Page 8 of Terror at the Gates

Just once, I’d like to feel as if I had power over him.

I held the knife between us, and he took it, raising his brows.

“It’s not like you to seduce a man for pretty, useless things,” he said.

I thought it was odd he called the knife useless. It was heavy with gemstones. Those were obviously worth something, but then it occurred to me that maybe we had different ideas about what made something valuable. I hoped that meant he’d let me keep it.

“You should know I like the thrill,” I said.

While there was a practical element to my work, for lack of a better word, it was true I liked a challenge.

“There are other ways to get your kicks, Lilith.”

“Any suggestions?” I asked, rolling my shoulders. “I’m getting restless.”

“Perhaps I should give you a list,” he said. “It isn’t as though you listen to me. Maybe it would keep you out of trouble.”

“I’m not in trouble,” I said, gazing at him through my lashes. “Am I, Zahariev?”

I wanted that mouth to do something other than frown at me, but he remained firm.

“All it takes is once, Lilith. The wrong target, the wrong territory.”

I rolled my eyes. His words just ignited my anger, and I pushed past him.

“God, would you juststop? I’m not a child.”

“This has nothing to do with your age. This is about your magic.”

“For the love of all that is fucking holy,” I said, turning to face him. “Have you been talking to my mother too? Has she shared how disappointed she is in my magic or how she hopes to marry me off in the next year to keep it contained?”

He stood there, quiet, his hands in his pockets. My rage wasn’t different from my body. It did not affect him.

“I don’t care how you use your magic, but people talk. The commission talks.”

The commission was made up of the heads of each family. There was Zahariev, of course, then my father, Lucius; Victor Viridian, who oversaw Temple City; Serafin Sanctius over Galant; and Absalom Asahel over Akkadia. Their goal was to keep peace between families and address disputes before they escalated on the ground. They also enforced social law, which usually only applied to women as dictated by theBook of Splendor.

I knew what the commission said about me. My mother made sure of it. I was silly and rash—an embarrassment. I had been told so often, I decided to just embrace it, even knowing one day my decision would have consequences.

“Since when do you care about what the commission has to say?”

I heard him approach but refused to look, surprised when his fingers touched my chin.

Reluctantly, I met his gaze.

It was hard to explain, but I felt like he had the deepest eyes I had ever seen, yet they held absolutely nothing.

“I care because they are wrong about you,” he said.

“How are they wrong, Zahariev?”

I only asked because I wanted to know what he was thinking, not because I cared about the commission.

He stared, the bright blue of his eyes on full display. It was unnerving, the way he read my face. I wondered what he saw, or worse, what I hadn’t concealed.

“Their judgment is fear, Lilith,” he said. “And fear is power.”

I swallowed, and my eyes fell to his lips. Zahariev seemed to take that as a sign to stop touching me, because he dropped his hand.

---