Page 44 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

“Could she have been working for someone?” I asked tentatively, aware I danced a treasonous line myself. “Varidian doesn’t seem to share the most familial bond with the king.”

Shula snorted. “That’s putting a fine point on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if King Bakhshi sent an assassin to kill Varidian. But she’s an odd choice. No formal training, no history in death arts.”

“A gentry’s daughter from a town most notable for candles,” I agreed with a sigh.

“Candles?”

I almost smiled. “There are four factories. The whole town smells of wax some days.”

“Better than being known for manure, like my village,” she replied, arms bulging as she leaned further against the railing. “In summer every home smells like shit. We ship it all across Ithanys.”

“Delightful.”

Shula snorted, a crooked smile on her face. It fell quickly. “I don’t think the king sent Kaawa. I think someone else did.Somethingelse. And I think like those old stories of possession and dark, poisonous power, that something had her mind in its clawed grip.”

Ice speared my veins. “Could you have told me this when my husbandwasn’tmissing? Now I’m imagining him with black veins and blacker eyes and a thirst for blood.”

Shula winced. “Yeah, this might not have been the best timing. But you asked why Kaawa would betray us, and this is why.”

She looked around the room; I followed her gaze.

“I’m missing something.”

“Power,” she clarified. “You can feel it, can’t you? It’s everywhere?”

That old, hushed reverence all around us. Yes, I felt it. It was an ancient power, far older than either of us.

“Kaawa was drawn here because she was drawn to power. She was corrupted because of it.”

I shook my head. “That really is a conspiracy theory.”

Shula shrugged. “It’s either power, the king’s influence, or Kaawa was just a manipulative bitch that got off on playing us all.”

I glanced away, bristling to hear her speak of my cousin that way but also… her pain was genuine. And Naila had given her that pain, pretended to love her, and betrayed her in the end.

I wanted to know why.

When Varidian and Fahad returned, when they were safe, I would find out why Naila did what she did.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

AMEIRAH

The storm didn’t stop all night, hammering the moss-covered walls of the fortress, turning the forested lawn outside its heavy doors into a marsh. Varidian and Fahad didn’t return.

I fell asleep on the window seat of the bedroom Shula strong-armed me into some time around dawn and startled awake with my forehead pressed to the cold glass of the window, the room chilled around me. I didn’t dream of killing Shahzia tonight. I didn’t dream at all.

By the soft blue of the sky, it was still early morning. I’d slept three hours at most, and I felt it in the arch of my back, the crick in my neck, the throbbing in my head, and my grit-sore eyes. I rubbed the sleep from them, only exacerbating the dryness, and got off the stone sill. I gritted my teeth against the dull pain in my tailbone and went in search of Varidian’s legion.

I’d had plenty of time to think during the night, waiting for my husband to return, and I’d come to the uneasy decision tonot kill any of them until I had answers about Naila’s betrayal. Things weren’t adding up, but all the legion knew was she was a traitor and she’d hurt them. Hurt Shula.

I couldn’t imagine my cousin being callous enough to break someone’s heart on purpose, but that didn’t change the fact she had. There were so many things I didn’t know, and I would delay avenging her death until I did.

That didn’t mean I liked the legion, or even that I’d be friendly to them, but… Zaarib wasstillon the lawn in the rain, still running through sword drills, and I couldn’t help but feel we were suffering the same fear. Maybe his was worse because he’d known Varidian for years, while I’d known him days. But Varidian Saber was mine. The idea of him never coming back from the storm made me want to cry.

He couldn’t give me a taste of affection, look at me the way he did, proclaim me his, and then just vanish forever.

I found a woollen djellaba and pulled it over my clothes, the chill of the fortress making me shudder as I ventured into the stone hallway. It was dark, the windows too narrow to carry light far and the torches yet unlit. It was also unsettlingly quiet, the soft whisper of my footsteps over the old stone floor the only sound that reached my ears. Despite knowing four other people occupied the fortress, I felt alone in this unfamiliar, unknowable place.

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