The Kiss of Deception (43 page)

I was heading into a different world now, a world where the rules were different, a world of babbling women pushed from walls, children trained as killers, and skulls dangling from belts. The peace of Terravin was a distant memory. I was no longer the carefree tavern maid Rafe had kissed in a sleepy seaside village. That girl was forever gone. That dream stolen. Now I was only a prisoner. Only a—

My steps faltered.

You’ll always be you, Lia. You can’t run from that.
The voice was so clear it seemed that Walther was walking at my side, speaking his words again in greater earnest.
You’re strong, Lia. You were always the strongest of us.… Rabbits make good eating, you know?

Yes. They do.

I wasn’t a carefree tavern maid. I was Princess Arabella Celestine Idris
Jezelia
, First Daughter of the House of Morrighan.

The one named in secret.

And then I heard something.

Silence.

The loose chip inside me that I’d thought would never be still, tumbled, caught, its sharp edge finding purchase in my flesh, a hot fierce stab in my gut. The pain was welcome.

The last verses of the Song of Venda resounded in my head.
From the loins of Morrighan
 …

How could my mother have known? I had wrestled with that question since I had read the verses, and the only answer was
she didn’t know
. The gift guided her. It needled into her, whispered.
Jezelia.
But as with me, the gift didn’t speak clearly.
You were always the strongest of us. That’s what worried Mother
. She didn’t know what it meant, only that it made her fear her own daughter.

Until one comes who is mightier
 …

The one sprung from misery,

The one who was weak,

The one who was hunted,

The one marked with claw and vine,

I looked down at my shoulder, the torn fabric revealing the claw and the vine, now blooming in color just the way Natiya had described.
We’re all part of a greater story too
 …
one that transcends wind, time … even our own tears. Greater stories will have their way.

Jezelia.
It was the only name that ever felt true to who I was—and the one everyone refused to call me, except for my brothers. Maybe they were only the babblings of a madwoman from a long-ago world, but babble or not, with my last dying breath, I would
make
the words true.

For Walther. For Greta. For all the dreams that were gone. The stealer of dreams would steal no more, even if it meant killing the Komizar myself. My own mother may have betrayed me by suppressing my gift, but she was right about one thing.
I am a soldier in my father’s army.

I glanced up at Kaden riding beside me.

Maybe now it was I who would become the assassin.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

RAFE

“What the hell…?”

It was Jeb’s watch. His remark was so slow and quiet I thought he’d seen another curiosity like the herd of golden-striped horses we encountered yesterday.

Orrin walked over to see what he was gawking at. “Well … hang me.”

They had our attention now, and Sven, Tavish, and I rushed to the rocky lookout. I went cold.

“What is it?” Tavish asked, even though we all knew what it was.

It wasn’t a ragtag patrol of barbarians. Or even a large organized platoon of them. It was a regiment riding ten wide and at least sixty deep.

Except for one.

She walked alone.

“That’s her?” Tavish asked.

I nodded, not trusting my voice. She was surrounded by an
army.
We weren’t just facing five barbarians. One after another, I heard them slowly exhale. These weren’t the barbarians we knew. Not the ones who had always been easily pushed back behind the Great River. There was no way we could take on that many men in a direct confrontation without all of us being killed and Lia too. I stared, watching each step she took. What was she carrying? A saddlebag? Was she limping? How long had she been walking? Sven put his hand on my shoulder, a gesture of comfort and defeat.

I whipped around. “No! It’s
not
over.”

“There’s nothing we can do. You have eyes. We can’t—”

“No!” I repeated. “I will not let her cross that bridge without me.” I paced over to the horses and back again, my fist grinding in my palm, searching for an answer. I shook my head. She wasn’t crossing without me. I looked at their grim faces. “We’re doing it,” I said. “Listen.” I laid out a rushed plan, because there wasn’t time to devise another one.

“It’s insanity,” Sven balked. “It will never work!”

“It has to,” I argued.

“Your father will have my neck!”

Orrin laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about the king. Rafe’s plan’s going to kill us all first.”

“We’ve done it before,” Tavish said to me with a knowing nod. “We can do it again.”

Jeb had already retrieved my horse and handed me the reins. “What are you waiting for?” he asked. “Go!”

“It’s half-assed!” Sven shouted as I slid my foot into the stirrup.

“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m counting on you to figure out the other half.”

The Dragon will conspire,

Wearing his many faces,

Deceiving the oppressed, gathering the wicked,

Wielding might like a god, unstoppable,

Unforgiving in his judgment,

Unyielding in his rule,

A stealer of dreams,

A slayer of hope.

Until one comes who is mightier.

—Song of Venda

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Fear was a curious thing.

I thought there was none left in me. What did I have left to fear? But as Venda came into view, I felt fear’s barbed chill at my neck. Framed between the jutting rocky hills that we passed through, a
thing
rose on the horizon in a hazy gray mist. I couldn’t quite call it a city. It breathed.

As we drew near, it grew and spread like an eyeless black monster rising from smoking ashes. Its haphazard turrets, scaled reptilian stone, and layers of convoluted walls spoke of something labyrinthine and twisted lurking behind them. This wasn’t just any faraway city. I felt the tremor of its pulse, the keen of its dark song. I saw Venda herself sitting high on the gray walls before me, a broken apparition singing a warning to those who listened from below.

I sensed myself slipping away already, forgetting what used to matter to me. It was a lifetime ago I left Civica with what I had thought was a simple dream, for someone to love me for who I really was. During those few short days with Rafe, I naïvely thought I had the dream in my grasp. I wasn’t that girl with a dream anymore. Now, like Walther, I only had a mounting cold desire for justice.

I looked ahead at the growing monster. Like the day I had prepared for my wedding, I knew I faced the last of the steps that would keep here from there. There would be no going back. Once I crossed into Venda, I would never see home again.
I want to pull you close and never let you go.
I was beyond the farthest corner now. Beyond ever seeing Rafe again. Soon I’d be dead to everyone except the mysterious Komizar who was able to exact obedience from a brutal army. Like Walther’s sword and boots, I was his prize of war now, unless he decided to finish the job that Kaden had shirked. But maybe before that happened, he’d discover I wasn’t quite the prize anyone expected me to be.

The caravan stopped at the river. It was more than a
great
river. It was a roiling abyss, roaring and sending up the mist I saw from afar. Dampness slicked soil and stone. How we would ever navigate across it, I didn’t know, but then the mass of bodies on the other side hailed our approach. They squirmed past black-streaked walls and began pulling on ropes attached to iron wheels of colossal proportions. Even over the roar of the river, I heard the shouts of a taskmaster synchronizing their pulls. Countless bodies moved together and chanted in a low rumble, and slowly, with each heave, a bridge rose up from the mist, dripping with an unholy welcome. Their last effort hurled the bridge into place with an ominous clanging boom.

Kaden swung down from his horse to stand next to me, watching as workers hurried to secure the bridge chains. “Just do as I say, and everything will be all right. Are you ready?” he asked.

How could I ever be ready for
this
? I didn’t answer him.

He turned, taking hold of both of my arms. “Lia, remember, I’m only trying to save your life.”

I returned his gaze without blinking. “If this is saving my life, Kaden, I wish you would stop trying so hard.”

I saw the pain in his face. The thousands of miles we had traveled had changed me, but not in the way he had hoped. His grip remained secure, his eyes scrutinizing my face, his gaze pausing on my lips. He reached up and touched them, his thumb sliding gently along the ridge of my lower lip like he was trying to wipe the words from my mouth. He swallowed. “If I had let you go, they’d have sent someone else. Someone who would have finished the job.”

“And you would have betrayed Venda. But you already did that, didn’t you? When you helped me bury the dead.”

“I would never betray Venda.”

“Sometimes we’re all pushed to do things we thought we could never do.”

His hands took hold of mine and squeezed them. “I’ll make a life for you here, Lia. I promise.”

“Here? Like the life
you
have, Kaden?”

The turmoil that always simmered behind his eyes doubled. Some truths whispered again and again, refusing to be ignored.

The sentinel gave the signal for the convoy to continue. “Ride with me?” Kaden asked. I shook my head, and his hands loosened on mine, slowly letting me go. He climbed back onto his horse. I walked ahead of him, feeling his eyes on my back. I was just about to step onto the bridge when a clamor rose behind us and I turned. I heard more shouts, and Kaden’s brows pulled together. He got off his horse and grabbed my arm as a group of soldiers approached. They threw a man from their midst to the ground in front of Kaden. My heart stopped.
Dear gods.
Kaden’s grip on my arm tightened.

“This dog says he knows you,” one of the soldiers said.

Having seen the disturbance, the
chievdar
rode over. “Who is this?” he demanded.

Kaden glared. “A very stupid sot. A smitten farmhand who rode a long way for nothing.”

My thoughts tumbled.
How?

Rafe got to his feet. He looked at me without acknowledging Kaden. He surveyed my filthy bandaged fingers, my torn shirt exposing my shoulder, my bloodstained clothes, and certainly the grief that still lingered in my face. His eyes searched mine, questioning me silently, and I saw his worry that I had been harmed in ways that he couldn’t see. I saw that he had ached for me as much as I had for him.

The good ones don’t run away, Lia.

But now, with a new burning passion, I desperately wished he had.

I jerked against Kaden’s grip, but his fingers dug deeper into my arm. “Let go!” I growled. I yanked free and ran to Rafe, falling into his arms, crying as my lips met his. “You shouldn’t have come. You don’t understand.” But even as I said the words, I was selfishly glad he was here, wildly and madly happy that everything I felt for him and I had believed he felt for me was
real and true.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I kissed him. My blistered, broken fingers reached up to hold his face as I said a dozen more things I would never remember.

His arms circled around me, his face nestled in my hair, holding me so tight I could almost believe we would never part again. I breathed him in, his touch, his voice, and for a moment as long and short as a heartbeat, all of the world and its problems disappeared and there was only us.

“It will be all right,” he whispered. “I promise, I’ll get us both out of this. Trust me, Lia.” I felt soldiers tearing us apart, pulling at my hair, a sword at his chest, rough hands dragging me backward.

“Kill him, and let’s get moving,” the
chievdar
ordered.

“
No!
” I cried.

“We don’t take prisoners,” Kaden said.

“Then what am I?” I said, looking at the soldier who gripped my arm.

Rafe strained against the men who were wrestling him backward. “I have a message for your Komizar!” he shouted before they could drag him away.

The soldiers holding him stopped, surprised and unsure what to do next. Rafe shouted the message with ringing authority. I looked at him, something unfurling inside me.
How did he find me?
Time jumped. Lurched. Stopped.
Rafe. A farmhand. From a nameless region.
I stared. Everything about him looked different to me now. Even his voice was different.
I’ll get us both out of this. Trust me, Lia.
The ground beneath my feet shifted, unsteady, the world around me rocking. The real and true swayed.

“What’s the message?” the chievdar demanded.

“That’s for the Komizar’s ears only,” Rafe answered.

Kaden stepped closer to Rafe. Everyone waited for him to say something, but he remained silent, his head cocked slightly to the side, his eyes narrowing. I didn’t breathe.

“A message carried by a
farmhand
?” he finally asked.

Their gazes locked. Rafe’s icy blue eyes were frozen with hatred. “No. From the emissary of the Prince of Dalbreck. Now who’s the stupid sot?”

A soldier butted Rafe’s head with the handle of his sword. He staggered to the side, blood trickling down his temple, but regained his footing.

“Afraid of a simple message?” he taunted Kaden, his gaze never wavering.

Kaden glared back. “A message means nothing. We don’t negotiate with the Kingdom of Dalbreck—not even with the prince’s own emissary.”

“You speak for the Komizar now?” Rafe’s voice was thick with threat. “I promise you, it’s a message he’ll want.”