This Dark Descent, page 23
Ari’s gaze flicked to Damien’s right hand, where his signet ring adorned one finger. Was it a different one he was missing?
“Let me rephrase.” Damien folded his hands atop the desk. “Speak freely about our business and then get out.”
Hyle released an overdramatic sigh. “You’re never any fun. Very well, you were right, as usual. Two other unlicensed enchanters disappeared before Keirian Rusel.”
Ari paused mid-sip of her tea. Why was Damien looking into Mikira’s father?
“Your source?” Damien asked.
“The Goddess herself whispered in my ear,” Hyle replied with a cheeky grin. At Damien’s flat glare, he added, “I tracked the paperwork on both of them through the Vault. Rezek has quite the network between himself and the Anthir jail cells. The paperwork shows the enchanters being executed, but there’s no additional paperwork for the burial of their bodies.”
“Which means they were never executed.” Ari dropped into one of the armchairs. “Rezek took them, like he took Mikira’s father.”
Hyle’s unnerving gaze found her once more. “Precisely. I found the berator responsible for the paperwork. It appears he owes a rather large betting debt to House Kelbra.”
“Ensure that debt is erased,” Damien instructed. “Whatever Rezek is doing with them, I don’t want him obtaining any more.”
Hyle dropped into a flourishing bow. “Done.” He cast Ari one last, lingering look before leaving the way she’d entered. Ari watched him go, trying to discern what it was about him that left her so cold.
“Rezek appears to be collecting enchanters,” Damien explained without prompting. “Since he could have traded Mikira her father’s life for her ranch, he must want something in addition to it, and her father’s powers were all I could think of.”
She shivered. That could just as easily have been her. “For what?”
“I intend to find out.”
“And your missing ring?” she asked.
Damien spun the signet ring around his finger. “This is a replica. I lost the real one, though I’ve begun to suspect it was actually stolen. Until I know why, I don’t want to commission a new one.”
“I see.” She studied the dark outline of the Racari on his desk.
His gaze followed hers. “I’ve made some new discoveries you might be interested in.”
Is one whether the effects of magic include losing time and a voice you can’t tell from your own? Her hand tightened around her teacup. Maybe they’d been wrong about the impact of verillion on enchanters. Maybe it did poison them, just in another way. She hated the idea that the same power that had quieted her fear threatened to bring it back to life. She didn’t want to lose control again.
“Arielle?”
“Yes, sorry. What did you find?”
Damien tapped his notebook. “The Racari talks of a fifth gemstone capable of conducting enchantments: bloodstones.”
Her brow furrowed. “Meaning more types of enchantments?”
He nodded. “Though I haven’t quite deciphered what kind. The application of magic was once much greater, and new discoveries are still being made. For example, did you know Iziri shadowglass is supposedly capable of holding enchantments to be used later?”
“I didn’t.” Yet another thing lost in the Burning. But if they could discover what the stone did—she met Damien’s eyes and found them alight. That information could make House Adair far more powerful than it already was, could take her magic to an entirely new level.
Ari joined him at the desk, and Damien folded the Racari closed, tapping the red and green stone at its center. “This is a bloodstone. Do you sense anything from it?” He was in his shirtsleeves again, and the definition of his forearms pressed distractingly against the white fabric.
Ari ran one finger along the cool stone, sensing the faint buzz of magic. “Yes.”
It pulled at her, drawing her in, and she snatched her hand away.
“Does the book say anything about the effects of enchanting yourself?” She leaned against the desk, his eyes tracking her movements. He was so very aware of her when she was near. She liked to pick out the tiny flex of the muscles in his jaw, the flick of his eyes across her face. His fingers curled into a fist on the desk, as if to keep from touching her. So controlled. A part of her longed to make him give that up.
“Not exactly.” His voice betrayed none of what his face had. “It only warns against holding too much verillion without burning the magic as it may cause physical damage.”
“Nothing else?”
The slightest furrow formed between his brows. “Why? Is something wrong?”
She lifted off the desk. Just the other day she was chastising him for keeping things from her, and now she was doing the very same. But she worried what telling him might do. Would he look at her differently if he knew the truth?
“Arielle?” She heard him approach, felt his hand settle in the curve at the base of her neck.
Ari had spent so very, very long keeping secrets. What she’d done to her Saba, what she was capable of, her magic—for once, she didn’t want to handle this alone. She turned into his touch, his fingers sliding down her arm, and she captured his hand in her own.
“I’ve been hearing a voice,” she told him, and he did not flinch. “At first, I thought it was just my own thoughts, the voice in the back of my mind. But it’s been growing stronger each time I use my magic, and the things it says … They’re not me.”
Are you sure about that, little lion? whispered the voice.
She pushed it away, focusing on Damien’s steel-steady gaze. “I think it’s the book. I think it’s … talking to me.”
The strange feeling she got when she held it, the way she never wanted to put it down and couldn’t be rid of it. There was no denying the voice grew stronger each time she used her magic, and it had only appeared after the incident with her Saba, but over the last few weeks, it’d been getting worse even without using magic.
She expected Damien to dismiss her, but instead, his eyes grew wide with realization. “That’s it.”
He released her hand, returning to the Racari. “There was a part I couldn’t translate, but I think I know what it is now.” She joined him as he flipped back several pages, scanning the words she couldn’t read. His finger stopped on one. “Here. It’s the same word twice, and I thought it a mistake. But it actually has two meanings: ‘stone’ and ‘bond.’ I think it means to bind the stone. I think the bloodstone creates bonds between things.”
“That’s why I can’t get rid of it,” she said. The Racari was bound to her. Had her parents known? Was that why they’d kept it hidden, why all her life their neighbors had been wary of their family? Had they known all along what she was?
Do you? asked the voice.
“Damien,” she asked warily. “What happened to the Heretics?”
“No one knows for certain,” he replied. “Most believe that they died in the explosion of the Cataclysm. Why?”
“A Heretic was the last one to be bound to this,” she said. “What if … What if part of them still is?”
In the back of her mind, something unfurled, its satisfaction spreading through her. Her hand went to her Saba’s necklace, and the feeling subsided. A story rose to life in her mind, a piece of forgotten mythology from one of the Kinnish texts about a possessing spirit seeking revenge. A Dybbuk, it’d been called.
Damien’s expression grew tight. “Do you always remove your Saba’s necklace when you work magic?”
“When I create golems…” She trailed off. Both of the incidents when she’d lost time, she’d taken her necklace off. The first time to create Atara, the second just last evening when she went to sleep. But she always took it off when she slept. Did that mean last night wasn’t the first she’d spent wandering, or had something changed? What if she hurt someone else?
“Keep it on at all times from now on,” Damien instructed. “Aslir’s fang is said to guard against evil spirits.”
Her hand tightened on the necklace. “Is that what you think this is? An evil spirit in the Racari speaking to me?”
“In truth, I don’t know,” he replied, and she could see how much it cost him to admit that, a man who prided himself on knowledge. “But for now, we play it safe.”
Whatever this was, whatever was happening, Ari didn’t think safe was an option any longer, and yet she could not bring herself to give it up.
She would never let this power go.
CHAPTER 27
ARIELLE
A PLATFORM HAD BEEN erected on a hill at the edge of the Highbridge District on the east side of the city, where the third race would follow the Traveler’s Road around Veradell, across the Greystel River, and into the Silverwood at the base of the Anfell Mountains.
As the ancestral hunting grounds of the royal family, the Silverwood was usually off-limits to anyone outside their circle. The Adair coach had taken them past the forest on their way in to give Mikira a glimpse of the course, and Ari could see why they kept it to themselves. The trees had smooth ivory trunks with graceful sloping branches laden with thick clusters of silver-green leaves, as if the whole wood had a dusting of metallic snow. It had the stillness of a land undisturbed, a tranquility that called to her and was minutes away from being violently disturbed.
The air of the race was different than she’d expected, far livelier and festive in a way that obscured the gravity of what was to come. Some of the riders might not survive, their horses could be maimed, and yet the only thing louder than the music were the chants of the crowd gathered in the makeshift stands or reclining at the tables that dotted the hillside. She saw more than one fan with homemade signs for Mikira, others wearing professional racing jerseys with her family’s name sewn across the back.
They make a sport of bloodshed, said the voice.
This coming from someone responsible for the deaths of thousands, Ari thought back.
A beat of silence. Then: That was never my intention.
Ari didn’t respond. She shouldn’t have to begin with. They had yet to discover a way to sever her bond to the Racari, but in the meantime, she’d kept her Saba’s necklace on and promised Damien not to entertain the spirit. But after spending so much time with it, it was difficult to ignore.
She joined the others by the trailer, where Damien was giving Mikira some last-minute stats on the riders left in the competition. The girl was only half listening. She’d been distant all morning, barely acknowledging Ari’s explanation about the bloodstone discovery. The stones set in the hilts of her knives were the same as the one on the Racari, but while she couldn’t be free of the book, Mikira’s knives seemed to have no link of their own.
When the bell rang and she swung up into the saddle, Ari grabbed hold of her hand. “Be careful,” she said. “And good luck.”
Mikira gave her a small smile. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, and then she was gone.
Damien watched with a look of dismay as she rode off to the starting line. “She’s distracted.”
“She’s got a lot to think about,” Ari countered. It was a feeling she understood, and she only wished she knew what was on Mikira’s mind.
Reid picked up the mug of tea he’d set down in the trailer. “She’d better get focused or—shit.”
“Is that all you ever have to say to me, Reid?”
The voice raked cold claws of dread down Ari’s spine. Her hand went reflexively to the emerald in her skirt pocket, and she drew to life the burn of verillion in her gut as Loic Adair rounded off their circle.
His eyes were only for Damien. “I hear you’ve been looking for me, little brother.”
A line of tension descended through Damien. “And I hear you’ve found a new partner.”
Loic tilted his head, regarding his brother with amusement. “Are you jealous that your little friend prefers me now? You do have a bad habit of glaring at people until they run away. Ah, there it is.”
Annoyance overtook Damien’s face, though it quickly vanished. It seemed at least his siblings were capable of getting under his skin. “Whatever you’re planning with him, he’ll turn on you, L,” he warned. “It’s only a matter of when.”
“You think I can’t handle Rezek Kelbra?”
“That’s not what I said.”
Loic waved a dismissive hand. “Just because he outplayed you doesn’t mean I’ll make the same mistake.”
“Outplayed?” Damien hissed. “Is that what you call him murdering—”
Loic seized him by the collar. “Do not finish that sentence. You don’t have the right.”
The burn of verillion tore through Ari, and she wrenched Loic back by the shoulder. He spun on her, but Reid leapt to his feet, and he and Damien closed ranks between them.
The grin that cut across Loic’s face was half snarl. “Just a sculptor, hm?” His gaze settled on Ari like a clammy touch, and she fought the urge to recoil. “Did you find yourself a girlfriend, little brother?”
Damien ran a hand through his hair, then straightened his jacket. They were small movements, throwaways to someone who didn’t know him, but Ari recognized them for what they were: distractions. Tasks Damien performed as a means of keeping himself under control. Straighten this, move that—and don’t think about punching your brother in the face.
“She’s not your concern,” he said.
Loic’s grin turned hungry, and for an instant, all Ari could see were Fen and Cardix. She felt their hands around her throat, smelled the stale stench of their breath. “Care for her, do you? Now, what could be so special about her that it would enrapture the great Damien Adair?” He laughed. “Perhaps I’ll find out for myself.”
Damien shed the last of his pretense. “If you go near her, I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.”
Loic lifted his hands in mock defense. “I won’t touch her.” A smile split his lips as his gaze locked on Ari in a way that made her stomach turn. “Until she asks me to, of course.”
Reid seized Damien’s hand as it went for the gun at his ribs. “You can’t,” he warned.
“Do it,” Loic urged. “Shoot me and forfeit your right to the Ascension, little brother.”
For an instant, it looked as though Damien would throw Reid off and draw the weapon. His fingers curled tight about the handle, his knuckles bleeding white. In the end, he only shoved it back into its holster.
“You and Rezek deserve each other,” he said.
Loic snarled. “And you deserve no one, which is exactly what you’ll have when I’m finished.”
Damien straightened his jacket cuffs. “This isn’t over.”
“No,” Loic agreed, drifting backward. “It’s only begun.”
Ari watched him go until the crowd swallowed him up. Only then did she relinquish the burn of magic.
You should have shown him what happens to people who threaten you, coaxed the voice. You still can.
She pushed its words aside and looked to Damien. “What is the Ascension?”
Damien’s gaze strayed across the crowd, checking they were alone. Most of the spectators had moved to the starting line, where the announcer was running through her usual speech. He was delaying. Thinking.
She didn’t give him the chance. “Does this have something to do with why Shira’s been following us? And why Loic showed up at the manor that night?”
“Damien,” Reid said quietly when his silence persisted. “She should know.”
Damien ran a hand through his tousled hair, vexation breaking through his mask. “If I involve you in this, you become a piece on the game board. You become a target.”
Ari thought of the way Loic had looked at her. “I already am.”
He must have understood what she meant, because he visibly relented. “The Ascension is a tradition among the noble houses. Instead of the oldest child inheriting the household, a challenge is set. Whoever completes it first, or most successfully, becomes heir to their house.”
She’d never heard of a competition to decide the next heir of a house, but she’d only been in Veradell a short time, and it sounded like a closely guarded process. Was this what Reid had meant by saying that he had a lot depending on the race? Not just House Adair’s racing business and verillion, but its entire future. His future.
“And what challenge were you set?” she asked.
“Whoever deals the greatest blow to one of the other houses by the end of the Illinir will become my father’s heir,” Damien replied.
“That’s why you made the deal with Rezek. That’s why you hired me and Mikira. If she wins, Rezek loses the rights to the Illinir to you.” It would be a crushing blow for the Kelbras, whose deep coffers were due largely to the Illinir’s profits. “But then Loic, and Shira…”
“Shira’s concern with you is her own,” Damien said tightly. “She’s not interested in heading the family, and I expect her to make an intentionally weak entry for the Ascension. But Loic … I’ve made the mistake of treating him like a fool. He’s reckless and temperamental, but he’s also charming and well-connected, and he has the distinct advantage of knowing me better than almost anyone.”
And when people knew you, it gave them power over you.
“That’s why he threatened me,” she said.
Damien took her hand, looking almost pained when he said, “If he can hurt you to get to me, he will. And my brother is not known for his kindness.”
Absently, Reid folded his arms across his sternum. He looked as uneasy as Ari felt. She’d thought herself done feeling like the prey of hungry men, but it was a feeling that crept inside you and set down roots, refusing to be ripped free. It was the sort of thing she had to deny again and again, lest it entangle her so deeply, it became her.
She wanted to exorcise it.
“Mikira should know too.” She intertwined their fingers. “She’s as much a target as I am.”
Damien shook his head. “I shouldn’t have even told you. My father would be furious, and the more people who know, the more complex the game becomes. We already have a rogue Anthir sergeant prying into our business. I can’t afford for information to leak.”
“Let me rephrase.” Damien folded his hands atop the desk. “Speak freely about our business and then get out.”
Hyle released an overdramatic sigh. “You’re never any fun. Very well, you were right, as usual. Two other unlicensed enchanters disappeared before Keirian Rusel.”
Ari paused mid-sip of her tea. Why was Damien looking into Mikira’s father?
“Your source?” Damien asked.
“The Goddess herself whispered in my ear,” Hyle replied with a cheeky grin. At Damien’s flat glare, he added, “I tracked the paperwork on both of them through the Vault. Rezek has quite the network between himself and the Anthir jail cells. The paperwork shows the enchanters being executed, but there’s no additional paperwork for the burial of their bodies.”
“Which means they were never executed.” Ari dropped into one of the armchairs. “Rezek took them, like he took Mikira’s father.”
Hyle’s unnerving gaze found her once more. “Precisely. I found the berator responsible for the paperwork. It appears he owes a rather large betting debt to House Kelbra.”
“Ensure that debt is erased,” Damien instructed. “Whatever Rezek is doing with them, I don’t want him obtaining any more.”
Hyle dropped into a flourishing bow. “Done.” He cast Ari one last, lingering look before leaving the way she’d entered. Ari watched him go, trying to discern what it was about him that left her so cold.
“Rezek appears to be collecting enchanters,” Damien explained without prompting. “Since he could have traded Mikira her father’s life for her ranch, he must want something in addition to it, and her father’s powers were all I could think of.”
She shivered. That could just as easily have been her. “For what?”
“I intend to find out.”
“And your missing ring?” she asked.
Damien spun the signet ring around his finger. “This is a replica. I lost the real one, though I’ve begun to suspect it was actually stolen. Until I know why, I don’t want to commission a new one.”
“I see.” She studied the dark outline of the Racari on his desk.
His gaze followed hers. “I’ve made some new discoveries you might be interested in.”
Is one whether the effects of magic include losing time and a voice you can’t tell from your own? Her hand tightened around her teacup. Maybe they’d been wrong about the impact of verillion on enchanters. Maybe it did poison them, just in another way. She hated the idea that the same power that had quieted her fear threatened to bring it back to life. She didn’t want to lose control again.
“Arielle?”
“Yes, sorry. What did you find?”
Damien tapped his notebook. “The Racari talks of a fifth gemstone capable of conducting enchantments: bloodstones.”
Her brow furrowed. “Meaning more types of enchantments?”
He nodded. “Though I haven’t quite deciphered what kind. The application of magic was once much greater, and new discoveries are still being made. For example, did you know Iziri shadowglass is supposedly capable of holding enchantments to be used later?”
“I didn’t.” Yet another thing lost in the Burning. But if they could discover what the stone did—she met Damien’s eyes and found them alight. That information could make House Adair far more powerful than it already was, could take her magic to an entirely new level.
Ari joined him at the desk, and Damien folded the Racari closed, tapping the red and green stone at its center. “This is a bloodstone. Do you sense anything from it?” He was in his shirtsleeves again, and the definition of his forearms pressed distractingly against the white fabric.
Ari ran one finger along the cool stone, sensing the faint buzz of magic. “Yes.”
It pulled at her, drawing her in, and she snatched her hand away.
“Does the book say anything about the effects of enchanting yourself?” She leaned against the desk, his eyes tracking her movements. He was so very aware of her when she was near. She liked to pick out the tiny flex of the muscles in his jaw, the flick of his eyes across her face. His fingers curled into a fist on the desk, as if to keep from touching her. So controlled. A part of her longed to make him give that up.
“Not exactly.” His voice betrayed none of what his face had. “It only warns against holding too much verillion without burning the magic as it may cause physical damage.”
“Nothing else?”
The slightest furrow formed between his brows. “Why? Is something wrong?”
She lifted off the desk. Just the other day she was chastising him for keeping things from her, and now she was doing the very same. But she worried what telling him might do. Would he look at her differently if he knew the truth?
“Arielle?” She heard him approach, felt his hand settle in the curve at the base of her neck.
Ari had spent so very, very long keeping secrets. What she’d done to her Saba, what she was capable of, her magic—for once, she didn’t want to handle this alone. She turned into his touch, his fingers sliding down her arm, and she captured his hand in her own.
“I’ve been hearing a voice,” she told him, and he did not flinch. “At first, I thought it was just my own thoughts, the voice in the back of my mind. But it’s been growing stronger each time I use my magic, and the things it says … They’re not me.”
Are you sure about that, little lion? whispered the voice.
She pushed it away, focusing on Damien’s steel-steady gaze. “I think it’s the book. I think it’s … talking to me.”
The strange feeling she got when she held it, the way she never wanted to put it down and couldn’t be rid of it. There was no denying the voice grew stronger each time she used her magic, and it had only appeared after the incident with her Saba, but over the last few weeks, it’d been getting worse even without using magic.
She expected Damien to dismiss her, but instead, his eyes grew wide with realization. “That’s it.”
He released her hand, returning to the Racari. “There was a part I couldn’t translate, but I think I know what it is now.” She joined him as he flipped back several pages, scanning the words she couldn’t read. His finger stopped on one. “Here. It’s the same word twice, and I thought it a mistake. But it actually has two meanings: ‘stone’ and ‘bond.’ I think it means to bind the stone. I think the bloodstone creates bonds between things.”
“That’s why I can’t get rid of it,” she said. The Racari was bound to her. Had her parents known? Was that why they’d kept it hidden, why all her life their neighbors had been wary of their family? Had they known all along what she was?
Do you? asked the voice.
“Damien,” she asked warily. “What happened to the Heretics?”
“No one knows for certain,” he replied. “Most believe that they died in the explosion of the Cataclysm. Why?”
“A Heretic was the last one to be bound to this,” she said. “What if … What if part of them still is?”
In the back of her mind, something unfurled, its satisfaction spreading through her. Her hand went to her Saba’s necklace, and the feeling subsided. A story rose to life in her mind, a piece of forgotten mythology from one of the Kinnish texts about a possessing spirit seeking revenge. A Dybbuk, it’d been called.
Damien’s expression grew tight. “Do you always remove your Saba’s necklace when you work magic?”
“When I create golems…” She trailed off. Both of the incidents when she’d lost time, she’d taken her necklace off. The first time to create Atara, the second just last evening when she went to sleep. But she always took it off when she slept. Did that mean last night wasn’t the first she’d spent wandering, or had something changed? What if she hurt someone else?
“Keep it on at all times from now on,” Damien instructed. “Aslir’s fang is said to guard against evil spirits.”
Her hand tightened on the necklace. “Is that what you think this is? An evil spirit in the Racari speaking to me?”
“In truth, I don’t know,” he replied, and she could see how much it cost him to admit that, a man who prided himself on knowledge. “But for now, we play it safe.”
Whatever this was, whatever was happening, Ari didn’t think safe was an option any longer, and yet she could not bring herself to give it up.
She would never let this power go.
CHAPTER 27
ARIELLE
A PLATFORM HAD BEEN erected on a hill at the edge of the Highbridge District on the east side of the city, where the third race would follow the Traveler’s Road around Veradell, across the Greystel River, and into the Silverwood at the base of the Anfell Mountains.
As the ancestral hunting grounds of the royal family, the Silverwood was usually off-limits to anyone outside their circle. The Adair coach had taken them past the forest on their way in to give Mikira a glimpse of the course, and Ari could see why they kept it to themselves. The trees had smooth ivory trunks with graceful sloping branches laden with thick clusters of silver-green leaves, as if the whole wood had a dusting of metallic snow. It had the stillness of a land undisturbed, a tranquility that called to her and was minutes away from being violently disturbed.
The air of the race was different than she’d expected, far livelier and festive in a way that obscured the gravity of what was to come. Some of the riders might not survive, their horses could be maimed, and yet the only thing louder than the music were the chants of the crowd gathered in the makeshift stands or reclining at the tables that dotted the hillside. She saw more than one fan with homemade signs for Mikira, others wearing professional racing jerseys with her family’s name sewn across the back.
They make a sport of bloodshed, said the voice.
This coming from someone responsible for the deaths of thousands, Ari thought back.
A beat of silence. Then: That was never my intention.
Ari didn’t respond. She shouldn’t have to begin with. They had yet to discover a way to sever her bond to the Racari, but in the meantime, she’d kept her Saba’s necklace on and promised Damien not to entertain the spirit. But after spending so much time with it, it was difficult to ignore.
She joined the others by the trailer, where Damien was giving Mikira some last-minute stats on the riders left in the competition. The girl was only half listening. She’d been distant all morning, barely acknowledging Ari’s explanation about the bloodstone discovery. The stones set in the hilts of her knives were the same as the one on the Racari, but while she couldn’t be free of the book, Mikira’s knives seemed to have no link of their own.
When the bell rang and she swung up into the saddle, Ari grabbed hold of her hand. “Be careful,” she said. “And good luck.”
Mikira gave her a small smile. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, and then she was gone.
Damien watched with a look of dismay as she rode off to the starting line. “She’s distracted.”
“She’s got a lot to think about,” Ari countered. It was a feeling she understood, and she only wished she knew what was on Mikira’s mind.
Reid picked up the mug of tea he’d set down in the trailer. “She’d better get focused or—shit.”
“Is that all you ever have to say to me, Reid?”
The voice raked cold claws of dread down Ari’s spine. Her hand went reflexively to the emerald in her skirt pocket, and she drew to life the burn of verillion in her gut as Loic Adair rounded off their circle.
His eyes were only for Damien. “I hear you’ve been looking for me, little brother.”
A line of tension descended through Damien. “And I hear you’ve found a new partner.”
Loic tilted his head, regarding his brother with amusement. “Are you jealous that your little friend prefers me now? You do have a bad habit of glaring at people until they run away. Ah, there it is.”
Annoyance overtook Damien’s face, though it quickly vanished. It seemed at least his siblings were capable of getting under his skin. “Whatever you’re planning with him, he’ll turn on you, L,” he warned. “It’s only a matter of when.”
“You think I can’t handle Rezek Kelbra?”
“That’s not what I said.”
Loic waved a dismissive hand. “Just because he outplayed you doesn’t mean I’ll make the same mistake.”
“Outplayed?” Damien hissed. “Is that what you call him murdering—”
Loic seized him by the collar. “Do not finish that sentence. You don’t have the right.”
The burn of verillion tore through Ari, and she wrenched Loic back by the shoulder. He spun on her, but Reid leapt to his feet, and he and Damien closed ranks between them.
The grin that cut across Loic’s face was half snarl. “Just a sculptor, hm?” His gaze settled on Ari like a clammy touch, and she fought the urge to recoil. “Did you find yourself a girlfriend, little brother?”
Damien ran a hand through his hair, then straightened his jacket. They were small movements, throwaways to someone who didn’t know him, but Ari recognized them for what they were: distractions. Tasks Damien performed as a means of keeping himself under control. Straighten this, move that—and don’t think about punching your brother in the face.
“She’s not your concern,” he said.
Loic’s grin turned hungry, and for an instant, all Ari could see were Fen and Cardix. She felt their hands around her throat, smelled the stale stench of their breath. “Care for her, do you? Now, what could be so special about her that it would enrapture the great Damien Adair?” He laughed. “Perhaps I’ll find out for myself.”
Damien shed the last of his pretense. “If you go near her, I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.”
Loic lifted his hands in mock defense. “I won’t touch her.” A smile split his lips as his gaze locked on Ari in a way that made her stomach turn. “Until she asks me to, of course.”
Reid seized Damien’s hand as it went for the gun at his ribs. “You can’t,” he warned.
“Do it,” Loic urged. “Shoot me and forfeit your right to the Ascension, little brother.”
For an instant, it looked as though Damien would throw Reid off and draw the weapon. His fingers curled tight about the handle, his knuckles bleeding white. In the end, he only shoved it back into its holster.
“You and Rezek deserve each other,” he said.
Loic snarled. “And you deserve no one, which is exactly what you’ll have when I’m finished.”
Damien straightened his jacket cuffs. “This isn’t over.”
“No,” Loic agreed, drifting backward. “It’s only begun.”
Ari watched him go until the crowd swallowed him up. Only then did she relinquish the burn of magic.
You should have shown him what happens to people who threaten you, coaxed the voice. You still can.
She pushed its words aside and looked to Damien. “What is the Ascension?”
Damien’s gaze strayed across the crowd, checking they were alone. Most of the spectators had moved to the starting line, where the announcer was running through her usual speech. He was delaying. Thinking.
She didn’t give him the chance. “Does this have something to do with why Shira’s been following us? And why Loic showed up at the manor that night?”
“Damien,” Reid said quietly when his silence persisted. “She should know.”
Damien ran a hand through his tousled hair, vexation breaking through his mask. “If I involve you in this, you become a piece on the game board. You become a target.”
Ari thought of the way Loic had looked at her. “I already am.”
He must have understood what she meant, because he visibly relented. “The Ascension is a tradition among the noble houses. Instead of the oldest child inheriting the household, a challenge is set. Whoever completes it first, or most successfully, becomes heir to their house.”
She’d never heard of a competition to decide the next heir of a house, but she’d only been in Veradell a short time, and it sounded like a closely guarded process. Was this what Reid had meant by saying that he had a lot depending on the race? Not just House Adair’s racing business and verillion, but its entire future. His future.
“And what challenge were you set?” she asked.
“Whoever deals the greatest blow to one of the other houses by the end of the Illinir will become my father’s heir,” Damien replied.
“That’s why you made the deal with Rezek. That’s why you hired me and Mikira. If she wins, Rezek loses the rights to the Illinir to you.” It would be a crushing blow for the Kelbras, whose deep coffers were due largely to the Illinir’s profits. “But then Loic, and Shira…”
“Shira’s concern with you is her own,” Damien said tightly. “She’s not interested in heading the family, and I expect her to make an intentionally weak entry for the Ascension. But Loic … I’ve made the mistake of treating him like a fool. He’s reckless and temperamental, but he’s also charming and well-connected, and he has the distinct advantage of knowing me better than almost anyone.”
And when people knew you, it gave them power over you.
“That’s why he threatened me,” she said.
Damien took her hand, looking almost pained when he said, “If he can hurt you to get to me, he will. And my brother is not known for his kindness.”
Absently, Reid folded his arms across his sternum. He looked as uneasy as Ari felt. She’d thought herself done feeling like the prey of hungry men, but it was a feeling that crept inside you and set down roots, refusing to be ripped free. It was the sort of thing she had to deny again and again, lest it entangle her so deeply, it became her.
She wanted to exorcise it.
“Mikira should know too.” She intertwined their fingers. “She’s as much a target as I am.”
Damien shook his head. “I shouldn’t have even told you. My father would be furious, and the more people who know, the more complex the game becomes. We already have a rogue Anthir sergeant prying into our business. I can’t afford for information to leak.”
