Chapter Twenty-Four Nara

C HAPTER T WENTY-FOUR

N ARA

The study doors close with a thud, leaving me in the dimly lit room with Aurum at his desk and Ruvyn beside me. His grip tightens on my upper arm, a silent betrayal lingering since our return to Emberwell and my shackles were finally released. His gaze remains fixed straight ahead, determined to disregard my presence.

‘Nara.’ Aurum chuckles, raising his boots onto a desk piled with vellum sheets. ‘How was the journey back here? I would have asked that we meet in the throne room, but –’ He clicks his tongue – ‘repairs are still being made since your last visit.’

‘Where are you keeping my brothers?’ I demand.

He sighs, dropping his chin against his chest, feigning boredom. ‘They are unharmed, if that is what you wish to know. As are your friends, Darius and my courageous brother-in-law, if you were wondering.’

I huff, shaking my head. ‘Why don’t you just kill me already,’ I say. I see no reason why I am here if it isn’t to torture me with his plans. ‘I am sure that is what you have been dying to do.’

His upper lip twitches. ‘I like to hunt.’ He takes a deep breath and smiles as if my misery is feeding into his sick pleasure. ‘Call it the predatory dragon in me.’ The way he savours those words sends a twisted shiver up my spine, and I notice my breathing quickening as he rises from the gold-threaded chair to walk towards me. ‘But . . .’ He points. ‘I would much rather watch you struggle. See how those pretty blue eyes slowly become haunted by seeing the people you love suffering.’

My shoulders tense as he draws his hand out and traces his fingers along my face. I turn my head, physically repulsed by his touch.

‘It is only when you plead with me for death to come,’ he whispers, ‘that I might consider killing you.’

I whip my head back to him, and before I can retort an insult, I notice something on the side of his neck. Black veins slither outwards from every direction, much like the slow decay on his face.

He catches on to my gaze and responds with a restrained smile, bringing a finger-lit flame to his neck. ‘Nothing a bit of fire can’t fix,’ he remarks, wincing as the red glow of flames licks away the decay.

I glare. ‘Careful, too much fire and you might just burn.’

He laughs. ‘Not for an Ardenti.’

‘But you’re not one, are you? Those abilities belong to Darius.’

He takes a step back, smoothing a hand over his tightened jaw. ‘Not any more.’

I shake my head, disgusted by his words. ‘What made you like this? You had everything, a family, a kingdom—’

‘And yet it was never enough!’ He loses it then, his neck straining with the force of his words. He narrows his eye at me, seeing how I remain calm through his outburst and instantly corrects himself by fixing the collar of his tunic and smoothing back his hair with a chuckle. ‘I wonder what Solaris would think of you being here.’ He turns to me. ‘Knowing that the wondrous reincarnation – the vessel of the sun! – is now at my mercy.’

I watch him in silence, my rage knowing no bounds as he walks towards me again.

‘Would the deity of our world be proud?’ he whispers. ‘Or would it be disappointed, just as your old boss was when I told him you failed your mission back in Terranos?’ His smile holds a touch of arrogance and excitement as he stares at my reaction slowly unfolding.

‘Ivarron,’ I whisper, horrified. I jerk from Ruvyn’s grip, inching my face closer to Aurum. ‘Where is he? What did you do to him?’

Aurum throws his head back, a sadistic laugh echoing through the room as he strides towards his desk and sits back down. ‘Apparently, he was in love with your mother. Even tried to say he was protecting you all these years.’ He shakes his head in complete mockery. ‘And they say I’m terrible.’ Sighing, he feigns regret and taps his fingers along the desk. ‘Shame I had to kill him. He would have made a great ally if he hadn’t been so . . . untrusting.’

Hearing his heartless remark, a storm of emotions stirs within me. My jaw clenches and anger burns in my eyes, yet beneath it all, I can’t deny how the thought of Ivarron dying upsets me. We had such a complicated bond that I did not even know he loved my mother. Deep down, I should have known, with the way he despised my father and how he always said I reminded him of her . . .

I raise my eyes, keeping my chin hanging low. My voice quivers with a growing temper. ‘Do you really think you can keep us here? That the people of Aeris won’t come for us? That Lorcan, Hira—’

‘Will save you?’ He chuckles. ‘Lorcan does not care for you any more. Not after I struck a deal with the Aerian leaders.’

My face must be priceless because it only makes Aurum’s smile grow.

‘Hira’s land and people go unharmed as long as she lets me get what I want.’

Me and Darius . . .

‘Hira would never do that,’ I whisper, shaking my head at the thought that Hira could betray us this way.

‘You are right,’ he says. ‘She wouldn’t. Which is why she is no longer alive.’

Ice sweeps through my veins as every ounce of air vanishes from my lungs.

She is no longer alive.

‘The other two warrior leaders, though, accepted the deal with no problem. Although did you know Hira was Lorcan’s real mother?’

Aurum’s filthy joy as he speaks numbs me. He won’t stop smiling as he talks, tells me the truth, and lets me in on a secret that must have broken Lorcan just as much as it did when Darius found out about Gus.

‘Shocking, isn’t it?’ His golden eyepatch snaps towards me, the other eye squinting with delight. ‘Whatever plagued her to fall for a mortal is beyond me, but oh, you should have seen the look on Lorcan’s face when he found out. I suppose he and Darius aren’t so different after all.’

‘What is wrong with you?’ I spit, anger simmering beneath the surface of my words. ‘You killed her, you—’ My rage spikes; I can’t do it any more. Strength takes hold of me as I push myself free from Ruvyn and launch myself across Aurum’s desk.

Aurum jumps from his chair as I try to reach for him, but Ruvyn’s hands wrap around my waist, turning me away before I can get him.

A mangled cry tears from my throat as I pull at Ruvyn’s hands, but he keeps me within his grip.

Aurum walks around his desk, grinning while watching me thrash in Ruvyn’s arms. He leans forward; our faces are so close that I could bite off his nose. ‘I would do it all over again just to relive how good it felt to see the life drain away from her useless body.’

Flames dance across his fingertips as he shows them off in front of me, and for a second, I stop fighting. I stop trying to free myself because I realise something that makes me laugh so much that I cannot breathe.

Aurum’s confusion only fuses my laughter. ‘What are you laughing about?’ he grits.

I watch his flames die out, and my amusement fades into a disdainful smile. ‘That even though you are a Rivernorth, you still feel that threatened by your nephew that you had to take his powers.’

He looks mad – so, so mad.

Good.

‘You want to know what I was once told?’ I chuckle, riling him up. ‘That Darius is the rightful king to Emberwell. Not Sarilyn, not you, him .’

He snaps, gripping my jaw between his hands and squeezing until I feel the bones crack. ‘Where are the Elemental Stones?’

I wince beneath his feral gaze, but I don’t want to give in. I won’t give in. ‘Go on, do your worst.’ Heat flares from my nostrils. ‘I will never tell you where the stones are, and I will never bow down to you.’

We stare at each other, and his jaw clenches the more I choose not to back down – the more I show that I am not afraid of him.

Right up until the doors to the study open and an Elf interrupts us.

‘Sorry—the-the Queen has asked for the prisoner’s presence.’

‘ Sarilyn ,’ Aurum corrects him, seething between his teeth all the while maintaining his gaze on me. He releases his forceful grip on my jaw, and I draw a deep breath, my fingers instinctively massaging the soreness in my jawbone as Aurum swipes a hand over his face.

He doesn’t say anything as the Elf and Ruvyn take me away, and I stare at him, knowing that I got inside his head.