Page 46 of Our Vicious Oaths
As Kadeesha followed behind her, exiting the sitting room and walking into the bedroom, she briefly thought about the reason Malachi had needed to hand Arrenia—another treacherous bitch involved in schemes to kill her—over to Leisha and not Kadeesha herself. She scowled, disliking that she was sympathetically thinking of Malachi at all and how her next actions might adversely impact him. She wasn’t supposed to give a damn if something she did led to smearing his reputation among his nobles and thus undermining his claim to the Apollyon throne. Matter of fact, she should’ve been eager to do so. The shrewd play here was to actively work toward proving the prophecy about him bringing ruin to his court true. The more internal political chaos Malachi had to manage, the more his focus might be pulled away from seizing rule of her court. She used that last truth to smother any misplaced empathy towardMalachi as Lady Keeya dropped the dress onto the bed as if it was a writhing snake. She laid the diadem beside it. Kadeesha didn’t give her time to turn around. She reached out and grabbed the female by the back of her neck and shoved Lady Keeya’s face into the poisoned gown, smothering her screams. Keeya clawed at Kadeesha’s hand as Kadeesha pinned her face to the dress while the attendant thrashed around wildly in a futile attempt to escape Kadeesha’s hold.
Kadeesha let a full minute tick by before she let her up. Then she drove Lady Keeya’s face into the polished oak post at the foot of bed. Bone crunched and she wailed. Kadeesha spun her around, grabbing her by the sweetheart neckline of her yellow gown. Kadeesha called a spinning ball of aether flames to existence within the palm of her free hand. She brought it an inch away from Lady Keeya’s face. The female who’d just delivered poison to her door screamed and shouted for help.
“Be silent, or I will give you something to truly scream about,” Kadeesha hissed. She brought the aether ball closer to Lady Keeya’s tender skin, so its heat licked at her cheek. Lady Keeya shrieked, but she must’ve seen the truth of the violence Kadeesha would render blazing within her furious stare because the shrieks abruptly turned to quieter sobs. “Who gave you the poisoned gown and told you to carry it to me?” Kadeesha asked.
The female’s russet-brown eyes widened. She frenziedly shook her head. “I—I don’t—”
“Do not lie. I smell the Deathbane on it,” Kadeesha warned. “And you’re as nervous as a mouse in a fox’s den.” She moved the aether ball closer to the female’s face so she understood the consequences of not telling the truth.
She flinched and sobbed, “My father.” Her terror-strickeneyes flew back and forth between the aether ball and Kadeesha’s pitiless sneer. Kadeesha didn’t allow herself to go there often, but she let all warmth, all traces of humanity, drain away. She let Lady Keeya see that she was going to die anyway, but she’d make her death extraordinarily painful if Kadeesha had to pry additional information from her. Lady Keeya swallowed thickly, tears streaming down her delicately boned face. Kadeesha experienced a twinge of pity for the woman. Like all fae males of the repugnant variety, Lord Prime Tareek didn’t give a shit about his daughter. Instead of treasuring and protecting her, he’d sent her on a suicide mission. One that might’ve been avoided if the male wasn’t an idiotic fool who’d failed to perform proper reconnaissance before sending his daughter straight into the enemy’s hands. If he had, then he would’ve known of Kadeesha’s mother’s adeptness with poisons, or of Sylas’s notorious use of them at the very least, and then he would’ve surmised this particular attempt against her life was never going to succeed.
“And how did Lord Prime Tareek get his hands on the dress?” Kadeesha inquired. Lady Keeya naming Lord Prime Tareek as one more individual within the Apollyon Court who wanted her dead—and presumably sought to overthrow Malachi too—wasn’t enough. If there was more information to be gained about every last enemy she’d have during her remaining stay in Malachi’s territory, then it was prudent to ascertain it to best guard against it. She didn’t plan on dying in these cursed lands.
“He had me intercept the servant that’d been tasked with carrying it to your room. I took her to my father instead.” Lady Keeya’s answer was but a whisper. A whimper, really.
“What has come of the servant?” Kadeesha had a hunch, but she wanted it confirmed.
“My father killed her.”
“I thank you for that information.” Lady Keeya’s admission wiped away any lingering pity she had for the woman who’d lured a servant, who’d held no power of their own or the ability to refuse an order from a noble, to their death.
“Your father and Lady Niyarre, are they working together alongside the Cleric’s Rebellion to see that Malachi cannot use me to seize greater power and to ultimately overthrow Malachi?” Kadeesha asked.
Lady Keeya’s shoulders sagged. “Yes,” she breathed.
“Who has taken up leadership of this Cleric’s Rebellion since the former high cleric of the royal court has died?” It was Apollyon Court business that had now become her business since there was an entire cabal that wanted her dead.
Of all the things that Kadeesha had asked Lady Keeya, the color drained from her tawny-brown skin at that question.Interesting.She vigorously shook her head. “They’ll … It doesn’t matter if you aren’t going to allow me to leave this room alive. He’ll—they’ll slaughter my entire bloodline if I name them. I have brothers. Sisters. Cousins. Family I care about.”
Kadeesha’s smile was as icy and lashing as the winds that howled atop the peaks of the Yunnas. “You should’ve thought about them before you brought a poisoned gown to my room. Whatever you fearhe’lldo,” Kadeesha said, using the woman’s slip against her, “Iwill make certain that your family suffers threefold.” She let the aether flames in her palm grow marginally larger and burn hotter before she asked, “Have you ever beheld anyone burned alive? I’m not referring to someone being quickly incinerated and then swiftly ushered into Nyaxia’s Mist Isles. I mean have you ever seen an individual burned so excruciatingly slowly that you hear their tortured screams drag on and you pray to Nyaxia, or any other Celestial that will listen,to mercifully liberate them from the agony and help their souls pass into the Mist Isles so they’ll finally know peace?
“I don’t imagine you have,” Kadeesha answered her own question. “The Apollyon Court is one that deals in void magic, darkness, and shadows. But we folk of the Aether Court, we deal in flames that can burn hotter than the sun itself if the one who wields aether is powerful enough. I assure you that I possess that might. I haven’t burned anyone alive in the manner I’ve described myself, yet. But I’ve witnessed my father, the former Aether king, do it to those who committed offenses against the throne on many occasions. It is not a pleasant thing to do … or smell. And the experience stays with you, haunts you, for eternity. If you do not tell me the new leader of the Cleric’s Rebellion, I will forget that I once vowed not to be cruel for cruelty’s sake as my father was and I will see that you are made to watch everyone you’d wish to protect burn slowly. Then, I will see that you live for a nice long while with the knowledge that you caused it before I finally kill you in the same manner. You’ll die for your ill-conceived choices either way, Lady Keeya, but how you die and the suffering you bring to your family is up to you. Tell me who leads the Cleric’s Rebellion and I’ll let you die in relative peace.”
Lady Keeya was pale as a wraith by the time Kadeesha finished. She trembled in Kadeesha’s hold. Usually Kadeesha would’ve reined in her darker, more terrifying urges that were fueled by the destructive, fiery nature of her aether magic. However, they served a necessary purpose at the moment. “A name,” she prompted Lady Keeya.
“Ri-Rishaud, the Hyperion king,” she choked out.
Kadeesha’s face went slack with shock. “Rishaud is of the Hyperionfolk. He isn’t of the Apollyonfolk.” Kadeesha’s voice matched Lady Keeya’s in hoarseness.
“Losing the court’s high cleric was a crucial blow to the rebellion,” Lady Keeya whispered. “Then afterward … Nychelle banished all clerics from court and Malachi has been hunting down and killing any known ones that supported the Cleric’s Rebellion for years. There are only a scattered handful of clerics that remain who supported the rebellion and who still believe Malachi will bring ruin to the court. But their fervency is strong and, from what my father apprised me of, Rishaud used the prophecy about you and him to convince those remaining clerics to unite behind his banner. To be his forces within Apollyon lands that work to destabilize Malachi’s rule.”
Kadeesha’s molten glare narrowed on Lady Keeya. She recalled what they’d learned of Lady Niyarre’s ambitions back at the Stone Keep. “If you, your father, and Lady Niyarre are working with the Cleric’s Rebellion to usurp Malachi and place Lady Niyarre upon the throne instead, then that means you have all sworn fealty to Rishaud too. You operate under his banners.” She knew herex-betrothed well enough to be certain he would demand a display of absolute allegiance and submission as he’d done with the vassal monarchs. As he would’ve tried to do with her if their marriage ceremony had been completed. A hatred for this female in front of her, her father, the Stone Warden, and all who aligned with Rishaud scorched through Kadeesha’s veins. “Rishaud is a monster.A tyrant.He treats hisownancestral folk along with the rest of the Six Kingdoms like things to be merely crushed beneath his heel and made to pay him tribute. This court is composed of Apollyon fae whom he believes are vermin to be extinguished. How inthe helldo you all who have bowed to him think he will treat you and yours? He wants this land for its resources. Not its faefolk. He will massacre the Apollyonfolk if he gains dominion over your court so he canhave all the resources within the land and none of its ancestral faefolk.” She gaped at Lady Keeya, because could her father and the other lord primes going against Malachi truly be so blind?
Lady Keeya continued to tremble. “Rishaud has promised we’ll be treated the same as his other dominions. But the lord primes are not idiots,” she said quietly. “They know all you’ve said, which is why Lady Niyarre seeks to kill you. In the absence of his current betrothed, she means to convince Rishaud to takeheras his wife and thus install her as high queen of all of Nimani. Once she hands the Apollyon Court to him, you and the prophecy concerning you will be of no consequence. He’ll have become high king of a united Nimani without you.”
Kadeesha fought the urge to laugh. The Apollyon nobles didn’t know Rishaud well enough. Or perhaps one of them did and was leaving the others in the dark. “Even if Lady Niyarre becomes high queen, she will be achieving it at the expense of the extermination of her own folk and you have aided her.” But Kadeesha suspected the Stone Warden knew that.
Lady Keeya must’ve sensed the fact that Kadeesha was done with the interrogation because she started to shout again for help and thrash, understanding her death was imminent. Kadeesha placed a finger to the female’s lips. “Shhhh,” she crooned, the deep-seated fury still clutching her in a viselike grip. Kadeesha could be assigned many crimes, but she’d never betray her own people, or be complicit in the schemes of others to do so without putting up a fight. And even if she didn’t possess the power to fight herself, she’d at least give enough of a shit to warn someone who could fight back. “I’ll do you a small mercy, though you do not deserve it, and make it quick like I promised,” she informed Lady Keeya. It was all the warning she got before Kadeesha smashed her aether ball into her chest and willed theflames to burn a hole through her skin and rib cage and engulf her heart—another foolproof way to kill an immortal fae. They were beings who healed bodily damage extraordinarily swiftly, but when the vital organ that pumped their life force was destroyed in such a manner that it didn’t leave anything behind to actually heal, well, that was as effective as a beheading. Still caught in the thrall of the more bloodthirsty facets of her magic, Kadeesha made Lady Keeya, who’d betrayed her own folk, pay penance for the disgusting act by screaming in agony. She had promised to kill the female quickly.
She hadn’t promised a completely painless death.
“I am assuming this is one of those moments where you didn’t leash your temper as tightly as you ordinarily like to do,” came a melodious voice from behind Kadeesha.
She turned to face Yashira, who was standing in the doorway of the adjoining sitting room and smiling as if she beheld a rare treat indeed. Kadeesha rolled her eyes. Her mother was predictable to a fault. Yashira swept into the room, shutting the door behind her. She came to stand in the bedroom beside Kadeesha. Her nostrils flared as she stared down at the dead fae. Her eyes immediately cut to the gown draped across the bed.
“There is Deathbane on that dress,” Yashira hissed.
“There is,” Kadeesha said blandly. She stopped short of thanking her mother for the many lessons in recognizing a variety of poisons by scent. She was grateful, for it had saved her life this day, but Yashira would be insufferable if Kadeesha handed over the recognition. Her mother would endlessly gloat and then inevitably wield it against Kadeesha to guilt her into doing something she wanted from her later that Kadeesha was resistant toward.
