Chapter 44

Chapter 44

“ H ave you ever been to the market district?”

Mariah glanced at Andrian, riding beside her on a black stallion. Sebastian and Ryland were ahead, the latter chatting animatedly to Sebastian, whose posture was polite yet tense in his saddle.

She shook her head. “Only when I came through with my dad the day before the Choosing. But we stayed the night in the mountain district, and the only other time I’ve been back down was on the day of the parade.”

“Which only leads through the city’s main roads,” Andrian growled. His hair had grown long and fell errantly into his eyes. He pushed it back with a frustrated movement. “We really should’ve gotten you out of the palace more.”

“It’s fine,” she murmured. He was dressed in a short sleeve black tee, and when he’d brushed his hair from his eyes, biceps shifting beneath the cotton …

She swallowed.

“I’m assuming you’ve been down here before,” she said, her eyes wandering around the bustling streets. While the road was clear for their horses, it was also lined with vendors, each desperate to display their wares. The sounds and shouting of bartering rang through the street.

“I’ve lived in Verith most of my life.” His voice was crisp and pointed. “Of course I’ve been down here.”

“Just making conversation, asshole,” she muttered under her breath, too quiet—she thought—for him to hear.

With a jolt, she realized he was no longer beside her. She pulled Kodie to a halt, twisting in her saddle. A few paces behind, he’d frozen on his horse, his face fixed in an expression of utter disgust and horror.

“What?” She glanced around, alarmed, which seemed to spark a reaction. He nudged his horse forward, the stallion quickly catching back up to her and Kodie.

“I’m … just …” He groaned, again running his hands through his hair. He sighed heavily, eyes lifting to the sky. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “That was a dick thing to say. You were only curious.”

Mariah’s mouth popped open.

“Are you apologizing for being an asshole?”

His eyes met hers. “… Yes?”

“Wow,” she said, turning back around. “Maybe Enfara truly has frozen over.”

They rode in silence for a few more minutes, kept company only by the sound of their horses’ hooves and the crowd around them.

“That’s really what you think of me, isn’t it?” Andrian’s voice was soft, but just loud enough to be heard over the din.

Her brow furrowed. “What is?”

She felt more than saw him tense beside her. “An ass. Foul-tempered.” He paused. “Someone who hurt you.” His last words were almost a whisper.

It was her turn to pull Kodie to a sudden stop, her glare turning to ice. He wheeled his stallion around to face her, his face unbelievably open.

Raw.

Vulnerable.

With that look, something in her chest cracked wide open.

“Look, Mariah,” he murmured fervently, pulling his horse beside Kodie. “I know. I know that you can’t forgive me for what I’ve done.”

“Andrian,” she whispered.

“You have to hear me. I swear. To the goddess, to the stars. Fuck, to you . It wasn’t me. And I’m just as committed as you are to finding out why the fuck all this is happening, why they are so desperate to end you and your reign.”

“Andrian,” she said a bit more forcefully.

“What do you want from me?” Desperation creeped into his voice, a wild gleam in his eyes. “Do you want me to get on my fucking knees for you? Do you want me to beg for your forgiveness? Because, fuck, Mariah, for you … I would. I would do anything?—”

“ Andrian .” This time, she nearly shouted above the crowd, her voice crackling with a touch of the raw magic in her veins.

He leaned back, blinking as if shaking himself from a daze. She grabbed his horse’s reins and pulled them closer, their thighs pressing together.

When they touched, she swore the ground beneath her feet shook, that the heavens above opened, and lightning crackled across the sky. His eyes widened, but she refused to break his stare.

“I don’t want you to beg for my forgiveness,” she hissed, her voice soft but she knew it carried. Knew he heard it. “There is nothing to forgive. I know it wasn’t you. I know you were just as trapped as I was.” She drew in a deep breath, dropping his reins, but he remained against her side. Even their horses stood skin to skin, ears tilted back as they listened to their riders.

“I want you to beg for something I gave away all too willingly before.” She watched the confusion fill his eyes, before she leaned in further, just a touch.

“I want you to beg for my trust .”

She pressed her heels to Kodie’s side, trotting off down the busy street after Sebastian and the captain, leaving Andrian with an expression of wicked determination—and wild hunger—on his face.

The building was dilapidated, a corner of the roof caving in. Moss and vines crawled up the front, and most of the windows were boarded up or shuttered in.

Mariah stared dubiously at the crumbling brick. “Are you sure this is where the call came from?”

“Yes, my queen. And I’m sure that’s exactly what the guardsmen who responded to this call said when they arrived that night.”

Mariah hummed, searching for any hints of something more sinister lurking within the decrepit structure. She saw nothing, and even when she sent a simple, slender rope of magic twisting out toward the building, not a single trace of the evilness she’d felt in the pillars clawed back at her.

“Very well,” she said, turning to the captain. “Will you help my Armature open the doors?” She gestured behind her at the double entryway, beyond repair and boarded up.

The captain paled. “Your Majesty … I do not …”

“We’ve got it, M.” Sebastian’s voice held a hint of amusement as he and Andrian brushed past, each carrying a bundle of rope. While Mariah knew that Andrian’s magic could certainly remove the boards—hers could too—she also knew it was good to give her Armature a moment to teach the captain what it meant to investigate a call.

Especially one carrying allegations as serious as this.

Moving as one, Sebastian and Andrian tied their rope to the boards, then led the other ends to their waiting horses. Looping it around their saddle horns, they spurred their warhorses forward, muscles straining against the taut rope.

It only took a few strides from the two beasts to pull the boards free, wood and nails clattering to the ground. They dismounted, retying their horses to the post in the street where Kodie and Ryland’s horse stood, and rejoined her.

“Shall we?” She gestured with a flourish to the captain.

His face paled further, but he nodded shakily, pushing back his shoulders as he stepped toward the newly revealed doors.

Sebastian brushed past her. “Stop terrorizing the poor kid,” he whispered in her ear.

“ Kid ?” Mariah responded with fake indignation. “He’s older than me. Wasn’t he one of my Marked?”

“Yes.” Andrian stepped to her other side. “His name is Ryland. And he’s a good kid, if a little slow on the uptake.” Over her head, he and Sebastian shared a grin.

Mariah swung her gaze between the two of them, astonished. “Stop getting along. It’s unnerving.” Before either of them could respond, she followed Ryland into the abandoned building.

The interior was much the same as the outside. Dirty and crumbling, and it smelled a bit like rotten food. Mariah wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“Gods,” she breathed out. “When was the last time this place was occupied?”

“At least five years.” Ryland lifted his hand, a small orb of fire cupped in his palm.

Mariah eyed the flame, then let her own light spill from her palms, twisting and winding through the crumbling space.

Andrian flashed a grin, and Sebastian chuckled under his breath.

“Do you know what happened?”

Ryland, watching her light spill and twist throughout the room in awe, quickly closed his fist, snuffing out his flame. He turned to face her again, cheeks a bit flushed.

“I think it was an outbreak of the pox. Swept through the building like the plague. The City Guard eventually had to close it down and evacuate all the residents to different areas of town.”

“Hmm. The pox.” Mariah looked around again, her magic still searching. “A bit of an unusual disease, isn’t it?”

“Now, certainly. But a few years ago …” Ryland shrugged. “Maybe a bit more common than we thought.”

Mariah glanced first at Sebastian, then to Andrian. Both their faces were carefully schooled, held in perfect neutrality. They all knew pox hadn’t been prevalent in the kingdom for at least two hundred years; it was allegedly one reason Ryenne had closed the borders at the beginning of her reign. No better way to stop foreign diseases from running rampant through vulnerable communities.

Which meant Ryland didn’t know a thing.

“Ryland, you can wait here. Watch the entrance, make sure no one sneaks in after us. My Armature and I will inspect the main floor.”

Ryland nodded emphatically. “Absolutely, Your Majesty. My pleasure.” With a renewed vigor, he turned to the door, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword and shoving his shoulders back.

Somewhere, wreathed in shadows, Andrian snorted.

Her lips were tugging up into a grin as she let her magic continue to poke and prod through the main floor of the abandoned building, searching for something, anything that felt even remotely like?—

That .

It slammed into Mariah, the feeling of wrongness that had her magic recoiling. It came from the western end of the building, just around the right corner of the hallway stretching before them. She pulled back all her magic but for a single thread, watching the silver-gold thrash and vibrate in the air as it fought to get away from whatever it had found.

“There,” she whispered.

Without hesitation, Sebastian and Andrian fell into step beside her, the bonds between their souls pulled taut by the distress of her magic. Andrian’s burned brighter, a glowing star within her chest, but she was too consumed by the evil she chased.

She followed that lingering thread around the corner, her steps steady and even, in time with the heavy beating of her heart.

When she pushed into the room beyond, she froze. Her eyes flew wide, magic clawing and raging and whipping inside her chest. Shadows unfurled behind her, and she heard Sebastian swear softly under his breath.

The room … it dripped with something dark. Something evil. And not just something magical, although that certainly was imbued within the seedy floors and cracked wallpapered walls.

No, it was physically dripping with evidence of the atrocities—dozens, if not hundreds, of them—that had been committed here.

Mariah pushed her magic out further, illuminating the space. She held back her gasp of terror and disgust, just as Andrian growled and Sebastian swore again, this time louder.

On the floors were dried pools of blackish red, spread into pockets every few feet. On the walls, more splatter of the same liquid arched in delicate streaks, dripping down in a morbid mockery of artwork.

Blood.

It was blood .

Gritting her teeth, Mariah forced her magic into the room. It recoiled and snapped but obeyed, a piece of it as curious as she was.

An altar sat at the far side of the room. It looked as if it was bathed in blood, just like the rest of the room, deep stains of it spilling rivulets down the raised pedestal.

She took a step toward it.

“ Mariah ,” Andrian and Sebastian murmured together, but they didn’t stop her.

She had to see.

Mariah inched closer, something deep and integral buried in her soul screaming at her to run away, get out, do not go closer .

But … she had to see. Her rage, the only thing pushing her forward, demanded her to see. To look at what was done in this room on the night of her Solstice. The desecration of the beautiful magic she’d helped to create.

She stood before the altar. On top of it sat a single stone obelisk, its surface so dark she wasn’t sure if it was more blood coating it, or if that was simply the stone itself.

A wild impulse seized her. She extended a brazen hand.

“Mariah, no!” Andrian’s desperate roar was the last thing she heard before her finger touched the obelisk.

Before her world plummeted into darkness.