Page 30 of Our Vicious Oaths
He respected that, and Leisha’s ferocity. Which was why he told Jakobi, “Let me deal with this, too.”
Jakobi clenched his jaw but fell silent. Kadeesha looked at Malachi, a bit startled, but also with … Was that respect?
“My life was threatened by the assassin and whoever sent them,” Kadeesha said to Malachi. “The shared customs of the Six Kingdoms would entitle me to retribution. The faefolk were once cut from the same cloth. Have your people diverged so far away from our origins that I am not owed a blood debt according to Apollyon customs?” It was a clear challenge and she damn well knew it.
So much for respect.
Malachi was bloody sick of challenges this day. However, he had to grudgingly admit that this one held merit. There had been a screwup on his watch that endangered her, which meant she was owed both a blood debt from the assassin’s patronandfrom Malachi. “You can come,” Malachi offered.
Of course, she wasn’t satisfied with his concession. “Leisha and Samira will accompany me as will our kongamatos,” she dictated.
He arched an eyebrow. “I owe neither of them, nor your beasts, a debt.”
“That matters little. I’m making their presence on this hunt part of the payment I am owed,” Kadeesha told him firmly.
“Your beasts do not like my mode of transport, and I do not intend to waste time traveling any other way.” And he didn’t particularly wish to be in the proximity of her beasts any more than necessary.
“That’s not a concern,” Kadeesha readily returned. “I’ll dealwith Zahzah and she’ll soothe the distaste held by the rest of the volery that will come.”
He worked his jaw at the mention of the one that Kadeesha called Zahzah. She was the pack’s leader and Malachi knew a savage killer when he saw one—he’d have to watch Kadeesha’s personal beast above all the rest. As it was, it had taken an unsettling amount of concentration and power for him to force his void magic to snuff out the kongamato’s flames when they’d combined with Kadeesha’s aether this afternoon. He’d concealed it well, but for a moment he’d thought that Kadeesha and her hellish war serpent might’ve bested him. He seriously considered denying her request due to that alone. The more distance he kept between himself and the ancient creature, the better. However, what the archprincess asked for was well within the scope of the debt he now owed her.
“Do not begin to believe you possess some manner of authority in my court when you do not. Whatever concessions I make start and end with paying this one precise debt,” Malachi warned, just in case the princess believed he’d be beholden to her for an extended time.
She looked at him as if to say,If believing that helps you sleep at night, so be it.
Gritting his teeth, he told the stubborn, insufferable woman, “Your people and kongamatos may accompany us.”
Chapter Fifteen
MALACHI TRANSPORTED HIS CADRE—ALONG WITHKadeesha and her retinue—to a valley densely populated with slender-needled trees four days later. Nobody liked the delay, but it was unavoidable, seeing as how Malachi had needed to find an opportune time to slip away from the ruckus Cassius’s challenge had caused at court without his absence being the exact proof of Cassius’s allegation of negligent rule.
Kadeesha pushed the chaos in Malachi’s court aside to take stock of the lay of the land she stood on. The narrow tree trunks around her rose high into the air. The dim sky overhead bore the gold-and-blush streaks that were present during the thickest part of dusk, right before it gave way to the lush black spill of nightfall. While looking upward presented a clear view, the forested lands around them were shrouded in a white mist. The mist wasn’t frigid, but it rested on the side of uncomfortably cool. The dark cloak she wore—as did all the others—was of a heavy velvet material that kept most of her body warm, except her nose and cheeks, which stung from being exposed to the damp, cold air. Even the ground was swathed in the mist. “Thisvalley is enchanted,” she concluded, speaking to nobody in particular. It must be. The fog hummed with an unnatural quality, and summoning her fire to burn just beneath her skin was doing nothing to warm her face.
“It is,” Malachi confirmed. “One of my ancestors, long ago, cast a spell to make it harder for trespassers to cross the valley and venture into Cygrove uninvited.”
Kadeesha nodded, turning to the south. She couldn’t see it through the mists, but the valley in that direction rose into a mountain village that was part of the Stone Kingdom territory. She knew from maps of the realm she’d studied that the Stone Kingdom’s mining town of Vanmere sat directly across from the more lucrative Apollyon mining city of Cygrove. While the Vanmere side of the ancient Yunna Mountains held heaping deposits of copper, bronze, and iron ores used for metalworking, the Cygrove side held caves upon caves of the much more rare and valuable onyx ores, which could be used to forge blades that rarely dulled and were virtually unshatterable. “Was he worried about thieves?” Kadeesha guessed.
“It was ashe, actually,” Malachi answered. “And Queen Diadora created the mists to keep out thievesandarmies.”
Whomever this woman had been, Kadeesha could appreciate the former monarch’s guile. Tactically, it was cunning. But it didn’t explain whytheywere in the valley. “Why did we teleport here instead of into the city proper?” Kadeesha asked, though she suspected she already knew the answer.
“Cygrove also has ancient enchantments that repel teleporting inside the city,” Malachi answered surprisingly freely. To the rest of the group he said, “Let’s get moving.” He spun to face north and marched forward, a king expecting the contingent intow to automatically follow. Kadeesha scowled after him, even as his Cadre trailed him at once.
Leisha, Samira, and Rassa, whom she’d added on to keep watch over the kongamatos, looked to her. She wanted to hang back simply out of principle. Yet she sighed because she’d been the one to insist on accompanying Malachi for this affair. “Let’s go,” she told her sisters and then mounted Zahzah, who’d been standing beside her, unusually quiet and still since they’d arrived in the enchanted valley. Her sisters hauled themselves atop their own kongamatos.
“Are you all right, friend?” Kadeesha spoke softly to Zahzah as they took flight. They kept low in the sky and close behind Malachi’s party.
Don’t like it here, Zahzah responded. She snorted a small huff of flames into the mists. The mists enveloped the flames and doused them out at once.Oh.Kadeesha’s eyes widened, and she flicked a glance to Malachi and his Cadre. Their backs were turned. Good. They didn’t glimpse the effect the mists had on the kongamato’s fire. Malachi being able to neutralize an attack was one thing. But Apollyon fae didn’t need to know there were conjured mists within their lands that could do it too. Kadeesha cut her gaze from Malachi’s party to her sisters flying at her side. They all silently communicated their dismay for what they’d seen happen to Zahzah’s flames, and not a little bit of trepidation.
The kongamatos made an impression the moment they passed over the city’s walls. The war serpents cast shadows along the low-lying sloped rooftops of taverns and boutiques and against the stone streets. They flew low enough for the village folk to behold the sheer size of the ginormous kongamatos inall their glory. Shrill cries reached them in the air. They cleared the bustling merchant sector and crossed into an area that had neat rows of multistoried townhomes made of white bricks, with steps lined by banisters leading up to generous porches. There were fewer fae milling around the streets. But the ones who lounged on the porches or strolled down the sidewalks had the same reactions as the fae back in the merchant quarter.
As the shrieks carried on, more and more folks emerged from their homes or popped heads out of windows to survey the commotion. Most who came out quickly raced back inside, slamming their windows and doors in a sense of false safety. Kadeesha felt a twinge of remorse for frightening the townspeople so badly, but her eyes had stopped watching the people scramble to focus on a mammoth mountain that rose above the rest of the city. Carved into it was a fortress Malachi had called the Stone Keep when he’d informed her of their exact destination before departing the palace. Like most strongholds throughout the fae lands, it had been erected many, many millennia ago—so long ago that its first fae dwellers had since faded into the Celestial heavens. But its current occupants were of the same blood as the original family that called it home—the Niyarre cardinal bloodline, ruled by Lady Remi Niyarre, lord prime of their family. Kadeesha had never met the female, but Sylas had mentioned her occasionally. As the Six Kingdoms’ closest neighbor, she primarily oversaw the ever-tenuous trade agreements that existed between the Apollyonfolk and the various southern kingdoms. Even amongst the Aether fae she was known as the Stone Warden due to the lucrative stone quarries she oversaw.
Malachi and his Cadre halted their intimidating march in front of a pair of soaring onyx gates at the entrance to the StoneKeep. Two ominous predator birds with curved talons sculpted out of slabs of onyx sat atop the gates. Kadeesha and her squadron dropped from the sky, landing in a line to the left of Malachi, while his Cadre stretched out from his right side.
A trio of sentries manned the gates. Malachi bore an innate kingly bearing that seemed to take up the entire space around him wherever he was present. So the sentries couldn’t have mistaken him for anyone else but their liege even while he wore the hooded cloak. As such, the sentries fell to their knees and bowed their heads.
“Greetings, Your Grace,” one sentry, a stocky, red-haired male, said hoarsely. All three flicked nervous glances between Malachi and the war serpents. Perspiration gleamed on their brows, their brown skin turning ashen. “What … what brings you to … to the keep, Your Grace, when the war … warden has … has traveled to court?” the redhead stammered.
