Page 62 of Our Vicious Oaths
“If I must bring a child into this world, I will do so under the right conditions,” Kadeesha finished emphatically.
Yashira’s eyes narrowed from horror to calculation. Silently she picked up her tea and sipped it. “I see,” she finally said after swallowing.
Kadeesha raised a dubious brow. “Do you?” Her mother’s apparent acceptance came too easily.
Yashira nodded staidly. “Yes. And that goes for many, many things, actually. For one, it is quite interesting that you sit before me and declare you are intent on murdering the father of your child and your newly betrothed and yet you are unable to use that precise word.”
Kadeesha laughed. Her mother was persistent, like a hound with a bone. “Is that what you’re hedging your bets on? That I’ll reverse course due to some misplaced sentimentality?”
Instead of becoming ruffled by her daughter’s amusement, Yashira looked Kadeesha over with the sort of voracious gleam that might shine from a kongamato’s gaze when it detected the nearby scent of its prey. “No, dear daughter. But I believe Malachi is a more formidable adversary than you give him credit for being. He is not Rishaud, who is as despicable as they come, and whom it might have been quite easy to exchange marriage vows with and then pivot to taking his head. Malachi is a more complex male—you so easily forget that hedidultimately accept your plan to reduce bloodshed, for instance. And you also forget about the Markings.”
Yashira was smug enough in her assertion that Kadeesha ground her teeth. “Funny you admit Rishaud is reprehensible now but you backed Father’s aim to marry me off to him such a short time ago,” she reminded Yashira, lest that was somethingshehad forgotten.
Her mother, of course, waved Kadeesha off. “How many times are we going to revisit an affair that we have movedbeyond? As I told you before, I had every confidence you could take care of yourself. You are smart and cunning and more ruthless than you sometimes care to admit. Likely, Rishaud would’ve been a cooling corpse mere days after your marriage. And then you, dear daughter, would have effectively been high queen of the Six Kingdoms in more significant ways than a title bestowed by marriage.”
Kadeesha almost shook her head, but didn’t bother expending the energy. Her mother’s blind ambition for her daughter—and thus her own position—never wavered.
In similar fashion, neither did Kadeesha’s frustration with that ambition. “I do not appreciate being treated like a pawn on your war board,” Kadeesha told her mother for the umpteenth time. At this point, she was beginning to sound like a defective message rune that’d been cast with warped magic.
“Anybody with any amount of influence or power among the fae courts is a playing piece on a war board,” her mother volleyed. “It is better to be the queen who is shifted around than anactualpawn. At least then you retain a modicum of autonomy.”
“But I don’t want a modicum of anything. I wantthe wholething.”
“Then don’t be naïve and understand that the game is being played whether you like it or not,” Yashira snapped. “Or, if you dislike being a manipulated queen, then the answer, daughter, is to become the war board’s maker yourself. Malachi may have some untenable qualities in your opinion, but he aims to become game master. And right now, he’s the one with the resources to make that happen—and you can’t. No”—she said, cutting off Kadeesha’s protest—“heismore powerful than you in all aspects …right now.
“However, if you truly side with him—not this false ally role you seem to cherish—then you’ll become that very thing too when he succeeds. Instead, you keep regarding him as an adversary, meaning the future that awaits you—and the child you grow—will forever leave you a mere piece on someone else’s board. And make no mistake,” Yashira added primly, “if you’ve decided to bear a child who would be the heir to the Apollyon Court, then you are plunging yourself, and them, even deeper into the game of kings and queens—with or without Malachi around. Because no matter what you think, that childbelongsto this court as well. If you kill Malachi and remove him from the equation, then you cannot retreat behind Aether Kingdom lines and concern yourself with only Aether Court business. You and the child will remain embroiled in intra-court politics of the Apollyonfolk regardless of what you desire, and then you’ll have no choice but to become the ruthless,savage, perhaps even brutal tyrant to keep the child safe. That and you will remain a piece for others to deal with, and not one who fully controls herself and the entire board.”
Yashira took a breath, then noted one more thing. “There is also the consideration you overlook of the fact that your babe will mature and come to have both questions and opinions about their mother murdering their father. You can explain your reasons, but there is no guarantee they’ll be well received.”
With that, she sat there and gave her daughter a pointed look. Kadeesha bit the inside of her cheek, her mind churning over Yashira’s points and grasping for solid rebuttals. Except they eluded her, and—shit. As Yashira had noted,she’dproposed using the pregnancy,she’dmade the choice to keep the child in lieu of a devastating death toll. Thinking of her history lessons as a stripling, one thing was always apparent: When fae courtswent to war, an utter cataclysm was what was almost always left behind in its wake.
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been too hasty and dreadfully shortsighted in proposing to use the pregnancy as she and Malachi were now doing. Had she maneuvered herself into a corner that made Yashira’s assertion unavoidable about what,who, she’d have to become in order to be a mother who protected her child? The likely answer left her stomach unsettled.
“When did you become so smart about the ways of court?” Kadeesha finally asked.
“The moment I knew that I’d have to kill to maintain my—and my child’s—place in Sylas’s court.” Then Yashira took another sip of tea, leaving Kadeesha to her whirling thoughts.
Chapter Thirty-Four
WHEN THE HEAVY SNOWFALL TO THE RIGHT OFMalachi shimmered, Kadeesha immediately turned in its direction. She called her aether flames closer to the surface but held back from fully manifesting them since this was supposed to be a peaceful parley. Detecting the same disturbance in the space around them atop the Yunnas, Malachi angled his body so he faced the shimmering snow too. A moment later, all four monarchs they’d invited to the meeting stood in the spot where the shimmers had been.
All of their stares swung between Zahzah at Kadeesha’s back—whom they surely hadn’t been expecting, since Sylas hadn’t been a king bonded to a kongamato—and Malachi at her side. Kadeesha had barely made it to the count of three before the monarchs delved into their usual prick-measuring contest that occurred when they shared space. And unsurprisingly, the kings really felt like they had to make their most impressive powers known to the new entities among them. Vasra, the king of the Fire Court, snarled before crimson flames ignited in a ring at his feet, an instant barrier between him and potential enemies. His eyes, the same midnight black as the sleek threadsof hair flowing behind him, now sparked with red-hot fire too. Tedros, the king of the Stone Court, growled as his dark brown skin hardened into gray stone. Ahjay, the Water Dominion’s king, pinned eyes as blue as the sea on Zahzah first and then Malachi as he seized control of the falling snow; he shaped the precipitation into daggers of ice that he aimed at Malachi’s and Zahzah’s heads. Sedrin, the Wind king, bared his teeth as a gust of wind slammed into Kadeesha, Malachi, and Zahzah. While the gale was strong enough to drive her and Malachi a step backward, Zahzah was too massive a force to move.
Kadeesha would’ve been insulted that the Wind king was the only monarch among the lot that regarded her as a true threat alongside Malachi and Zahzah, but being underestimated by the other kings was a weapon in and of itself. If they didn’t play their hands right and moved to attack, then it was their own folly if they ended up incinerated by her aether flames.
“Are you finished with your silly games?” Malachi asked, unaffected by the sight of four powerful fae displaying their court’s might.
Sedrin was the first to pull his magic back. He then raked Kadeesha with a disdainful glare. “If the news you delivered via message rune is true, it means you have forsaken your betrothal to Rishaud.”
Kadeesha shrugged and unflinchingly said, “I would note that when he massacred my court, he made that choice for me. But yes, I have. I’ve chosen to marry another.”
Ahjay, the Water king, assessed Kadeesha and Malachi coolly. “So the Six Kingdoms’ longtime enemy has successfully corrupted Sylas’s seed, I see.”
The male talking about her as if she was nothing more than her father’s progeny and not an individual in her own rightinfuriated Kadeesha. Speaking the only language they’d understand, she let aether flames blaze at her fingertips. For now, their only target was the snow covering the ground, which they rapidly vaporized, but her warning was clear. “I have a name and a title independent of my father. I’d prefer that you use either,” she said, the result of not doing so apparent in violet around her.
Ahjay’s lips thinned into a line, yet he pierced Kadeesha with an appraising look. Kadeesha hadn’t interacted directly with the monarchs of the Six Kingdoms very often, save Rishaud. Sylas had refrained from involving her too deeply in any business he’d had with any among the lot, perhaps knowing that Rishaud would not appreciate his bride-to-be being paraded before other monarchs. Therefore, it was natural for Ahjay to take her measure. She stood her ground, however, giving the Water king the same treatment. She raked a look down the length of the male and then projected a stare that let him know she found many aspects of him lacking once their eyes met again.
Ahjay hissed.
