Page 20 of The First Spark
“I know how your nobility works. Counts rule over barons, barons over lords. I know. But you just inherited the whole planet, didn’t you?” Zane sneered. “Or, at least, you will. If you make it back before Carik finds you.”
The color drained from her face.
Zane folded his arms. “I’ve given you my price.”
Hannover rubbed her bleary eyes. “I don’t even know your name.”
“And that’s the worst part of all.” Zane stood up, brushing aside the gauzy curtains hanging over the alcove. “This conversation is over.”
“Wait.Wait.”
Her hand closed around his wrist. Zane’s lips twisted into a snarl as he whipped around, wrenching his hand free.
“Unless you want to find yourself at the wrong end of a pulser,” he snapped, leaning towards her, “donottouch me.”
“Then listen.” Rising to her feet, she inhaled deeply. “The money and a lordship. Not a barony, but a city. It’s the best I can promise. You want something in Avington? There are two lordships on the island. I’ll draw up new boundaries and create a third. Deal?”
He almost said yes. Getting a city on the island was better than nothing, but her family had broken too many promises to trust she would follow through. There was one vow, though, that she wouldn’t break.
“Swear it on your aunt’s soul.”
Hannover blanched and staggered back.
Part of him hoped she’d swear the vow and go back on her word later. In her religion, a vow made on someone’s soul was unbreakable. If someone dared to break it, their soul, and the dead’s, would be condemned to the darkest pits of hell.
Duchissa Calida had only been twenty-one when everything happened, but two decades of near-poverty on a world where bombs fell daily gave him no sympathy for her.
“I—I can’t,” Hannover stammered, her voice cracking.
Zane ground his teeth together. She could do it easily—just a few words, and he’d have proof that she wasn’t planning to screw him over like the rest of her family.
Pain shone in her bleak eyes, and Zane’s lip pulled back in disgust. She wouldn’t sway him with grief. There was too much at stake. If he was risking his life for her, he was damn well going to get a reassurance that she wouldn’t stab him in the back.
A gloss covered her eyes, and her lip wobbled.
The tears carried him back to an ancient church with burning candles. He swallowed the knot expanding in his throat. Mom would spit at Hannover and order him to ignore her tears the way they’d ignored hers. But while the memories were hazy, he remembered Dad’s kind smile and his steadfast loyalty to the royal family. He could imagine him frowning in disapproval.
“Fine. On your throne.”
She hesitated. But instead of breaking down and becoming a weeping mess, she raised her chin. “I swear, on my throne and my soul, that I won’t go back on my word.”
“And I swear, on my father’s soul, that I won’t rat you out to Carik.” The words flowed out without a trace of hesitation. Her people’s conviction that there was some benevolent court of gods was a load of crap. If there was anything out there, it was only the godwho brought death, and Mordir didn’t give a damn about oaths made on the souls of the dead. Neither did Zane.
“But,” he continued, flashing his cruelest smile, “if you go back on your word later, I’ll hunt you down. And I promise, you’ll regret it.”
She shivered. “I won’t.”
“Good. I’m going to the bar. Stay in your cabin until we land.”
Hannover frowned. “I didn’t get your name.”
“I didn’t give it to you.” He shrugged. “It’s Zane. You can figure out the rest.”
He didn’t expect her to pick up on it, but as pulsing neon lights danced across her beige coat, Hannover went deathly still. She grabbed his arm and yanked him back to the alcove. Zane nearly snapped at her to keep her hands off him, but as she tossed the gauzy curtains aside and spun around, her wide eyes found his.
“You’re Baron Wells’s son.”
“How kind of you to remember me.” Zane sidestepped the curtains as they swung into place. “It only took your family twenty cycles.”
