Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Vaasa stood at the edge of the city, having donned the same formal attire Reid had helped her with the day they met Isabel and Marc. To her side, Kosana loomed, eyes trained to the horizon, where they waited for Dominik’s caravan to appear. Vaasa had been on edge for the two weeks since Dominik accepted Reid’s invitation. Amalie had tried to join them, but with each day Vaasa spent with the girl, the less she wanted Dominik ever to lay eyes upon her.

Your strength is my strength , Amalie had said, but Vaasa had firmly denied her any chance to be near these negotiations.

Esoti had doubled down; had not let Vaasa leave their morning routines until she’d learned to catch that little blade and strike. The raven-haired warrior stood at Vaasa’s side for this meeting armed to the teeth. The rolling hills and yellow grass blanketed the horizon, a few homes speckled here or there, but mostly farms and ranches for as far as she could see. Vaasa swallowed down her magic, which seemed to tap-dance along her nerves; the force again felt like a snake, coiled tight and afraid to bare its neck.

She wondered how Dominik was surviving in the heat. He couldn’t pass through Wrultho and Hazut safely, which meant he had no opportunity to cross the Settara, nor did he have a vessel that could navigate the Loursevain Gap. He’d had to take the longer, less comfortable land route, navigating the labyrinth of rivers that made an invasion toward the west a foolish choice. Only through working with the current headman had this visit been possible; the Icrurian Central Forces had guided Dominik through, taking Reid’s instructions about a confusing path that wouldn’t grant Dominik more information about Icruria than he already knew. They’d traversed a heat-scorched valley, one that would be untenable for a large army, though Reid had promised her it was safe.

Hopefully, Dominik would dry up like a raisin in the sun.

Kosana shifted her weight as the caravan came into sight, blue eyes fixated on the road ahead. At least seven carts moved in lines, twenty horses on either side of the one leading the front. On instinct, Vaasa stepped closer to Reid, and he eyed her curiously in his peripheral vision.

Dominik’s raven hair came into sight, cut close to his head on the sides and swept back on the top, a few loose strands placed exactly where he wanted them to be. She knew as he got closer she’d see his incredibly high cheekbones and pointed nose, only made more severe by the pronounced ridge of his brow and his pale ivory skin. Dominik looked harsher than her in every way, though their coloring remained alike, particularly their shared indigo eyes.

Reid’s hand moved to the small of her back and his chin lifted. He wore his hair tied as he always did, the rigid line of his tense jaw cut like shards of salt. He looked remarkably strong at her side. The winking onyx blade at his hip only added to the effect.

Her brother had called men like him brutal, and despite the gentleness she knew of him now, she thought him capable of meeting that description should he need to. Something about it brought her comfort, and as they’d spent the entire week discussing how to approach this very visit, she felt like she knew some hidden secret about him that no one else did.

He was nervous about this. He was a warrior, a wolf, but he wasn’t a courtier.

Good thing he had her.

Dominik’s horse came to a stop about ten yards in front of them, his own carts and soldiers stopping in unison. To his left was Ozik, their father’s oldest advisor, black cape blowing in the subtle summer breeze that lifted his long white hair in tandem. Something about him had always made Vaasa shiver; it was in his constant presence, how no matter where she went in the castle, he was always there .

The air seemed to spark.

And then Dominik gave a sugared smile.

“Sister,” he said in Asteryan, dismounting from his white horse as if the two of them were friendly and he truly was pleased to see her.

Murderer, murderer, murderer , her magic seemed to hum. The twisting in her gut felt like a thousand blades.

Sauntering forward on long, lean legs, Dominik stopped just in front of her to pay traditional Asteryan respect to her husband.

“Foreman,” Dominik said in the same smooth tone, only able to speak in Asteryan. “A pleasure to be back in Mireh.”

Vaasa translated for the two of them, moving between Asteryan and Icrurian as easily as she breathed.

“A pleasure to host you, Your Grace,” Reid replied, curling his hand a little tighter in Vaasa’s clothing.

Dominik inspected the area between them before he crossed the threshold of her personal space, gathering her in his arms. “Far too long, Vaasalisa.”

Never long enough , she thought. “Far too long,” she said aloud, sliding her hands around his narrow waist affectionately, subtly prepared for a blade or some other trick. He was all bone in her arms and she thought for only a second about snapping him like a branch. The memory of her mother came flashing back, that putrid scent caressing beneath her nose, and she tried to fight it back. Tried to tell herself it wasn’t real.

“Your carts will have to file as a single line through the city, or they may of course stay here,” Kosana said. “Narrow passageways.”

“Single file will be fine,” Ozik assured her, speaking Icrurian with the same ease with which he’d taught it to Vaasa, as Dominik finally released her and stepped away.

She wanted to shake, but she gathered her composure and smiled with all her teeth. The nearer the advisor came, the more her magic dove deep inside of her, as if it, too, wanted to run away. She was nothing more to him than a tool. She analyzed him, expecting to see the bleak neutrality with which he had always gazed upon her. But when Ozik came to the emperor’s side, his narrow golden eyes flicked over Vaasa’s body with the same scrutiny before he turned to Reid, who had reclaimed his spot next to her. Inspecting her warrior husband, Ozik dipped his head. “Foreman.”

“Advisor,” Reid said.

“Inside, inside,” Vaasa said, playing into Dominik’s practiced tone. “I do believe we can call each other by our names, yes?”

“Always a pleasure, my dear,” Ozik said.

“Still grumpy, is he, Dominik?” she asked her brother, as if Ozik didn’t terrify her one bit.

“Still grumpy,” he assured her. The gleam in Dominik’s eye was telling—a rehearsed routine between the two of them of which the other knew the truth.

There was no family connection between them. No love or consideration.

Dominik was a snake in the grass.

But he wasn’t the only one, a fact that the little slither in her belly affirmed. She, too, was a snake who could play as a friend.

“Inside,” Vaasa said again, turning and leaning into Reid as he guided her back into the city of Mireh. They would only need to entertain him for one night, and then Dominik would turn back around and go visit the other investments he’d made in northern Asterya—beneath the Icrurian border. This was merely a short detour from his already-scheduled visits.

“You’re doing well,” Reid whispered. “Even if I only understood half of what was just said.”

“Nothing of importance,” she replied, eyes focused on the gates of Mireh. “At least not yet.”

As Dominik got settled at the High Temple of Mireh, Vaasa waited in the second-floor room she expected her brother would arrive in at any moment. She’d never said so aloud, but she was grateful Reid hadn’t chosen to live in the temple. They were surrounded by the constant eyes of the Mirehan temple acolytes, and the only privacy they found yet was behind this door.

While Kosana and Reid spoke in the corner, reviewing the movements of Dominik’s men outside the city, Vaasa was sprawled upon the couch watching Esoti, who paced back and forth in front of the door. Mathjin sat casually upon another couch in the far corner, his head moving to follow Esoti’s movements.

“Stop pacing,” Vaasa begged.

“I don’t like you all in here with them,” Esoti growled.

Mathjin’s lips quirked. “Kosana could slaughter Dominik before he could blink.”

“Not him. He is merely a green bean. I worry about the advisor. His eyes are those of an eagle. He sees everything.”

Green bean was the oddest way Vaasa had ever heard her brother described, though arguably one of the funniest. Yet Esoti had perceived a truth about Ozik; he did not miss much, even in his peripheral vision. Vaasa said, “As it stands, it isn’t a smart investment to attack Mireh. Ozik wouldn’t suggest that Dominik do so.”

“How do you know this?” Mathjin asked.

Her father had trusted Ozik, but only as far as her father trusted anyone. His proselytization about love and friendship hadn’t been for naught, and his advisor was no exception. The only member of Vaasa’s family who seemed to openly trust Ozik had been her mother. But Ozik was, after all, human. Likely he had ambitions of his own, and a hasty attack on a single city was not necessarily a powerful statement if it had no teeth behind it. In all probability, the Asteryan lords were chomping at the bit to test their new young emperor. They’d sold her for salt, so she wasn’t certain the lords would want to risk losing that trade opportunity over Dominik’s ambitions. Ozik would not want Dominik to fail, because to do so would mean he, too, had fallen short, and surely there was a bold lord somewhere waiting to take the advisor’s position. “An attack on Mireh would be far too expensive when they do not have a viable exit plan. No. Their assault will be slow and drawn out, likely with a death toll higher than a single city. I anticipate an offer for trade. They will sink their teeth in slowly.”

Everyone turned to her, staring silently. Only Reid remained staring at his stack of notes, unsurprised by the frankness with which she discussed her family’s cruel ambitions or how easily such machinations came to her.

“If Dominik decides not to heed his advisor’s warnings?” Esoti asked.

“Then either Kosana or Reid will kill them both,” Vaasa suggested.

“You speak with such ease about the slaughter of your brother and your family’s oldest advisor,” Mathjin said.

Reid lifted his head then, turning to watch them at the same time Esoti stopped pacing.

A bit of insecurity bloomed, but Vaasa kept her chin high. “Yes, well, they sold me to the foreman of Mireh three weeks after my mother’s death. If you couldn’t tell, there is little love between me and my brother.”

Mathjin sat up straight. “What I said came across entirely wrong; I apologize.”

“No need.”

“There is one,” Reid said from across the room.

“There isn’t,” Vaasa said louder, not moving her eyes from Mathjin. She didn’t blame him for questioning her in the least; she respected it. Mathjin was a smart advisor, and she admired his tenacity. He would spend the day pretending he didn’t speak Asteryan, the smallest of upper hands they could have in this meeting.

Still, Kosana side-eyed the Mirehan advisor, and Esoti curled her lip.

It was foolish to want to be here, but she felt as though a tether had tied around her heart and latched on to the part of the map labeled with their city name. Mireh. Like it belonged to her, too. Power threaded along her fingertips at the thought of someone harming it.

And then that someone rapped against the door.

Mathjin and Vaasa stood from their couches, both coming to the table. Reid gestured for Vaasa to sit at his left, just as they’d done the night Marc visited. Taking what suddenly felt like her rightful place at his side, she watched the door open.

Reid twined his fingers in hers.

Foolish, possessive man—or so anyone looking upon them would think. They’d gotten good at pretending.

Dominik entered, freshly bathed and changed into another green jacket the color of Mek?s’s treetops. He adjusted the lapels, smiling widely at them all. Ozik followed on Dominik’s heels, golden eyes surveying the room with his cloak around his shoulders. Upon entering, the advisor swept it over his right shoulder and draped it upon a chair.

“I did not realize we would have such a large group this afternoon,” Dominik said in Asteryan. Vaasa translated, speaking low and close to Reid. Ozik listened in, prepared to translate every word of their response in Icrurian. It was strange to be standing opposite Ozik, considering she only knew these languages because of him. She had spent her life on the other side of the table—on Asterya’s side—and she didn’t know if that made her a liability or a threat.

Reid did not hesitate to answer, a calm friendliness dripping from his lips. “I cannot convince my wife’s guard to leave her side, no matter the company.”

Dominik tilted his head and grasped the chair in front of him with long, bony fingers when Ozik whispered the translation. “Ah. Well, we will see you for dinner tonight, Vaasa, and I’m sorry I do not know your guard’s name,” he said as he settled into the chair across from Reid.

Vaasa translated, and Reid slid out her chair without dropping his gaze from Dominik’s. “Her guard’s name is Esoti, and though you are unfamiliar with our traditions, Your Grace, it is the custom that a consort remains with her husband. My wife will stay at my side.”

Upon the words, Esoti took her spot against the wall, hand conveniently rested against her dagger.

Dominik’s jaw ticked as Ozik translated. Then he looked to Vaasa. Gleaming on his finger was his signature clawed silver ring, one sharp enough to cut just like his words, and she swore it twitched. The black stone inside of it swallowed the light that touched him. “Good to see you settling in so nicely at his side. It seems this country suits you.” He attempted to undermine Reid in the way he looked to her, though he probably didn’t realize to respond directly to her wasn’t an insult to Reid of Mireh.

Reid gestured for her to sit. When she did, he ran his fingers over her shoulder and down her arm, collecting her hand in his again before taking his own seat. “She has fit in better than I could have hoped,” Reid said.

Ozik grinned as he relayed the message. Dominik kept his sickening smile plastered to his face. “I’m thrilled to see you’re happy with our first transaction.”

Transaction . The word was purposeful—as was the subtle tap of Vaasa’s finger against Reid’s wrist as she correctly contextualized his intentions; a signal to leave it alone, even though his palm twitched. Even though her own did, too.

“Perhaps these negotiations will be quick,” Mathjin said in an even, unbothered tone, “given everyone is so happy with this arrangement.”

“Perhaps,” Dominik said a few moments after Ozik translated.

Vaasa wanted to throw herself across the table and rip his hair from his head, but she blinked away the violent images and kept her magic at bay. It sat in her stomach, coiled, prepared, and she licked her lips at the thought.

“What do you need from us?” Reid asked, giving Dominik the opportunity to start as she’d told him to do two nights ago when they discussed how to approach this very moment.

“As you know, the crossing of the Loursevain Gap is of paramount priority for Asterya. Trade with Zataar is practically impossible, given our little pest problem,” Dominik said.

He referred to the pirates who ruled the bay Mek?s was built upon. They’d haunted the area for centuries, and her father had only begun to temper the problem.

“So, you are in need of ships?” Reid asked.

Exactly what they expected.

“Ships…” Dominik rocked his hand back and forth with a pinch of his lips. “Ships, eventually. The issue with the pirates cannot be solved by any water vessel. No, we need to be able to travel by land before we travel the sea, which is currently impossible given the hostility of your eastern territories.”

Vaasa’s brow furrowed. “What are you asking for, then?” she asked, skipping the translation.

Reid didn’t question her—something Dominik took note of.

Something she intended.

“I would like you to order the foremen of Wrultho and Hazut to remove their troops from the trade routes and allow us safe access to the Innisjour Fang,” her brother said smoothly.

This time, she translated. Reid’s hand froze beneath the table. “What do you need with the fang?”

“We would like to set up a trading post there, and for everyone’s cooperation, we will fund the cost of erecting it,” Dominik said. “The kingdom of Zataar has already expressed interest in opening up their ports for both of our use, which I believe all of us would benefit from.”

A trading post at the edge of the fang? The single piece of land jutted out like a canine tooth from the Icrurian shores, creating the Warfell Strait that divided Icruria from Zataar. If any headman tried to establish trade with the nation, that would be the best place.

To give Dominik access to the fang meant giving him a stronghold in Icruria.

There was no way Reid could even consider it.

Regardless, Reid pursed his lips. “I cannot order any of my fellow foremen to do that.”

“What is the use of being headman, then?” Dominik asked, sharpening his tongue. “Is that not what you will be? Not why I agreed to allow my sister to come here in the first place?”

“He will be headman,” Vaasa snapped in Icrurian, being overt about her attention to Reid. She translated quickly.

Looking down at her, Reid grinned. “My wife is correct.”

The guise of protectiveness in a language her so-called husband could understand must have registered with the Asteryan advisor, because Ozik gave a pleasured purse of his lips when he translated.

“Good,” Dominik said, leaning back in his chair and glancing between the two of them. “Then it will be within your purview to call for a cease to the violence at the border.”

“Is it not within your purview to call for a cease to the violence at the border?” Mathjin asked in stunning Icrurian, having waited for a translation, not letting a soul know that he could understand them.

Ozik shifted in his seat, looking squarely at Mathjin as he said, “Do you blame the Asteryans for the violence?”

“You built the dam along the Sanguine,” Mathjin pointed out.

“It was your people who attacked. The lands around those areas were flooding,” Dominik added, causing Reid’s jaw to flicker as she translated the words.

Lies. All bald-faced mistruths strung in a tone of sweet desperation. To remove guilt from the Asteryans and make it seem like a choice made for survival… It was manipulative at best.

Ozik watched her, waiting. Testing her, she realized. To see if she would correct them, because she had been there when that war started. She had been in the very room.

Vaasa translated it word for word without a single correction—and Reid nodded like he believed her. Mathjin, too.

Ozik’s lips slithered into a smile, speaking in Asteryan as he gazed upon her. “You look so much like a devoted wife; I forget you are the same chameleon your father raised.”

What was Ozik up to?

“The nature of a person does not change, even if their surroundings do,” Vaasa replied in Asteryan.

With pursed lips, Ozik swept a strand of his white hair off his shoulder. “Perhaps you and I should speak in private before this little visit is over.”

Dominik flicked his eyes to her. Smiled with all of his teeth.

“About the flooding ?” Vaasa asked, still in Asteryan.

“About the flooding ,” Ozik agreed.

Mirroring Dominik’s smile, Vaasa coolly said, “Perhaps we should.”

But her throat felt tight.

There was no flooding. There never had been.

The two of them were purposefully lying, just to see if she would go along with it.

Reid furrowed his brow as he looked between them all, his hand tightening in hers. She translated an entirely false discussion about how the flooding was so miserable in that area that the Asteryans had no choice. She made them out to be a victim, one in authentic search of an end to the violence, just like she suspected Dominik and Ozik were hoping she would.

“I do think I can negotiate with Wrultho,” Reid said in Icrurian once more. “But that will be the cost—the dam. If you opted to take it down, they may be willing to free up an opportunity for trading in good faith. Perhaps we can come to an agreement about the infrastructure your people need.”

“Would this negotiation harm your chances of election? Alienate the very people who will elect you?” Dominik asked outright.

Reid pursed his lips as Vaasa translated. Shook his head. “No, I believe it is the will of most of Icruria to build upon the foundations this marriage has laid. It is time our city-states trade openly.”

Ozik translated each word with full fidelity. Dominik leaned back, gesturing widely with his hands. “Then let us build upon them. Show them what an alliance with Asterya looks like. I expect to have your people address my sister as high consort within the year.”

Reid’s hand tightened on hers as she translated. Still, she used her free hand to run it up and down Reid’s arm, looking rather territorial in everyone’s eyes.

Everyone’s but Ozik’s and Dominik’s.

Especially when Reid beamed down at her and slid his own free hand to her cheek, turning his lips to her temple and saying, “That she will be.”

If Ozik and Dominik wanted to speak with her in private, there was more than they were letting on. To so blatantly address her potential for upward movement…

From where she sat now, her placement could easily be construed as intentional. If she didn’t know that they’d expected her to die, that they wanted her to die, she would say without a doubt it was. To seat her at the side of the man soon to be elected headman of all of Icruria?

She was in the prime position to gain Reid’s affection and trust. She was as close to a queen in this territory as anyone could get.

The heiress of Asterya. Planted directly inside where they wanted to go.

And that was how conquerors schemed. Which immediately begged the question: Had her mother been a conqueror, too?

“Like my husband said, I believe we can bargain in good faith,” Vaasa said in Asteryan.

She knew how Dominik would hear it—that she wasn’t referring to her and the foreman of Wrultho. Rather, she was referring to her and him.

“Good faith is all I’m in search of,” Dominik assured her.

That sugared tone and smile said otherwise, something she doubted slipped past Reid. Still, she tapped his wrist again, signaling him to agree. “Then bring down the dam.”

“Provided you convince Wrultho to lay their weapons down,” Dominik said.

Reid nodded. “We are in agreement.”

“Shall we be done with this now?” Vaasa asked.

Dominik happily obliged, standing from the table and stretching his legs.

Ozik followed her brother out the door, the two headed for a walk around the grounds of the temple led by Kosana’s corps, dressed as acolytes. The moment the door closed, Reid turned to look at her, eyebrow lifting.

“He wants to speak with me in private,” Vaasa whispered.

“Is that what the advisor meant?” Mathjin asked. Undoubtedly, he had understood every Asteryan word. Would he trust her less now?

She nodded.

“No.” Reid’s eyes moved between her and the door. “Absolutely not.”

“He won’t harm me,” she said. At least not yet. “He wants something, and it’s in our best interest to find out what.”

Reid shifted his weight uncomfortably but didn’t argue again.

It was Mathjin who said, “You don’t have a choice, do you?”

Vaasa shook her head. “No, not really.”