Page 79 of Vasmora

He stepped back. “Are you in pain, A’miszhla? Can you walk?”

She nodded, and he gently placed her on her feet, taking her hand in his and pausing to place a kiss to the back of her palm.

“’The fuck is this!”

The voice echoed from down the hallway, steeling his muscles. Zevander pressed a finger to his lips, and eyes on Maevyth, he backed himself into the shadows of her cell.

Sword leading the way, the guard arrived at the open cell, gaze trailing over the bent frame. He frowned as he peered in on her. “’The fuck is going on?”

Hands crossed in front of her body, Maevyth merely stared back at him.

“D’you hear what I said? What happened here?” The moment he stepped inside, the guard sealed his fate. He strode toward her, and silent as a drifting smoke, Zevander moved behind him, blade already drawn.

Without so much as a breath of hesitation, he gripped the man’s head and slid his knife across his throat. Releasing him sent the guard crashing to the floor, mouth gaping for breath as he clutched the fatal wound.

Zevander sheathed his weapon and retook Maevyth’s hand. Outside the cell, he paused to consider the bodies strewn about. It wasn’t like him to leave a trail behind, but turning them to stones meant expending energy. Energy he might need to burn down the whole fucking palace for her. Instead, he pressed on, steps unhurried, the way he’d been trained to move through danger, guiding her through the corridor. Senses heightened. Muscles vibrating.

Or perhaps that was her trembling hand clutched in his.

They passed cells with prisoners who called out for them, reaching through their bars, begging to be set free, but Zevander kept on. His only priority was getting Maevyth out of there.

Up the staircase, he followed the path back toward the chimney. He could spare himself half the distance by taking the kitchen hearth, so long as it was shut down for the evening, but when he reached the corridor for the kitchen, he ground to a halt. At the opposite end, two servants and two guards examined what he presumed was the body he’d left in the alcove.

“Fuck,” he muttered, turning toward an adjacent corridor. While it happened to be empty, it would put him in the guards’ line of view, so he opted to go back the way they’d come. Yes, Zevander could’ve burned them all—everything—including the servants and slaves, and he would, if it meant getting Maevyth to safety. But there’d be no satisfaction in it. When Zevander returned to exact his revenge, he wanted Loyce to know who held the blade.

As they approached another branching hallway, Zevander heard her voice. That grating, sickening sound that drove bolts of rage through his muscles. He slowed his steps, staring down the corridor and finding the elaborate doorway that led to the rotunda room. A place he knew all too well.

The scorpion on his back stirred, and teeth gnashing, he damned near breathed flames through his nose as the fury inside of him roiled and churned, clawing for vengeance.

Zevander screwed his eyes shut.

Maevyth. His only priority.

He exhaled a shaky breath and kept on, past the corridor and that ungodly room that housed his most hated enemy.

Maevyth’s hand slipped from his, and he quickly spun around, finding her staring at the floor. Tears welled in her lost and vacant eyes. “No,” she whispered. “She cannot live to harm another soul. She has to die.”

“And I will come back for her. Once you’re safe.”

“I’ll never be safe knowing she breathes.”

Zevander knew the meaning of her words. Even in the absence of the woman, she’d inflicted her torment on his mind for nearly a century.

A boisterous laugh bled through the doors, and jaw clenched, Maevyth shook her head. “Her laughter is another’s suffering. She’s torturing someone as we speak.”

“You are the only thing that matters to me, and I will not risk losing you.”

“I am already lost. Both of us have lost a piece of who we were to her.” Her lips trembled, brows pulled tight to a frown. “I want it back.”

As her words sank into him, something inside of him shifted like the quiet click of a lock. A disengaging.

His knuckles burned, hands balled to tight fists, his mind taunting him with images of what Loyce had taken from her.

Zevander closed the space between them and stroked his hand down her face. “Consider it done.” Without thought, he bent toward her lips to kiss her, only brushing them before she turned away. His eyes snapped open, and he froze, watching her expression twist to remorse, her bloodstained hand covering the gash at her lips.

As much as the rejection gutted him, he understood the why of it. He’d long worn an aversion to others like a second skin.

“I … I don’t know why I did that …. I’m …sorry.” A look of panic washed over her, and Zevander gripped her shoulders to steady her.