Page 9 of Bought by the Broken Beast
“My reasons are my own,” Votoi says, his voice flat, impenetrable.
“Your reasons have brought Malacc’s dogs to my door!” she snarls, taking a step forward, her fists planted on her hips. “Vorlag’s men are crawling all over the district, asking questions, flashing coin. Do you have any idea what you have done? You, who lecture everyone on honor, have brought dishonor and danger to the one place that would still take you in!”
“I did not ask for your help,” he grunts.
“No, you never do!” she throws her hands up in exasperation. “You just appear, a walking catastrophe, expecting the rest of us to clean up the blood. It was the same with the trial, Votoi. You could have fought. You could have let your father, your friends, speak for you. But you chose the arena. You chose this… this spectacle of shame! You chose to throw your life away, and for what? For a pride that has left you with nothing but scars and a splintered horn!”
Her voice breaks on the last word, the raw anger finally cracking to reveal the deep, aching pain beneath. The silence that unfolds is profound, heavy with the weight of her grief and his stoic, unyielding misery. She loved him. Or loves him still. The realization is an icy stone in my gut. I am an intruder here, a witness to a private agony that has been festering for years.
I make myself as small as possible, my back pressed against the wall, trying to fade into the dusty shadows. I focus on the tray of food, on the simple, life-sustaining reality of bread andwater, anything to distract from the suffocating intimacy of their shared history.
Votoi does not respond. He simply stands there, absorbing her fury, her pain, as if it were his rightful punishment. He is a mountain, weathered by a storm only he can see.
Lyra lets out a long, shuddering breath, the fight draining out of her. She runs a hand over her face, the gesture one of profound weariness. “Gods, Votoi. What have you gotten yourself into now?”
He gestures to me with his head. “She uncovered a plot. Malacc. He moves against the Zusvak.”
Lyra’s head snaps toward me, her eyes narrowing with a fresh wave of suspicion. “The human?”
“She has proof,” he says. “A ledger. A shipping manifest.”
Lyra studies me, her gaze sharp, analytical. She is assessing my worth, my threat level. I meet her gaze, refusing to look away, to show the fear that is a cold, coiling serpent in my belly.
“Proof is a dangerous thing to own,” she says, her voice grim. “Especially when it belongs to a man like Malacc.” She turns her attention back to Votoi. “Your timing is either a curse or a blessing from the Lady of Light herself. There are whispers coming from the palace.”
A new kind of tension enters the room, sharp and cold. “What whispers?” Votoi asks, his voice taut.
Lyra leans against the doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest. “The Zusvak is ill. Gravely ill. The court physicians say it is a wasting sickness, a natural decline of age. But the servants… the Fiepakak who clean the chambers and serve the meals… they say otherwise. This leads to the postponement of the festival.” Her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, a sound that sends a chill down my spine. “They say it is a poison. Slow. Subtle. A serpent’s kiss that drains the life from him, day by day.”
The room seems to shrink, the air growing thin. My carefully constructed plans, my desperate gamble for survival, it all feels so small, so naive. This is not just a conspiracy to seize power. It is an active assassination, a race against a poison that is already doing its work. The ticking clock I’d imagined has become a time bomb, its fuse already lit and burning. We don’t just have to expose Malacc; we have to do it before the King draws his last breath.
“If the Zusvak dies,” Votoi says, his voice a low, grim rumble, “the Zu Kus will be in chaos. Malacc, with his influence and his private guard, could seize the throne before the week is out.”
“He is already positioning his pieces,” Lyra confirms, her expression grim. “He has been for months. Placing his allies in key positions, buying loyalties, silencing dissenters.” She pauses, her dark eyes locking onto Votoi’s, her expression hardening with the weight of her final, devastating piece of information.
“They say the King’s personal physician, the old Vakkak who served his father before him, died in his sleep a month ago. A sudden, unexpected passing. His replacement, hand-picked by the High Senate for his skill, is a Minotaur named Joric… whose sister, as it happens, is Lord Malacc’s new wife.”
8
VOTOI
Lyra leaves, taking her storm of anger and grief with her, but the truths she delivered remain, poisoning the air in the small, dusty room. The Zusvak is dying. Not of age, not of sickness, but by a traitor’s hand. A slow, methodical assassination unfolds in the center of the kingdom, and we are the only ones who know.
The knowledge is a pressure in my chest that mimics the phantom sensation of the executioner’s hood. As a Vakkak, my life, my honor, my very soul, is sworn to the defense of the throne. It is the first vow a Saru male takes, the words branded onto our hearts before we are old enough to wield a blade. And I fail. While I rot in the arena, consumed by my own shame, the kingdom I am sworn to protect bleeds from within. Malacc has not only stolen my name; he uses my disgrace as a smokescreen to orchestrate the downfall of a king.
The rage that follows is a cold, clean fire, burning away the last vestiges of my self-pity. My own suffering is a trivial thing compared to this. My honor is not a title to be reclaimed, but a duty to be fulfilled.
I turn from the door, my gaze falling on the human. Bella. She sits on the floor, methodically breaking the loaf of bread Lyra left into two equal portions. Her movements are precise, efficient, her expression a mask of calm concentration, as if she is merely balancing another ledger. She does not seem to understand the gravity of what we have just learned. Or perhaps, I realize with a jolt, she understands it so completely that this is the only way she can process it: by imposing order on the chaos, one small, deliberate act at a time.
“The ledger page you took from Kairen’s study,” I say, voice a low rumble in the quiet room. “I must see it again.”
She looks up, her dark eyes sharp, questioning. She does not speak, but her gaze is clear:Why?
“The lies that condemned me,” I explain, the words tasting like dirt in my mouth. “They are connected to the lies that now threaten the King. I feel it. A serpent uses the same venom for all its prey.”
She gives a slow, deliberate nod, her analytical mind accepting the logic of my instinct. She reaches into her bodice and produces the folded, slightly crumpled piece of parchment. She does not hand it to me. Instead, she holds it, waiting. The power dynamic, subtle but undeniable, has shifted once more. I need her skill, her ability to decipher the script that is, to me, little more than meaningless squiggles.
“Tell me of your trial,” she says, the sound of her voice soft but firm. It is not a request. It is a demand for information, for context. “Tell me of the evidence Malacc used against you. I cannot find a pattern if I do not know the shape of the original weave.”
