed to his feet.
A tremble shook Ari as he stalked toward her.
She was hitting a venomous snake with a stick. She just had to pray she could talk fast enough to turn his venom toward Teague instead of her.
“Think you’re pretty special, don’t you?” His voice was rough.
“What I think doesn’t matter.” She kept her voice steady, but it was hard. He was closing fast, and the eager cruelty in his eyes made her want to shrink against the wall behind her.
“No, it doesn’t.” He was at her side in two more steps, and then he struck her face with the flat of his palm, sending her reeling.
Before she could recover, he grabbed her arms and gave her a quick, vicious shake. “You’re my prisoner. I can do whatever I want to you as long as I leave you alive.”
“I’m not your prisoner. I’m Teague’s.”
He grabbed her throat, dug his fingernails into her tender skin, and pulled her close enough that she could smell the staleness of his breath and feel the scratchiness of the rough tunic he wore.
There was nothing in his eyes but hatred. Nothing in his expression but rage.
How had Sebastian grown up with this much hate and cruelty aimed at him? How had he survived Jacob and found the strength to be the kind, protective boy she knew him to be?
It hurt to breathe. Hurt to swallow against the awful pressure of his palm. She did her best to make the pain a distant second to the purpose that burned within her, and met his gaze as he snarled, “I can hurt you. I can make you bleed. I can give you so much pain, you’ll be begging for death instead. Sebastian knows all about that.”
“I know.” She pushed the words past the constriction of her throat.
“I have all the power here, and I’m happy to demonstrate that if you need reminding.” His free hand reached for his whip, and Ari keep her eyes steadily on his. With a quick snap of his wrist, he flicked the whip beside her with a sharp crack that made her flinch. He leaned closer. “Still think you’re too good for me?”
“No, but Teague does,” she whispered.
His grip on her neck tightened, and she choked, but then he released her and stood. Before she could draw a shaky breath of relief, he moved behind her, the whip extended like a snake eager to sink its fangs into her skin.
“If Teague thought you were better than me, he’d have me chained to a wall and not you.” His voice shook with anger. “I’m going to enjoy teaching you to hold your tongue.”
“If Teague values you so much, then why is Sebastian his collector here and not you?” She rushed the words, but, stars help her, he was raising the whip, and she was already braced for the terrible bite of agony it would bring.
There was a pause, and bitterness tinged his voice when he spoke. “Boy made a contract. Can’t do anything about that. He’ll fail at it sooner or later. That boy never did have his head where it should be. Me, though, I follow orders. Every time. Which means I can hurt you, Princess, as long as I don’t kill you.”
“You’ll only prove to Teague that he was right to call you a blunt instrument and that Sebastian is the finely balanced sword. It’s obvious Teague thinks the sword is what he needs. I think you should prove him wrong.” And, stars, please let this work because if it didn’t, Ari had nothing else to try against him.
He grunted, and then he was crouched behind her, his knee digging into her back. In seconds, he had the whip wrapped around her throat. She grabbed for it, pulling against his brute strength. The whip didn’t loosen.
He spoke softly beside her ear. “Of course you want me to prove him wrong. You think I’m stupid? You just don’t want the whipping you deserve for running your mouth.”
Her voice was a harsh rasp as she struggled to speak around the slowl
y tightening leather cord. “I don’t want Sebastian to be the collector anymore, and I know how to make Teague see that you’re the better choice.”
“Is that so?” He sounded mocking.
“Yes.” Probably. As long as nobody had gone through the parchment on the little desk she used in the study Teague had given her.
“And how would a chained-up princess know a thing about collecting for Teague?” He still sounded mocking, but the whip loosened around her throat.
“Because for the last month, I’ve been managing his accounts in Kosim Thalas, figuring out how to cut down his overhead in Balavata, and organizing connections for him with people in five other kingdoms. He’s expanding his business, and that means he’ll need to travel to those kingdoms to set up networks and put collectors in place.”
“He already knows he can send me to another kingdom.” The whip pulled, burning against her skin.
“But Kosim Thalas is the seat of his growing empire, and somebody has to rule over it in his absence. That someone will be Sebastian—”
Jacob cursed. “Taught that boy everything he knows, and he thinks he can just bypass me?”
“Sebastian doesn’t think that.” Stars, was he really this blind? “Teague thinks that. Change Teague’s mind, and you will be the one to rule Kosim Thalas in his stead. Second in command over Teague’s multikingdom empire.”
“And why would you want to help me take that from Sebastian?”
Because Sebastian didn’t want it in the first place. And because if Jacob thought she was helping him, he might help her. She’d love to be unchained from the wall and allowed to cook a whole raft of bacon, but at this point she’d settle for a privy bucket and a piece of dry toast.
“Sebastian can’t further Teague’s business interests much longer.” He really couldn’t. She’d seen it in his eyes before he’d set out to fulfill Teague’s list that morning. “You can seize the opportunity to be a proactive leader, or you can keep behaving like the blunt instrument who follows orders but doesn’t know how to give them.”