Page 24 of Our Vicious Oaths
The Petitions Hall’s doors were thrust open. The thud of footsteps, thank the skies, made Cassius pause his whining about how Malachi had already proven himself an enemy of tradition when he named Trystin—someone who wasn’t from Bloodline Diamundis—as grand duke above himself.
As if Cassius would have even been my tenth choice, let alone my first.
Malachi’s Cadre strode to the front of the hall, each individual in his inner circle looking murderous. “You’re missing five lord primes who have the right to bear witness to this utterwaste of time as you stand there issuing your inconsequential challenge,” Shionne spat at Cassius. The lord prime of Bloodline Emarid plunged the hall’s temperature to subzero levels, the arctic blast a warning.
Cassius recovered from his initial shock, but the momentary bewilderment had told Malachi he’d timed his challenge for when he’d known they were tied up with business away from court. Malachi made another mental note to figure out what eyes Cassius had inside the palace who carried information to him. He tolerated spies, even used them to his advantage. However, he only gave them a pass when he knew their identity and when he could control the flow of information they carried to whom they served.
Like those present last night, he mused, quickly nipping that thought in the bud as he felt a twitch in his groin from those memories.
“Your presence makes no difference,” Cassius drawled. He sneered at Shionne and then at Jakobi, Kiyun, Zayvier, and Dedrick in turn. “The entire court knows you’re under Malachi’s thumb, the same as your parents were with the former king.” Cassius spat the fact like it was sacrilegious.
“Your point?” Jakobi said, chuckling as if the entire matter was humorous.
“Allegiance and fealty should be traits of a king’s lord primes, should they not?” Zayvier lobbed at Cassius, his ice-blue eyes severe. It was the same castigating look Zayvier’s father used to turn on lord primes who were being particularly mulish or tiresome during the old king’s Assembly of Primes meetings.
Shionne skewered each of the lord primes who were not part of the Cadre with warning looks. “Weallpledged fealty to the crown and the monarch who wears it. To behave in anyother manner is—what’s the word? Ah, yes: treason,” she reminded all who were gathered in the hall. She formed a void scythe and held it at her side casually enough, yet the threat was evident. Malachi was perfectly capable of delivering a reprimand to those who needed it. But Shionne’s official role was to be the fist of the crown when treachery was suspected, and he delighted in how much she delighted in that responsibility. A second pleasure? Shionne’s formal role meant she was the single person in the room who could brandish a weapon without it being a gauche violation of the custom that barred violence in the Petitions Hall.
Letting the lord primes dig as deep a hole as they liked this day, Malachi wouldn’t give away any indication of his own murderous mood yet. He simply continued to survey the nobles, quietly tallying how many would replace the clerics’ bodies that decorated the palace gates. Or perhaps he’d hang the heads of those who conspired against him from the palace walls this time.
Most of the lord primes had enough self-preservation to visibly pale under Shionne’s condemning glare. Only Lady Niyarre remained stoic. It was further evidence stacked against her. It pointed toward an overconfidence that Cassius would win his little challenge. If that was what she believed, she was as delusional as his cousin. Annoyed, Malachi thought back to the warden’s daughter. Was Arrenia the person who’d carried information about his Cadre’s absence? He had given her instructions to keep an eye on Kadeesha and the rest of the princess’s people when his Cadre arrived back at court with them, but he hadn’t had a chance to talk to her since.
Cassius’s exaggerated sigh cut into Malachi’s musings. Malachi rolled his eyes. Cassius was ever one for unnecessarydramatics. “Before I was interrupted,” he continued, “I was going to say that it is a given how great an affection and respect we all held for our former king, Antoniyzaroth the Great. As his moniker suggests, my uncle was a fine male and even finer ruler. He cared for his people. And he placed his people first. He didn’t toss them into peril over some petty, pointless, mad need for vengeance he couldn’t let go of. Uncle Antonie didn’t actively pursue a war that will bring ruin to this court. His only failing was not heeding a prophecy that—”
“Careful, Cassius,” Shionne warned.
“Careful?”
“You skirt dangerously close to rhetoric that sounds like the fanatical speech of the Cleric’s Rebellion. Then it doesn’t matter one fucking ounce if you’re issuing a challenge. You step across that line, it’s sedition and you forfeit your head,” she stated. Her void scythe was now leveled at Cassius.
“Is that the rule? You should’ve let him keep going,” said Dedrick.
Shionne shrugged. “I could’ve. But it’ll be much more fun watching Malachi strip him of his pride and misplaced arrogance prior to killing him in a challenge.”
As amusing as this was, one thing rankled Malachi enough that he would not let it stand. “Keep my father’s name out of your mouth,” Malachi told his cousin. “You don’t need a tongue to remain alive and able to carry out a challenge. I’d violate none of our ancient rules if I were to cut yours out right here and now.”
Cassius sucked his teeth, but he smartly dropped where he’d been headed. Pivoting to a safer attack, Cassius proclaimed to the lord primes, “Our king attempted to assassinate the liege lord of all southern lands. But was he successful? No. He returned and spun his utter and dismal failure as a triumph. Butit was no victory. It matters little that he killed many among Rishaud’s important nobles. He did not kill the liege lord himself. Hefailed, spectacularly. Given the Hyperion king’s own zealous beliefs about conquering our lands, the Apollyon Court needs a ruler who does not seek war but one who seeks a way to make the Hyperion king turn his focus away from us. We cannot win a war that is six courts against one.”
Malachi laughed. “And you call me mad?” he questioned his cousin. “What beyond slaying Rishaud could possibly make him give up an agenda he’s held for centuries? When he forced the southern dominions to kneel, he tried to subjugate the Apollyonfolk too. We, however, were not so easily crushed and he’s never forgotten it. Have you, cousin? Should I call a tutor to give you a history lesson?”
“I can help with that,” Kiyun noted, hand on the hilt of one of his knives.
Cassius squared his shoulders. “I do not need a lesson. In fact, if I am Apollyon king, I will use that history to rid our people of the perpetual skirmishes and ever-looming war with the Six Kingdoms. The sight Rishaud sets on Apollyon lands has always been about the vast resources within the parts of the Yunna Mountains that lie within our territory. Those resources are valuable enough that if we give up a portion of the mountains to the Hyperion king, it can entice him to agree to an oath to abandon any current or future attempts to invade Apollyon lands. The course I chart may sound intolerable at first,” Cassius told the lord primes, “but it will spare our court the devastation of war. Malachi eagerly wants the opposite as he is driven by nothing except useless wrath and greedy ambition to crown himself high king. And in getting his way, Malachi will hand the southern liege lord what Rishaud has long sought when welose: dominion over us, our families, our children, our lands, our way of life. I have come here today because I will not let Malachi hand that to our enemy! I mean to be the king our court truly needs! So,” he said, drawing himself up tall and staring at Malachi, “I challenge my cousin for the throne upon the charge that he has shown a temperament that renders him unfit to rule and his actions endanger the future of our people and the independence of this court!”
“I’ve heard enough!” Malachi was done listening to Cassius’s ravings. There was no way in hell any part of the Apollyon lands would be conceded to the Hyperion king. He rose from his throne. “You will have your challenge under the upcoming Half Moon, as is our way,” he informed his cousin. He flashed his teeth in a manner that was nothing close to a smile. “I look forward to making you regret ever being so foolish.”
Malachi then turned a frosty glare onto his lord primes. He let his glower ripple over them, let them feel its chill in their marrow. “Know this,” he announced after letting them stew, “when the challenge is done and I remain king, I will then root out all among my lord primes who are unfaithful to the crown. Iwilladhere to the old laws with ruthless efficiency that allow for the execution of those with seditious intent. It does not matter how powerful or necessary you may think your bloodline is to this kingdom. Those who are disloyal to the crown and to the people it protects or who uphold the ideas of the Cleric’s Rebellion will be put to death.” He gave one last long look, lingering on Lady Niyarre, before departing the Petitions Hall, leaving Cassius and the primes to do with his words as they wished. He’d made his decree and every one of those inside the hall knew he’d damn well make good on it.
Chapter Twelve
ASMALL SQUAD OF GUARDS ESCORTED KADEESHAto a salon where she’d been informed her Nkita and mother were waiting for her.Finally, thank the Celestials. It’d taken an extra day for them to arrive beyond Malachi’s Cadre returning to court. According to his Cadre’s report, the kongamatos had heavily resisted the original plan of rune teleportation, and since nobody who wanted to live forced a kongamato to do anything, the Nkita squadron had flown north once getting word that Malachi had extended sanctuary and Kadeesha wanted them to join her.
The watchdogs Malachi had sent to fetch Kadeesha from her rooms were dressed in black-and-silver coats so fine in splendor one couldn’t mistake them for anything except palace guards. There were twelve of them in total who boxed her in from the front, back, and sides as they marched her down halls buzzing with courtiers’ gossip about the challenge Malachi’s cousin had issued.
Truly, Kadeesha was honored. Malachi perceived her at the appropriate threat level to assign so many guards. Yet His Gracehad simultaneously greatly underestimated her. If not for their bargains, twelve of his best warriors wouldn’t be enough.
She erased Malachi from her thoughts when her escorts stopped in front of a narrow mahogany door. One of them, a tall slender woman with creamy tan skin and a permanent scowl in place, pushed open the doors and gave her fellow guards the order to spread out around the salon. Kadeesha brushed off the irritation of their lingering presence and rushed into the room. What was most important was the fact that those she cared about were beyond Rishaud’s reach. They couldn’t be used to further punish her deeds or as leverage against her. She laid eyes on her mother first. She and Yashira might’ve existed within a complicated relationship, but shewasher mother and so a weight lifted from Kadeesha’s chest at finally seeing her mother safe and well with her own eyes. Behind the relief, Kadeesha snorted at the picture Yashira cut. Leave it to the woman to be perched on one of the salon’s sofas with an exquisitely made-up face, not a hair out of place of the braided wreath atop her head, and wearing an immaculate formal sea-blue gown as if she was attending afternoon tea and hadn’t just been smuggled out of the Aether Court and into the enemy’s territory to preserve her life.
Yashira, in an entirely expected manner, stared at Kadeesha, completing the same intense perusal. Also of no surprise, it wasn’t a welfare check on Yashira’s part. She clucked her tongue and scolded, “Really, Kadeesha, how could you be so reckless? How could you have placed yourself, your father,your court, in such a dire position?”
