Page 3 of This Dark Descent
Mikira smiled at their bickering, until she heard it: that sound that haunted her waking moments—the crunch of gravel beneath wheels, unaccompanied by hooves.
There was only one person who ever visited them in an enchanted coach.
Goddess help me.
Mikira reached the door at the same moment Lord Rezek Kelbra, heir to House Kelbra, stepped out of his coach.
Iri had fled to the barn, leaving Rezek to occupy their drive like a king holding court. His light copper hair was pulled back in a bun at the nape of his pale neck, his eyes the searing, ruthless blue of a too-hot flame as he inspected Mikira.
A familiar, slow grin spread across his lips. He was several years older than her, but the almost childlike glee that filled his expression at the sight of her always chilled her to the bone. “Miss Rusel,” he greeted in a voice like poisoned silk.
Her father emerged onto the porch beside her, bowing. “My lord. To what do we owe the honor?”
Mikira nearly scoffed. A visit from Rezek Kelbra wasn’t an honor; it was a threat. Her father knew that as well as she, and it scraped at her to see him like this. She wanted him to lift his head and spit at Rezek’s feet.
But he wouldn’t, just as she wouldn’t.
The Kelbras were one of the four greater houses and the king’s cousins, the prince well known to favor Rezek in particular. His power was threaded into the fabric of his being, and it was those tiny moments of defiance that he lived to crush. He never touched you; he simply tore apart your world.
Then an Anthir constable stepped from the coach, and cold understanding set into her veins—someone must have spotted her leaving the underground race. Ailene and Nelda crowded at her back. She should havetold them to go upstairs, should have yelled at them to get far, far away, but her throat had gone dry as sand.
Rezek inclined his head to the constable, but it was her father he addressed. “The Anthir has received a troubling report, Mr. Rusel. It appears Lord Thielan witnessed you performing magic.”
Her father drew a sharp breath, and Nelda smothered a cry. Lord Thielan had been at the ranch only the other night to look at a horse. At the time, Mikira had thought his arrival suspicious. It was rare for a noble of a lesser house to challenge Rezek, who for some time had an unofficial embargo on their family’s business. But they were desperate for sales, and she’d had no choice but to entertain him. He must have been looking for something Rezek could use against them, and he’d found it.
“It’s not true,” she blurted. “He didn’t.”
Rezek’s frosted gaze cut to her. “Surely you aren’t calling Lord Thielan a liar?”
“No, I—”
“Then are you aiding in the concealment of an unregistered enchanter?”
Mikira took an involuntary step back. She was only making it worse. But this couldn’t be happening. Rezek couldn’t have found out. Her father moved forward, shielding her from Rezek’s view. He would know what to say, how to fix this.
“They didn’t know,” he said.
Mikira faltered. “Father—”
“Hush, Mikira!” The force in his voice—a voice he hadneverraised to her—froze her in place. For the first time in years, she saw her father as he’d been before Lochlyn died: straight-backed, clear-eyed, and prepared to do whatever it took to keep his family safe.
“They didn’t know,” he repeated.
“Kira.” Ailene’s voice was barely more than a breaking whisper. A plea Mikira couldn’t answer, no matter how badly she wanted to. She felt hersister’s hand curling into the back of her shirt, felt something inside her teeter precariously toward falling.
“Then you admit it?” Rezek practically preened with delight.
Her father lifted his head. “Yes.”
Everything inside Mikira screamed at the word. Ailene tried to push past her, her hands in tight fists, but Mikira grabbed her.
“Then you have two choices, Mr. Rusel. Either I turn you over to the constable here, at which point you will be tried and hanged for evading registration. Or…” Rezek paused, drawing out the moment as he nonchalantly studied the diamond inlaid signet ring on his right hand. “You come work for House Kelbra.”
“No.” Mikira looked desperately to the constable, but if he pitied them at all, his face betrayed nothing. Everyone knew the Anthir were in the nobility’s pocket, but only those from the four greater houses could get away with indenturing an unlicensed enchanter right before their eyes. As members of the Council of Lords alongside the king, the greater houses made the law—and they could break it.
“Father, please.” Ailene’s voice cracked.
The Kelbras were renowned for their cruelty as much as their wealth; their people worked to the bone. Most were too desperate to leave, the rest beholden to the family through debt and secrets and land, the same way her father would be. At least so far they had lived outside of Rezek’s physical reach. If her father went with him now, he would not come back whole, if he came back at all.
