Page 54 of Hunt the Dusk
He’d let me sleep becauseIneeded the rest. I stared at him, and his jaw flexed.
“I didn’t needyou there. You wouldn’t have been allowed in anyway. Best for you to acclimatize. You’re no use to me if you’re weak and dizzy.”
Now that sounded more like him and made more sense, but I had the feeling the truth was closer to his first statement, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“What happened? At the meeting?”
He dropped into the armchair opposite me and raked a hand through his hair. “The usual political nonsense.”
“Which is?”
He pressed his lips together and exhaled. “They want me to dissolve the blood oaths that prevent the houses from making new laws in my absence.”
“Even Laudon?”
“Yes. Even Laudon. He pointed out that much can change in a century, and laws need to be altered to reflect these changes. He believes that the government needs the power to make these new laws.”
“What will you do?”
“If I dissolve the oaths, then I’ll no longer control the government. They’ll steal power while I sleep. I’ll no longer have control of this territory.”
I had to ask. “Would that be so bad?”
His eyes flashed. “How long do you think it will be before the houses tear this territory to shreds? My laws force them to work together. They are theonlything keeping the balance.”
“And stopping progress?”
“And where did progress get this world, hmmm?”
He had a point. We’d almost destroyed it. “What are you going to do, then? They obviously want control but…someone tried to get you out of the picture. Poisoning you, then the attack on the road and the bloods being killed…Wait…this doesn’t make sense.”
He smiled thinly. “No. It doesn’t, does it.”
The houses needed him to dissolve the oaths which he couldn’t do if he was incapacitated, which meant… “The person or persons that tried to hurt you don’t care about the blood oaths.”
“It would seem so.”
“Then why do they want you out of the picture?” An awful thought occurred to me, and I had to bite the inside of my cheeks to stop myself blurting it out.
“What?” Ezekiel sat forward. “What is it?”
Shit. “Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie to me, Miss Lighthart.”
“I’m not lying. It’s nothing, but if it becomes something, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
He sat back with a sigh. “Very well. Finish your coffee, eat the buns, then get dressed. Dinner is at ten-thirty, but you will not eat a thing, do you understand?”
“You think someone will try to poison me?”
“I refuse to take any chances. I’ll be back to collect you in an hour.”
He left the quarters, and the scrape of a key followed as he locked me in.
I poured more coffee and bit into a bun, chewing to get my brain working. Someone wanted Ezekiel incapacitated, and it couldn’t be anyone who needed the blood oaths dissolved. So if Ezekiel was hurt badly enough that he desiccated, then the year would slip by, and he would lose his chance to end the curse. Loviator would be free…Could someone else aside from the Order, the Singers, and my team know the truth?
Were they working to free Loviator?
