Page 42 of Vicious Is My Throne

But Zorander wasn’t looking at the symbol cut into the blade. He was staring at the pommel. “Do you have any other pictures of this? Ones that show this stone clearly?”

Bexley eyed the teetering stack of books. “Three that I can think of off the top of my head. I can find them if you give me time.”

“We need that language translated,” Anaria pointed out. “Not pictures of a weapon we don’t even have.”

“I’d rather take my chances with steel than indecipherable words.”

“I’m sure you would,” Anaria snapped, a touch of ice in her tone. “We’re not going to beat them with steel, Zor.”

“You were the one who wanted a magic blade.” Zor nodded to the book. “Well, there you go. A magic weapon. Fit to kill a god.”

For a moment they stood like that, nose to nose, the queen and her general, tempers flaring between them, tension turning the air in the room molten.

“Why can’t we take our chances on both?” My gaze flickered between them. “Anaria and I will search the books for any mention of the weapon…with Bexley’s help, of course, while he translates the writing.”

Zor’s eyes narrowed. “And what are the rest of us supposed to do? Twiddle our fucking thumbs?”

“I’ll fly out and take stock of our situation,” Tristan offered quickly. “See what our options are if we have to evacuate.”

“I could come along,” Zor offered. “Better than sitting around doing nothing.”

Anaria glared at the back of his head so intently I was surprised he didn’t combust.

“Fuck no. It’s one thing to carry you like a pack mule when you’re a half-dead sack of meat, but I’ll be godsdamned if I’m taking you on a sightseeing tour of Caladrius. I’ll report back what I find.”

“Thanks a lot,” Zor muttered.

“I’m not saving your arse,” Tristan murmured on his way out. “You want out of here? Grow your own godsdamned wings.”

14

ANARIA

The pages turned into a bleary smear of ink, and I pushed away from the table shaking my head. “Five hours and all we’ve found is one measly picture. I thought there were more.”

“I warned you it would take me time to find them.” Bexley’s eyes slid off to the side. “And it’s also possible those pictures might not be here. I have a rather large library and only brought what I could carry.”

“You can’t be serious? Let’s go get the rest.”

“Swallowed by Corvus, remember?” Bexley’s voice thickened. “I should have left earlier instead of trying to stop the rot. Saved everything while I still had time. But whatever I left behind is gone.”

My frustration melted away at the wounded look on his face. “I’m sorry. We’re getting somewhat desperate, Bex. I got caught up”—I waved at the table, the open books—“in finding answers. I’m sorry you lost your library.”

“So am I, Anaria. But take a break. Whatever is in these books will be waiting when you return.”

Tavion had left an hour ago, maybe longer, to go outside to check on Zor and Raziel and get some fresh air, leaving me and Bexley in the eerily quiet dining room where the only sound was one of the beakers that occasionally burped out a puff of noxious steam.

“Don’t pay any attention to that. In three days, I’ll know if my experiment worked,” Bexley told me, which meant I became instantly fascinated by the burping beaker, and now I couldn’t scrape the annoying sound out of my head.

“How far did you get on the symbols?” I asked, rubbing the sand out of my eyes. “Hopefully further than me and Tavion did on these books.”

“This is still a rough translation. Some of the words might be…wrong.” Bexley cleared his throat.

“In a place of forgotten whispers lies the key to shatter the throne of ancient…deities, maybe. Or the word could mean frog—they’re very close idiomatically.”

“So we’re either hunting a frog or a deity.” I grinned. “Got it.”

But the place of forgotten whispers…that could mean the tunnel, and the key could be those skulls and the visions they contained. Not that it mattered now.

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