Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

Music hummed through the darkness.

The sound of plucked strings and a single violin drifted upon each wall and the floor, filling the darkness with sweet music.

Sitting silently in her seat, Vaasa began to smile as the shadow that covered the enormous theater dissipated. In a brilliant burst of golden light, the witches of Una appeared in white robes at the back. They were the first to enter the theater in the High Temple of Dihrah, people filling the rows of seats at least twenty or thirty across. Their small party of Mirehans sat in box seats framing the theater, crimson and ivory drapes falling from their balcony to line the curving orchestra.

For the show of magic and the final ceremony before the vote tomorrow, the headman’s home coven would start and end the evening. Kier had chosen this particular display, and Vaasa wondered if it had been at Melisina’s suggestion. She wondered what each coven would leave out, what pieces they were unwilling to share.

The crowd hushed as Leanan, Brielle at her side, led the group of witches down the center aisle. Drifting slowly with little orbs of light in their left hands, the group appeared to be some kind of angels, their robes giving an illusion of floating in time to the music. One by one they reached the stage, their soft hums harmonizing with the tune, and then the crowd began to sing along.

It was beautiful from up here, to see the culture of a nation from this bird’s-eye perspective.

Reid reached over and gripped her hand.

She turned to look at him and he watched her, pure contentedness in his eyes, and leaned over. “In ten years, it will be the Veragi who open this ceremony.”

Her heart wrenched at the thought. She didn’t want to explore the tremor of longing those words elicited. A ball that formed in her throat.

Instead, she tore her eyes away and focused on the witches of Una once more.

But then Melisina tapped her from behind. “Have you seen Amalie?”

Vaasa was supposed to join them at the end of this number behind the stage, so she’d expected Amalie would already be there. That they would finally have the opportunity to speak after the show. “I assumed she was with you.”

Melisina shook her head.

She released Reid’s hand and stood quietly, squeezing his shoulder. He turned to look at her, questioning, and she gestured toward Melisina.

She didn’t know why she remembered that moment so clearly, that subtle upturn of his strong mouth, but it burned itself into her mind.

With one final nod, he looked away.

Vaasa was wearing the most striking outfit she’d been offered: black skintight pants and a bodice with long sleeves, neckline falling off her shoulders. A purple overskirt split at the top of her hips and fell to the floor behind her in a pool of silk chiffon. It was a tad heavy, but it allowed her to wear the boots she’d broken in earlier.

Lifting her long overskirt, she followed Melisina into the hallway. “Where could she be?”

“You check her rooms and I’ll check the sodality.”

“You need to be here,” Vaasa said. “You are the high witch, Reid’s mother. Go on without us, I’ll search her room first.”

“Vaasa—”

“Melisina, this is my fault.”

With a small breath, the witch conceded, then set off down the stairs.

Vaasa plunged into the main hall of the theater and then to the doors, nodding at a guard on the way into the gardens. Gardenia immediately wafted beneath her nose, and she took only a moment to appreciate the subtle beauty of the white flower. To remember how she had looked at it the evening prior.

Her stomach knotted at the thought.

Stepping into the main foyer and passing beneath the large, sweeping fans, she scurried up the red velvet stairs and down two halls before curving around the bend that would lead to Amalie’s room. Similar to theirs, this one was just above the tower reserved for Mireh.

The oak door was locked.

Vaasa knocked once, twice, and waited.

“Amalie,” she said against the door, placing her ear upon the wood to listen.

Nothing.

No sound. No hint of anyone at all.

An acrid sweetness filled her senses, the subtle realization that she wasn’t alone only clicking a moment too late.

Her knees went weak.

Her arms and fingers next.

Before she had the opportunity to strike, to fight back, to do something worthwhile of saving her own life, black spots covered her vision. The last thing she saw before she was dragged under was the way his eyes brought out the warm undertone of his brown skin, of that particular smile that lifted both edges of his lips, of the way all of him had looked under muted light. Amber and salt and gardenia, too.

Then darkness swept it all away.

Gone, into nothingness.

Light fluttered behind her eyes before it dared gleam in front of them.

It was the sort of light that burned through closed lids, forcing one to squeeze just to keep it out. To waver on the edge of consciousness without feeling so much as a finger.

Vaasa lifted one lid, then the other, her blurry vision discerning little. She still felt the long sleeves of her bodice, was conscious of the subtle weight of her overskirt.

Slowly she registered the beige of cracked stone, the grand archways with ornate columns, some shattered and crumbling, others holding the weight of something burdensome. Statues of men and women in flowing, sheer robes circled her, the stone now partly consumed by grit and brown. The same erosion coated the faded, raised floor she stood upon, the once-ornate patterns of crimson and gold lost to pink and tinged white. Three steps led off the stone platform into the empty, abandoned room.

This was a catacomb, Vaasa realized with a pound of alarm. And through the cracks, she recognized the stone as that of the colosseum. The breaks in the ceiling let sunlight drench the floor.

Sunlight.

It was daytime .

She was standing, feet barely holding her weight, but her bound arms weren’t sore. She hadn’t been here for long.

Where else had she been?

She started to move, but it caused her wrists to burn, the subtle hum falling down her forearm. Looking up, she saw black-threaded ropes.

The same ones that had been tied to Reid on the boat.

Nowhere inside of her could she feel the snake. Could she feel any trace of the magic at all.

Heart pounding in her chest, she whipped her head around until her gaze landed on something far worse. Something that immediately brought bile into her throat.

Amalie.

The young witch was tied up opposite her, dress torn at the long hem and along her arms, blood in her hair. She’d been hit with something. The same ropes were tied around her torso and held her firmly against a wooden chair. The witch hung her head, and Vaasa didn’t know if she was conscious or not.

“Amalie,” she croaked.

Amalie lifted her exhausted, tear-stained face.

Vaasa choked.

A bruise coated the left side of her cheek, and white fabric had been tied over her mouth and fastened around her head. Terror painted her brown eyes as they darted around.

Vaasa tugged against her ropes, her eyes filling with tears.

As she tried to form words, footsteps along stone cut her off.

The steps echoed through the catacomb, bouncing off the elegant faces of the statues and stonework around them. Vaasa went rigid. Silvering hair came into view from the corridor behind Amalie. Walking up those three steps, he joined them on the platform, hand on his sword.

Mathjin.

Vaasa’s throat started to close in panic, but she tried to calm her heavy breathing. Mathjin?

He did not grin—there was only a stern neutrality in the subtle wrinkles around his eyes.

Vaasa watched as he came to the place right in front of her, gaze moving up to the ropes that secured her wrists. “Ironic, don’t you think? I couldn’t find the ones you used at your wedding. But those aren’t nearly as useful now, are they?”

Vaasa wanted to gag.

He shrugged one shoulder and looked to Amalie, irritation stealing over the features that Vaasa had once perceived as wise. “Of course, she finally did the trick. The young witch goes missing, and everyone falls into a tizzy.”

“What are you doing?” Vaasa asked. “Mathjin, why—”

“Why?” He shook his head. “I am not Reid. I am not Kosana. I am not so blind as to believe an Asteryan could ever be worth the seat you have been offered. I would rather see my grave before I allow you to tarnish everything this country has worked for.”

Of all the people who had hated her, Mathjin had seemed the lesser. He’d shown her kindness, acceptance, in these months. She didn’t know what stung worse: that he’d never meant it, or that she’d allowed herself to believe he did.

“You know, I was only twenty when my daughter was born,” Mathjin said, turning from her to walk the length of the platform. Back to a pile of something along one of the stone benches in the right corner. “She had blond hair like me, the same gray eyes. The same features she gave to my granddaughter. My granddaughter, who was eight when an Asteryan soldier stopped her, my daughter, and my wife along the road between Wrultho and Mireh and slaughtered them all. My daughter was more than halfway through her second pregnancy.”

With his back to her, he stopped just before the bench.

“You see, when a man becomes a father so young, it is the only identity he knows. It comes before soldier, before advisor, before any other title I have earned. And when I tell you that father, husband, and grandfather were my favorite names to be called, I tell you no lies.”

Sympathy tightened Vaasa’s throat, pressing on her tongue as she fought impending tears. How could she stand here and cry for this man while he had her kidnapped and bound? She didn’t know. But the crack in his voice as he said grandfather had nearly torn her in two.

“Do you want to know what Marc of Mireh said when I begged him to go to war?” Mathjin asked, finally turning to look at her, something white folded in his hands.

When Vaasa did not utter a word, he answered regardless.

“He said a war with Asterya would leave the world with far fewer grandchildren.”

The cruel truth of the statement wasn’t lost on either of them, which she could see plainly written on his trembling face. A balancing of victims , Mathjin had called it.

“But here’s what they don’t tell you.” He started forward again, around the statues and up the platform she was hoisted upon. “When it’s yours who’s taken, you care less for everyone else’s. You don’t care what it costs, because everything that matters is already gone.”

“Mathjin—”

“ Don’t speak!” he boomed suddenly. “You have no right. Instead, you will write a letter.”

He marched forward up the steps, boots cracking against the worn marble. She realized then that he held parchment and a pen. He unfolded it, pressing against the flat surface as if to display the blank space.

“You’re going to detail in Asteryan the exact movement of Ton’s men. The route you and I discussed, the one he and Reid agreed to yesterday. You’ll address it to your brother, and you’re going to sign it.”

Vaasa stopped breathing. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you doing this? You will sacrifice your own countrymen and start a greater war than—”

“ I want to start a war! ” he screamed, parchment pointed at her as he waved it in his hand. “This letter will be intercepted by Ton’s men, who will take it to the foreman this morning. Reid will lose and still have no choice but to agree to war.”

Ton’s men.

That’s why there were so many here. She’d thought she’d spoken smoothly enough, thought she had outsmarted Ton in front of those paintings, but the entire thing must have been an act. A fabrication put together by Mathjin and Ton himself. They’d exchanged information about Wrultho and his soldiers that Vaasa had been privy to—enough that she could betray them all if she were exactly the person Ton claimed her to be.

Her heart constricted. The details of Mathjin’s plan took shape in her mind as if she saw them playing out on one of her father’s war tables. If she wrote this letter, he’d show it to all of the councilors. To Reid, who knew her handwriting, her signature. Him losing the election would be only the start of the consequences for this. It would ruin him.

“No,” she gasped. “I won’t write that letter.”

“You will.” Another voice came from the darkness, a raw inflection of smooth Asteryan that shot down her spine and demanded an instant, reflexive panic.

No.

Her eyes widened.

He emerged from the right, raven hair delicately in place, twin ocean eyes setting into snow-pale skin. Even the shadows seemed to flee as sunlight passed over his hard, angled features made of sharp bone and malice. His black and bloodred cloak with gold-threaded edging billowed to the floor. He looked sick and brimming with malicious intent, sharp eyes trailing to where the ropes bound her.

Dominik smiled.