Page 11 of A Spell of Bones and Madness
“There is no way I am leaving the fate of my brother’s life in the hands of the half-witted people who got him caught in the first place!” Chloe screamed, pacing around the dining table.
“Half-witted? You think I would have willingly left him there? I was under direct orders from Alexander to get Katrin and her sister to safety. By any means necessary,” the nauarch growled back at Chloe.
If there was one thing Ember had learned about Leighton in her brief time with the man, it was that he was nothing but loyal. To a fault, it would seem. He put duty and honor above all else. Eventhe cries of her sister. They still echoed in Ember’s mind. Screams that had rattled the entire ship as Leighton held Katrin back,The Nostosleaving port without its captain.
“That is not the point! You do not leave one of your own behind, regardless of what theyorderyou to do.” Chloe stomped right up to Leighton, poking him in the chest. “If my brother had not seemed to care about you so much, I would have ripped out your throat already.”
Leighton stepped right back into her. “You could have tried, wolf, but I assure you that you would not have succeeded. You think because you sit here, in these hallowed halls, reveling in privilege, that you have a right to fight for him? To call him your brother? Where were you all these years he wandered the seas? Did you once try to look for him? Try to bring him home?”
Nikolaos sat at the head of the table, just watching the two of them yell back and forth, not interfering in the verbal battle. He only smiled. It was unsettling, and every bone in Ember’s body told her to run.
“Heismy brother. I am flesh and blood! What are you? A pirate he met at some seedy bar?” Chloe lashed back.
Sitting near Nikolaos at the table, Farah snickered, crossing her arms and leaning back. “And to think, I was only saying I should go because I want to see the look on my brother’s face when I return to fight for his enemy.”
How dare she speak. “And who asked for your opinion, traitor?” Ember chided, slamming her hand on the table.
Farah’s brows shot up. “You keep calling me a traitor, Ember, and yet you are the one looking to usurp your own king.”
Ember was going to explode across this very table. Kohl. Was. Not. Her. King.
“That is enough!” Katrin stood, knocking back her chair and spilling her glass of wine across the table. “Why are we fighting? There is not enough time to waste our energy with incessant and idiotic bickering! You”—Katrin pointed at Leighton—“followed orders. You risked your best friend to save me and I know how it pained you. And you”—she turned back toward the princess—“loved him. I saw your letters in Ander’s books. You two were close and I am sure it hurt everyday that he was gone, but arguing amongst ourselves isn’t going to solve anything.”
Chloe huffed a sigh and Leighton turned his head away from them both, hands clenched so tight his knuckles paled.
“We need to focus our energy—our hate, our screams—on the men who are truly our enemy. Khalid, Edmund…Hades. You want to join us, Chloe? Fine. But it is under the orders of Leighton. He was Ander’s second, and will remain in charge until the captain has returned to his ship—because he will return, I will make sure of it.” Ember’s sister began to glow, radiating off the alabaster and marble around them.
“Well, there is the spark I expected from the daughter of the God of Death.” Nikolaos clapped. He actuallyclappedat the sight of Katrin glowing in the middle of their great hall. But it was not a cheerful clap, more haunting and mocking. “Now go, before I tire of you all and you need my wife to sway me to help you miscreants once more.” His voice was silencing and not one of them dared to say another word.
Katrin picked up her things off the table and stormed out of the room, muttering something to herself as Leighton chased afterher. Nikolaos waved off his daughter and Farah to follow them and Ember was grateful to be rid of the Morentian princess, although that left Ember alone with the daunting God of the Seas and his overly flirtatious son. If Ander was anything like Dimitris, she wasn’t surprised Katrin had been enthralled by him, even when she was betrothed. Sharp features, devilish smile, voice as smooth as olive oil. He was strangely intoxicating, even with the limited interactions they’d had. The scent of pine and a crackling fire swept around her as the prince moved chairs to sit closer to her.
King Nikolaos stood, his palms gripping firm on the table’s edge, and looked down at a map of the continents. “Well, Ember, it looks like that leaves you to journey to your father’s kingdom. Since Chloe insisted on sailing to Alentus, you may take Dimitris as an advisor.”
Advisor? Wonderful. She’d be stuck in the underworld with a man that looked like he took absolutely nothing in life seriously. “Fine, but I should be allowed to take members of my own crew as well.” Alexander’s crew, that was—Ember had no one left that truly followed her rule, not after the Spartanis turned.
“You may take that seer of yours, she could be of help in the realm of the dead. Ajax may go as well. I am sure Dimitris is eager to spend more time with his favorite spy after all these years,” King Nikoloas declared, a vicious gleam to his gaze and his son smiled back.
Thalia and Ajax appeared out of nowhere just as Nikolaos spoke of them, unless that was the king’s intentions all along—keep them outside of discussions until they were needed. As the lithe, moon-haired woman sat, Dimitris's brows furrowed and he cocked his head to the side. His chest rose in a deep breath thenslowly let back out. Ember thought it was curious how the prince stared at Thalia, even more curious when a sheen of darkened silver coated his pale gray eyes for a moment as he blinked. Thalia didn’t care to glance back at him, her eyes glued wholly on the map in front of the king, her hand stroking Mykonos in her lap.
“Since we have little time to spare, and considering we are not able to contact Aidoneus to give us passage, especially when you travel with mortals, I will need to guide you to the gates on the isle of Avernia myself. It is a treacherous journey through the caves there to Aidesian, but I cannot see another way.”
Ember shifted in her seat. She had read about Avernia, the small rocky isle in the Saron Sea. Read about the monsters that crept along the walls of the cave until you met the Stygian River that flowed to the heart of Aidesian, to a place her father could meet them.
Blackness began to creep into the room, tendrils of shadows wrapping around Ember’s arms and legs. She shot her gaze over to Thalia who now clutched Mykonos tightly to her chest, the same shadows covering her body. Dimitris sat still beside her, a wicked and feral darkness in his gray eyes. Even Ajax who had stood next to the table could not reach for his sword as the shadows bound his arms. A trap. It had all been a trap. Had her sister—
Ember crashed against hard packed sand and rock, Ajax and Thalia landing next to her both face planting into the beach where they’d suddenly appeared. Mykonos let out a growl, shifting into her more frightful form of a mountain lion. King Nikolaos was nowhere to be seen, but Dimitris stood there, seemingly unfazed by being dropped from the sky.
“Put that thing away, Seer. You are all safe,” Dimitris purred as he waltzed over to the three of them lying in the sand. Mykonos growled at him, but promptly shifted back to her cat form. Thalia fluttered her eyes, cocking her head to the side. Ember had learned aboard the ship thatno onetold the littlepsychíwhat to do and Mykonos never listened even if they tried. Maybe she was seeing things, maybe it was just the world still spinning around her.
“Can your whole family do that?” Ember panted through rolls of nausea. She didn’t know how everyone else looked fine when her skin was about as green as the eagle tattooed on Ajax’s bicep.
Dimitris slipped an arm around her waist to try to keep her from spiraling into the ground. “Do what, blondie?”
“That whole”—Ember swirled her finger around in the air—“shadow bending,we were in the castle now we are on a beachthing.”
“Aervading? No. That was a gift my father kept for him and his namesake alone.” Dimitris's eyes turned a darkened silver. “My gifts come from my mother.”
His lip curved up, revealing elongated canines, the same ones that Chloe and Giselle bore.Alpha. She had thought Chloe was just making fun of her older brother, but it seemed he might actually bear the title. If that were true, Dimitris was far more dangerous than she thought the flirtatious prince to be. The Nexian wolves—they were ones of lore. Fiercely loyal to their own, ferocious to any who stood in their way.
