“Emil?” I twisted at the waist, looking him over and actually paying attention. I saw him standing there, but I couldn’t get the image of seeing him speared through the chest out of my mind. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m…” Emil looked down at the jagged tears in his armor. He swallowed, then looked past me to Poppy. “I’m glad to be alive. Tell her she has my everlasting devotion and utter, complete adoration when she wakes.”
My eyes narrowed.
Emil winked and then turned to leave.
“Fucker,” I muttered, turning to Poppy. I wasn’t telling her shit.
Kieran chuckled, but the sound was quick to fade. Gods, she’d hate this—us staring at her while she slept. She’d probably stab one or both of us upon waking. I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t get the sound out.
“She’ll be fine. She’ll wake, and she’ll know herself. She’ll know us.” Kieran placed his hand on my shoulder. “We just need to wait.”
“Yeah.” Thick emotion clogged my throat and tightened my chest.
Kieran squeezed my shoulder and then dropped his hand. He cleared his throat. “What do you think Nektas meant when he was talking about the eather and us having Joined with a Primal?”
I rubbed my chin, needing a moment to recall what he was talking about. “Man, I totally forgot about that. I have no idea. And, of course, he didn’t go into any detail.”
“I’m beginning to think vagueness is a unique ability when it comes to the draken,” Kieran muttered.
A rough laugh left me. “Yeah, but all of us had way more important things on our minds.”
We still did.
“Talk to her.” I glanced at Kieran. “That’s what Nektas said.”
“He did.”
But what did I talk to her about? I shook my head as I stared at her face. She looked too damn peaceful, when my entire being felt like it was being ripped apart. I ran the tips of my fingers over her cold cheek. Talk to her. I grazed the scar that started at her temple and thought of the first time I’d seen her unveiled for some reason.
Then I thought about the first time I’d seen her.
I didn’t know if that was what Nektas had meant, but it was something. I forced a deep, steady breath as Kieran straightened the sleeve of her shirt. “Did I ever tell you what it was like when I was in Masadonia?” I said to her, feeling Kieran’s and Delano’s attention moving to me. “I can’t remember, but I don’t think I’ve told you what it was like before I became your guard. Everything I did.” A heavier breath left me this time because I’d done a lot. “And how it all changed—how I changed—because of you.”
I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But where do I start?” I searched my memories. They were hazy at first. But then… “I think I’ll start on the Rise.”
ON THE RISE
A chill reached the Rise, chasing away what remained of the late-season warmth that had lingered far into autumn. The hint of coming snow was in the night air.
That wasn’t the only thing.
I turned at the waist and propped a booted foot on the ledge, looking down at the ramshackle buildings in the shadow of the massive wall enclosing the cesspool of a city known as Masadonia. The homes were all drab shades of gray and brown, stained with dirt and smoke and stacked atop one another, leaving little room for the wagons to travel the streets, let alone enough space for the people to breathe anything but the stench of sewage and decay.
And death.
There was always death in the air near the Rise.
My lip curled in disgust as I scanned the rows and rows of homes in the Lower Ward. Lit by torches and a few sporadically placed streetlamps powered by oil instead of electricity, the packed buildings appeared one wind gust away from crumbling in on themselves. Clearly, Duke and Duchess Teerman, the Ascended who ruled Masadonia, believed only the wealthy deserved such luxuries as clean air and space, electricity, and running water.
Masadonia was one of the oldest cities in the kingdom, and I was sure it had once been beautiful when Atlantia ruled the entirety of the mortal realm—before the War of Two Kings, the Blood Crown, and the Rises were erected around cities and villages as prisons to keep out the consequences of the evil that lived within. Before my people retreated east of the Skotos Mountains for the greater good of the realm.
But no real good had come of it.
The Ascended, those who now ruled everything west of the Skotos, were expert revisionists, rewriting history by calling themselves the heroes and damning Atlantians as the villains. They’d managed to convince the mortals they were Blessed by the gods and installed themselves as rulers of what they now called the Kingdom of Solis.
A too-abrupt scream echoed from the shadows of the Lower Ward.
That evil didn’t find its way in. It now lived among the mortals.
My grip tightened on the hilt of the broadsword at my hip as I lifted my gaze to the twinkling lights of Radiant Row, seated at the base of Castle Teerman. Now, the only beauty to be found was beyond the heavily wooded Wisher’s Grove, where the elite of Masadonia lived in large manors on sprawling acres. Most were Ascended. Only a few were mortals who’d benefited from generational wealth. And they were likely aware of precisely what the Ascended were.
One would think the vamprys would take better care of their people, considering they would simply shrivel up and waste away without them. However, as a whole, the Ascended appeared to lack foresight as much as they did empathy. They treated their people like cattle, keeping them alive in shit conditions until it was time to be butchered.
“You never quite get used to the smells or the sounds.” The voice intruded on my thoughts. “Not unless you grew up in the Lower Ward.”
I turned my head to Pence. The blond-haired guard couldn’t be more than a year or two into his second decade of life. I doubted he’d make it much further if he continued on the Rise. Most of the guards didn’t. “Did you grow up down there?”
In the light of a nearby torch, Pence nodded as he stared at the homes lined up like uneven, jagged teeth. His answer came as no surprise. There wasn’t much opportunity in Solis unless one was born into wealth. You either worked as your parents did, barely scraping by, or you joined the Royal Army hoping to be one of the lucky fools to live long enough to move off the Rise and into something like a position in the Royal Guard.
Pence frowned as several shouts broke out, coming from an area near the Citadel, where coin was spent in gambling dens and houses of pleasure. Only the gods knew what was going on. A deal gone wrong? Senseless, unprovoked murder? The Ascended themselves? The possibilities were endless.
“How about you?” he asked.
“Grew up on a farm in the east.” The lie slipped easily from my lips, and it wasn’t just because I did, in fact, hail from the east—the Far East—but because I was as good at lying as I was at killing.
The crease between Pence’s brow deepened. “Heard you were from the capital.”
“I worked on the Rise in Carsodonia.” Another lie. “But I’m not from there.”
“Ah.” The skin between his eyes smoothed as he returned to stare at the Lower Ward and the plumes of smoke coming from chimneys.