Page 63 of Between Fear and Favor

“Suspected what?”

“You know,” he said, smiling down at the table. His face was flushed. “Don’t make me talk about yourfeelings.”

“Gods,” I said, exasperated, running my hands through my hair with my elbows on the table. What could I fucking say to him?

I want Nor, but I don’t deserve her? Her smile is the most radiant thing I’ve ever seen? I’ve never been more terrified?

“She thought it would be Nor who instigated it, though. Not you. I’m impressed, sir. I don’t know what happened when you got stabbed, but you’ve been kind of an asshole ever since. I’m surprised you got her to like you in spite of that.”

“Go to bed, Dickey,” I said, but instead of listening to me, he stumbled over to the rest of my soldiers, knocking over a chair in the process. When Kife decided it was time to start singing yet another shanty from his seafaring days, I tossed back what little bit was left in my mug and stood. Sleeping on the floor didn’t exactly appeal to me, but listening to Nor drift off had become something of a ritual.

Fuck.

I wiped my hand over my mouth, tossed a silver on the table, and was about to tell my men to wrap it up sooner rather than later, when a loud thud stopped me in my tracks. A woman’s screech followed within a moment, and my blood ran cold. Heart hammering in my chest, I scaled the stairs three at a time, calling out her name.

Chapter 31

EMMELINE

Truthfully,I wasn’t sure how Rain had never found Cethina, because the moment I stepped through the rift, I felt a tug. Her blight was familiar, like an old enemy. Because of it, her shadows called to me.You know us, they seemed to hiss, and I crept down an alley after them. With caution, I peered around corners, waiting to come upon the woman who had brought undue horror to Astana.

When I found her, I was surprised. I’d never seen Cethina this close before, only witnessing her path of destruction from afar. But I could tell it was her immediately, even though she wasn’t what I expected.

Seated in a darkened alcove, legs outstretched, I might have mistaken her for dead. She hadn’t struck me as a threat, and I supposed that was how she’d been able to infiltrate our soldiers. I found her just far enough away from the fighting that she wouldn’t be caught in the fray—or identified as the brutal woman who’d caused so much death.

When she leaned forward, spotting me as I moved down the alley across from her, I could make out her features. She couldn’t have been much older than Elora. With long, light brown hair and a delicately angled face, she easily could have been Nereza’s daughter by blood—rather than a conduit chosen for her gifts. She sat back, relaxed with her legs crossed at the ankles, as her tendrils of shadow extended from each of her fingertips. Slithering like snakes, they wriggled through the air toward my soldiers while she turned her intense eyes upon me. No one paid us any mind, Nythyrian and Vestian soldiers alike wielding their swords against one another. A young man collapsed, a sword sticking through his belly. I recognized him as someone I’d treated, removing the blight from him early on in the siege. I flinched, trying not to vomit, and the Nythyrian soldier who’d impaled him turned toward me.

Cethina shouted a command in another language, and the man pivoted on the spot. Heading back into the fray, I could tell their orders were to injure with haste. A tendril of Cethina’s vile power shot out, infecting her newest target with the blight immediately. I fought the instinct to run to my soldiers; if I was to kill Cethina, there would be losses I could not avoid. I could not become distracted.

“Mother told me you might come,” she said, voice clear amidst the din of battle. Her accent was faint, something not quite Nythyrian. She sat up a little straighter, pursing her lips. “She even gave me this.” The girl pulled a chain from around her neck, lifting it from beneath her collar. At the end was a clear, glass vial. Something to hold my blood, I supposed.

“Too bad you won’t be requiring it,” I said.

“I suppose not. They won’t need it if I bring them your body,” she said. “Or your head.”

I’d come to kill Cethina; I hadn’t expected to find a child, let alone one with confident machinations of my demise.

“How old are you?” I asked, clinging to the idea that perhaps she’d performed the bond, and thus was far older than her appearance hinted at. But was that any better? A bond at that age couldn’t be completely consensual, could it?

“I don’t think you can trust any answer I give, can you?” she responded.

She was right. If she told me she was only a child, she could have been lying to garner my sympathy. If she told me she was older, she would have earned my pity. Regardless, I had to end her brutality.

Cethina stood, movements smooth, reminding me of a dancer. She waited in front of the abandoned home and began to pick at her nails. Gods, the action seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. It was likely something her sister, Keeva, had done. But many of my memories of that wench had died with Hyše, so I couldn’t be sure. All I remembered was Keeva coming into my cell in Soren’s dungeon and insulting me—and the pain that came after her attack. Would this girl underestimate me like her sister had? I was the Beloved, and yet she didn’t cower in my presence. Perhaps Rain sheltering me had done me the favor of minimizing my gifts. I flexed my hands, uncertain about my course of action.

“Well, let’s get on with this—” she began, raising her arms. But I didn’t allow her to strike.

Creating a line of divine fire between us, flames reaching high above our heads, I could barely make out the girl. Slowly, I shifted the wall of flames to encircle her. At the very least, we could imprison her in our dungeons, not allowing anyone else to come to harm.

When Cethina crouched, I thought perhaps she’d already given up, but that was immature hope. Dark tendrils of power moved through the dirt-packed street, burrowing beneath my fire and speeding toward me with precision. I brought flame into my palms, pointing my divinity toward the encroaching threat, while attempting to maintain the flames around the girl.

She laughed, and everything went dark. Her shadows snuffed out my divine fire and smothered us beneath them. Her divinity started light, like the mist which had formed before dawn, but dense enough I couldn’t see. I coughed as the air grew heavier with it, and I summoned my light into my palms again.

Quietly, I moved backward, wanting to keep distance between myself and the girl. She had clearly fully come into her divinity, and so I was less fearful of harming a child. With control over massive power like that, she had to be an adult. Could she be the Accursed? Was she blessed by any other gods? Maybe she was the true enemy, being used by her mother and the Supreme to fight their war.

“Do you intend todoanything with that fire?” Cethina’s voice called out, but I couldn’t determine exactly where she was. “So far, you seem to have an even lesser understanding than your pretty Elora.”

“Don’t speak of my daughter,” I responded, allowing the flames in my hands to grow larger, floating over my outstretched palms. The urge to throw them and hope one would strike true was strong, but I didn’t want to be wasteful. Hanwen’s gift of abundance had almost gone dormant, requiring much more work to bring out the massive amounts of power he’d gifted me. Honestly, I was afraid of diving too deep.

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