Page 155 of Daughter of No Worlds

“Distractions?” His gaze lowered to my shoulder. “I only wanted to get a closer look at this. I like to fully understand the potential of the resources I have at my disposal.” He examined the wounds, his nose wrinkling. “Disgusting. And fascinating.”

Then he turned to Tisaanah, face drawn into overwrought concern. “It troubles me, Tisaanah, that you didn’t feel comfortable telling me about this sooner.”

Her face remained neutral, but I watched her expression steel in that particular way that told me that she was calculating the perfect response. Then her features settled into a well-practiced apologetic sweetness, and she replied, “There was just so much happening...so fast…I wasn’t thinking properly.”

It was so saccharine that it bordered on sarcasm, or maybe I only thought so because I knew her too well. But Zeryth, at least, appeared to buy it. One blink and that dazzling, effusive smile was back.

“We’ve all been a little distracted. It happens, in times like these. But, make no mistake — thisiswhy we’re here. None of us can afford to forget that.” His breezy gaze flicked to me, gesturing to the wound. “Get that taken care of, then. Have fun with the…digging.”

And just like that, he glided away, not so much as bothering to look back as he ascended the steps to the deck.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Tisaanah

“That went exactly how he wanted it to,” Sammerin said, shaking his head, and Max scowled in a way that said he knew his friend was right.

I watched Max as he slumped back down onto that crate, my teeth gritted.Stupid.Sostupid, in that uniquely male way, to sink to getting into a dick-waving contest instead of stopping tothinkabout what that would mean. Gods, what a privilege that must be.

I may have had the ability to decay flesh — a thought that made me shudder — but I still lacked the freedom that would let me behave so carelessly.

Max caught my eye. “What?”

“You made it too easy for him.”

“Trust me, I’ve known Zeryth long enough to know that he would have found an excuse for that display regardless. That was unavoidable. Now or later.” A scoff. “Bastard.”

“It doesn’t matter. You cannot give him so much to use against you.”

Max’s face hardened. “That man treated you like an animal, and he was just looking at you like you were—” He let out a breath through his teeth. “And you’re telling me that I didn’t play nicely enough?”

I wanted to laugh. How could someone be so cynical and yet so naive? “Do you understand how many men have looked at me that way? Like a thing, not a person? I wouldn’t have survived a week in Esmaris’s court if I had—”

“But that’s notright.”

“Of course it’s notright,but it is the way it is. The only weapon I have is to use that.”

Max looked down at his shoulder. At that glistening black rot. “I don’t think that’s even remotely true, Tisaanah.”

A whisper, far away, as my eyes fell to that patch of rot:{Look at what we can do together. Beautiful.}

That one echo of a whisper, and it was gone again. It was always, always so tired.

“I amboundto the Orders,” I said, to Max. “That is true whether I like it or you like it. And that…rot…” I lifted my hand to his shoulder, biting back my disgust at the word. “That does not belong tome.That belongs tothem.”

Bound to Zeryth. Bound to Nura. Bound to Queen Sesri. And, of course, perhaps most dangerously of all, bound to Reshaye. All those ropes cutting into my skin. My skin that couldkill. My hands that woulddecay.

It was easier, I acknowledged, deep in the back of my mind. It was easier to be angry at Max for doing what I couldn’t than to think about all that implied — than to think about what those people made me and what my servitude, my slavery, would force me to do.

Because that?Thatjust made me feel sick, no matter how many times I told myself that it would all be worth it if it meant freeing those that I left behind.

“But you are more than all of those things,” Sammerin said, quietly. “Don’t forget that.”

“I will be whatever I need to be.”

“What about what youwantto be?” Max leaned forward, wincing at the movement. “What aboutyou?”

What about me? I was a means to an end. My mother had sent her only child away. Serel had been ready to sacrifice his life. What they gave up for me to had toworthsomething.

---