Page 49 of This Dark Descent
“What do you see, when you look at this city?”
She looked up, but Damien had angled his chair toward the courtyard, where Veradell stretched in the distance.
“People with too much power,” she replied without thinking, but she didn’t take it back. The royals, the noble houses—they all had too much. The power to take kingdoms and lives, the power to redraw the lines of the world. Enderlain had done it before, and it would do it again. The war wouldn’t end with Celair. Eventually, Enderlain would seek to expand again, and more people would lose loved ones like she had, sacrificed to an endless war.
Damien’s brows lifted. “You say that as if power is a bad thing.”
Rezek’s sinuous smile flashed in her mind. “It is.” There were no consequences for people with power, only for those without it. “Powerful people are dangerous.”
Like you.
“What I do, I do for this city, this kingdom,” Damien said softly. “It has suffered at the hands of people like the Kelbras for too long, and I will see it freed.”
He didn’t look away from her, as if waiting to ascertain if she believed him. She was just a pawn in his plans, and yet the earnestness in his eyes—he seemed to genuinely care what she thought. But after tonight, could she be anything but his enemy?
The thought of being Damien Adair’s opponent sat with her about as well as a sharp stone wedged beneath her ribs. She was no match for him. But perhaps he could be one for Rezek.
“I need to tell you something.” Damien waited, and she fortified herself with a deep breath. “In exchange for letting me back in the race, Rezek wants me to spy on you.”
His fingers curled slowly around his armrest. “And you’re telling me because…”
“Because I don’t want to, and I need your help to fool him, or he’ll hurt my father.”
He was silent long enough to make her think she’d made a terrible mistake. Long enough for her to calculate how quickly she could free a knife, whether she could make it to the exit.
Then he said simply, “Thank you.”
She started. “What?”
“Thank you for telling me the truth.” He picked up his pen again, the motion drawing her eye to the signet ring that was back in place on his right hand. Had Hyle found it while they were out? “I’ll feed you information to give to Rezek. Enough to satiate him until your father is freed. I’ll keep you safe from him, Mikira.”
Those words stayed with her. By the time she returned home with Iri that night, she felt like an old, moth-eaten rag someone had wrung dry. The sickening realization that she was far, far too tangled up in Rezek’s web had yet to leave her, and like a foxtail seed burrowed beneath the skin, he wouldn’t be removed without tearing apart as much as possible.
So when Nelda crept into her room, long after she’d given up trying to sleep, and slipped under the covers beside her, she let her stay, thankful for the companionable silence that came with knowing someone so well, words weren’t needed. She enfolded her sister in her arms, the knowledge that she had almost lost her, lost everything, burgeoning in her chest like a swelling river.
Nelda didn’t ask. She just wrapped her thin arms around Mikira’s neck and let her hold her for as long as she needed.
THE NEXT MORNING,Atara greeted Mikira with a toss of her head where she waited saddled outside her stall.
Mikira had forgotten how huge the horse was, how imposing with her midnight coat and knowing eyes. She’d been in such a fugue state yesterday that she hadn’t fully processed the truth about her origins. Her knowledge of Kinnish magic was even weaker than enchant magic; all she knew was that Atara had been like a warhorse charmed for aggression, crazed by blood, and there’d been a moment when she’d been afraid the horse might attack her too.
Ari had explained it was because golems were protective by nature, but Mikira couldn’t shake her doubt. Atara didn’t behave like she expected a horse to.
Isn’t that the same thing people say about me?Her nails dug into her palms. Reid could snap and grumble and Damien could break bone, but no one called them aggressive the way they did her. That race had been grueling and violent and heady. Could she really blame the horse for getting caught up in it?
But what if she does it again?It wasn’t just Mikira at risk here. If Atara’s behavior betrayed her, Ari would be discovered too. But she couldn’t let her fear rule her. One way or another, she had to learn to work with Atara, for all their sakes.
Forcing herself to close the distance between them, she laid a tentative hand on the mare’s velvet nose. “You’re not going to eat me, are you?”
Atara nickered softly, leaning into Mikira’s touch. There was a life behind the golem’s eyes, a familiar spark that she cradled inside herself, even when all the world tried to put it out.
“Maybe you’re just like me,” she whispered. “A little angry. A little scared.”
“Are you going to ride the horse or just stare at her all day?”
She cast Reid a sour look where he slouched against the stable door, arms folded. He looked so comfortable there, so in place. What was it liketo be so unabashedly yourself, secure in the knowledge that you had people that accepted you, no matter your faults? Mikira ached for that kind of camaraderie. To not have to bend and shape herself into what other people wanted, and the last few weeks, she’d started to feel it here. Perhaps that was why she’d been honest with Damien about Rezek’s deal last night.
She didn’t want to lie to them.
