Twisted is the Crown, page 2
Yet still, she defied him at every turn.
“I don’t know what you think is going on here, Quinn, but I—”
“You’re going to listen to me,” she interrupted again. He opened his mouth to reply but she continued before he got the chance. “In this place, with these people, you are walking blind. I know what you desire, Lazarus, but if you have any hope of getting it—I need you to trust me this time.”
He paused. The pounding in his head, the writhing of the souls; it made it difficult to keep his temper under control. That tenuous leash he held with Quinn was thinning, and not for the first time, he wondered who really held the power here, present circumstances aside.
But . . . she was asking for trust. The very thing he wanted from her. His past attempts to manipulate and coerce had gone horribly wrong. Perhaps trying a different approach would give him a different answer. If he truly wanted his crown, and put it above all—then even her infractions would have to wait to be punished.
“I’m willing to listen,” he began. “However,” he held up a hand when she opened her mouth to interrupt him again. Leaning forward, he reached around and fisted her hair, tugging it back so that he could look at her, eye to eye. “You work for me. You are a member of my house. I don’t care what color your skin is, because you are mine. You are not theirs. They do not get to keep you. Everything we do here is so that I can secure an alliance for my reign. Understood?”
Her crystalline eyes slanted as her gaze dropped to his lips. Just when he thought she was going to attempt to push him, to push this—whatever it was—she nodded once and stepped away. He let her go, the fine strands of her hair slipping through his fingers like silk.
“Trust me to do my part and you’ll have your alliance in the end,” she said. “And for the love of Forseya—don’t give them a reason to kill you. Unlike Imogen, the N’skari don’t give second chances.”
The ship came to a gradual stop and someone yelled from the deck. Quinn sighed and turned on her heel, but just when he started to go after her, the door to his left opened.
“Did she just . . .” Dominicus started, pointing toward the stairs and trailing off at the expression on Lazarus’ face. “I’m going to stay here guarding Lorraine,” he said, wisely switching topics.
“You do that,” Lazarus answered tersely. “Vaughn? Go guard Axe and make sure the child stays out of trouble.” The mountain boy who had been cleaning blood off his blade nodded.
“I can handle little pirate.”
Lazarus shook his head, running a hand down his face and exhaling deeply. Above deck, Quinn stood with Draeven already in tow. They waited with the two N’skari who had stayed on board. The male started to say something, but Quinn cut him off with a flippant dismissal.
Lazarus grinned to himself as they headed away and started down the ramp. He trailed behind, sidling up beside Draeven as they followed her.
The land of N’skara was a cold, desolate place. The docks were crafted from gray ashwood, and lined in rows along the shore. The beach itself was short, and mostly covered—but not all. Off to the far end where dangerous rocks jutted out, young boys and girls jumped into the treacherous waters and stayed below, only resurfacing when the harsh grate of a woman’s voice rang out.
“The rumors didn’t do it justice,” Draeven murmured. “I can’t imagine Quinn living here.” They looked out into the freezing waters. Tiny islands broke up the surface, scattered throughout. On land, men and women worked in robes of gray—their talk oddly silent for a shipyard. Out beyond the ashwood planks the land rose up into hills that led to the Cisean mountains beyond. Buildings made of plaster and stone were stacked on top of each other, row by row.
Lazarus shook his head.
“There’s a reason she left,” he said. It occurred to him that despite the odd comment and vague mentions, he still didn’t know that reason. Nor did he know where she sat with these people that had once been her own. However, judging by the stiffness in her shoulders and brass knuckles she kept on her hands despite the battle having ended—he knew that not all was as it seemed.
She might have stopped them from attacking and convinced the N’skari to bring them here, but she was still on edge. Anxious. Her magic left blackened footprints everywhere she walked. Not that anyone else could see them. Those soot-colored imprints left behind leaked into the air, giving him a slight taste of her magic, and hostility pounded through him. The emotion was not his own.
They stepped onto the cobbled streets. Seashells of the lightest pinks and off-white had been crushed and mixed in with mortar to create the walkways. N’skari children stopped and stared, but with a sharp jerk from the boy’s head that led them, parents grabbed their slender arms and pulled them along. There was no screaming or crying of infants, just as there had been no shouting along the docks. If not for the people, largely robed in swaths of gray, Lazarus might have thought it abandoned. It wasn’t empty, though; merely silent apart from the hushed whispers that followed them. They passed a bridge overhead that spanned from one building to another, forming an arch as they entered a courtyard.
Statues of marble rose up in a semi-circle around the base of stairs that rose as tall as any building. Columns of white peeked out over the edge of the elevated platform.
Quinn walked by the statues without even a glance and started to scale the stairs. He and Draeven moved to follow after her when two guards stepped out from behind the marble figures, the spears they held in hand crossing to block entrance.
“What is the meaning of this?” Lazarus asked loudly, being sure his voice carried. Stone-faced as the buildings around them, the guards said nothing, though Quinn paused and looked back. She spoke in low tones to the boy and girl beside her. Again, the boy answered.
“I’m to go before the Council and plead our case,” she called down to him.
“Then we are as well,” he answered. Her gaze grew hard, but Lazarus wasn’t yielding. “I trust you, but I do not trust them. Either these guards step aside, or I go through them. It is their decision.” She sighed and shook her head, but spoke to the boy.
Lazarus saw him stiffen and then glance back. They argued for a moment, Quinn motioning to him and then just as before, the guards decided to stand down—without a command from the boy. Lazarus narrowed his eyes, slowly stalking through the gap between the statue of Ramiel, God of Balance and Justice, and Skadi, Goddess of the Winter. He felt as if their unseeing eyes were following him as he began to climb the stairs. Beside him, Draeven huffed, “I’m beginning to hate this place already.” Lazarus knew his comment had little to do with the stairs and more to do with the cold fixation of the boy that stared at them.
The N’skari made a comment under his breath and Quinn bristled, her left hand tightening as though she were going to take a swing. Muscles taut under the tension, she turned and gave all of them the cold shoulder as she hiked up the rest of the stairs, not losing her pacing, even toward the top.
They trailed after her, and all the while a sense of dread was beginning to thicken in his stomach as if stones of lead were weighing it down. He swallowed hard, pushing his anticipation aside as he finally reached the top. His boots came down on a flat block of marble, likely cut from the same source as the statues below. Across its gleaming surface, Quinn stood at the base of a temple so great in its grandeur that even Lazarus had to take a moment to peer up at the sloping roofs and the crown molding that surrounded the pillars, through the stained glass windows on a set of double doors that had been cracked ajar, all the way to the people that stood between them.
In front of Quinn, a man and woman waited, and while all the N’skari looked similar—the resemblance between the woman and Quinn was too striking to be anything other than familial.
“Do you think those are her parents?” Draeven asked, beside him. Neither man moved as Quinn stood, her body language lukewarm at best. Her expression unmoved for what one would expect of a girl reunited with her parents, but it was not her body that gave away the truth.
“I do,” Lazarus said. Her father’s gaze was not emotionless, but it was cold. Joyless and apathetic. If there had ever been any warmth inside of her, it would have shivered and died in the presence of such a man.
“I wonder why they never searched for her when she was a slave,” Draeven whispered, his voice trailing off as neither party made any move to embrace.
For the first time, Lazarus was beginning to wonder that as well, because the expressions on their faces were not that of parents happy to be reunited with their child . . .
It was that of guilt and fear.
It was the look of people who had something to hide.
A Bitter Reunion
“Be wary of those abandoned. You never know which of your mistakes may come back to haunt you.”
— Quinn Darkova, vassal of House Fierté, fear twister, white raksasa
* * *
The chill of the ice beneath her boots was incomparable to the frigid gaze of Percinius and Ethel Darkova. With their silver hair and crystalline eyes, they were practically identical to Quinn’s own coloring. Except Quinn had changed in the years she’d been away.
The child they’d rejected and left to the greedy hands of slave traders was gone; in her place stood a woman who had survived many hardships.
Her hair was no longer the color of fresh snow and her skin now bore the scars of years honing her defiance. The black sheep of the Darkova line and her parents’ own personal shame had come back from the dead, and it was clear that they were not pleased.
Quinn felt a delightfully wicked smile spread across her lips. Not by one brow quirk did they reveal their shock at her presence. No, instead, Quinn’s father merely frowned and reached out, clasping her by the arm and drawing her out of the entrance, away from the temple that housed the Council’s chambers and toward the side of the building.
Quinn waited for an appropriate amount of time to pass as her father dragged her to the side before she quickly and firmly removed his limb from her own.
“Father.” Quinn’s eyes were chips of ice as they met Percinius’ gaze.
He sucked in a breath, as if the reminder of his relation to her offended him, but before he could speak, Quinn nodded for Lazarus and Draeven to continue just inside the temple. Lazarus’ focus slid from her to her parents before returning to Quinn. She merely shook her head and motioned for him to go. His lips thinned and his jaw clenched, but with a sharp nod and another dark glare toward her parents, he and Draeven disappeared inside.
When Quinn faced them once more, she could see the slight tick in her father’s jaw that belied his rage. He wasn’t used to being ignored, even for the brief moment it took Quinn to make sure Lazarus and the others weren’t nearby. She raised an eyebrow at him.
Ethel was the first to speak, her words sharp and curt. “What are you doing here?”
Quinn turned her attention to her mother, glaring down at the shorter woman. “I’m here as a vassal for Lord Lazarus Fierté of Norcasta,” she replied.
“You may take your master,” Percinius spat the intolerable word, “and return from whence you came.”
Quinn’s lips pressed together; one hand clenched—but she couldn’t act on their words. Not here. Not now. She’d coached herself through what those first words would be a hundred times over, but nothing compared to actually doing it.
She stepped closer and something in her expression must have warned them of her desires—or perhaps they recognized the darkness that had only grown in those long and lonely years—because they each took a step back. Quinn halted and a true smile blossomed across her face, as lovely as it was terrible.
“You are mistaken, Father.” Percinius narrowed his eyes at her. He truly hated that title, especially as it came from her lips. “He is not my master, as you put it. I’m not his pet. I’m not a slave at all. I’m a vassal of House Fierté and I have the freedom to come and go as I please.”
“Whatever house he comes from has no power here,” Ethel snapped, her distaste clear as she reached out and gripped her husband’s arm. Her attention dropped to Quinn’s own arm. It was obvious she wanted to reach out and touch her daughter, but not for the same reasons other mothers might. As a semi-powerful trust spinner, Ethel needed only to touch someone to get them to trust her enough to reveal all of their secrets. Quinn knew that the strength of a trust spinner’s abilities were only effective on those with less power than themselves.
If she touched her, Quinn wouldn’t say a word.
Ethel, however, likely wouldn’t fare so well against her own bare skin.
Fear was a terrible thing, and she feared her daughter greatly.
“I’m here as a translator and a mediator. Whether or not his house has any power is unimportant. It would benefit the N’skari not to kill him. Unless you expect to win a war against three countries,” Quinn finally said after enough silence had passed. Ethel Darkova blinked.
“What do you mean?” Percinius demanded.
“Lazarus Fierté is the next king of Norcasta, and thus far he has gained an alliance with the Barbarian King of the Ciseans and the Pirate Queen of Ilvas. Were anything to happen to him here . . .” She let the sentence trail away as she admired the way what little color her parents had drained away.
“That’s impossible,” Percinius spluttered. “Such an alliance has never existed.”
“You also never expected my return, yet here I stand before you,” Quinn said tartly. Her mother’s mouth slipped ajar in shock and outrage. She sighed and let her smile drop away as she stepped back.
Her parents had seemed so large to her as a child. So powerful. So . . . god-like. But the gods were gods, not men among them; certainly not these two before her. While her mother had been beautiful in youth, the lines of her age were beginning to show. Harsh and severe as the paddle she loved to use when Quinn was but a child. Her father had always seemed tall and imposing, but he was a dwarf of a man compared to Lazarus. His silver hair had become thin and his stomach stouter.
No, they weren’t gods. Just depraved people hiding beneath their white-robed facade.
“As enticing as this reunion is,” Quinn started, backing away, “I’m expected before the Council.”
Percinius was the first to gather his composure. “They’ll ensure that you and your primitive horde are sent back, if not executed,” he said as he glared at her.
Quinn sent him a bored, disinterested look. “I’m sure they won’t act too harshly,” she said, “particularly since you’ll be vouching for me.”
Ethel blinked again as Percinius’ gaze narrowed into thin slits. “Why would we do that? You are unwelcome here. No matter the lord you travel with. You don’t belong in N’skara.”
Quinn took a deep breath, but those words didn’t sting the same as they had when she’d been only thirteen and had chains placed around her wrists and ankles for the first time. She’d held those words close to her heart, every night as the ship that carried her sailed further and further from her homeland, the only place she’d ever known. And her heart hardened. It became as cold and frigid as the frost-covered ground and when the slave traders landed, Quinn was not a Darkova anymore, because Quinn Darkova was dead.
Her parents sold her, but it was those words that killed her.
She’d told them to herself a thousand times over, and it seemed that thousand was enough because they didn’t sting anymore. Quinn had grown too cold to feel the bite.
“You will support my requests,” she said slowly. “Because the faster my lord completes his mission here, the more expedient my departure will be.” She didn’t give them room to reply. To object. “That is, unless you’d like for me to tell them how I became a slave to begin with . . .” Quinn let that threat hang for a moment, the clarity on her parents’ faces making it obvious that they knew her disappearance from N’skara would only be a single mark in a list of infractions they’d committed. Percinius’ mouth shut, his lips forming a line as he stared at her with revulsion. Ethel wasn’t much better, except she at least had the graces to turn her face to the ground while her guilt ate at her.
“They won’t believe you,” Percinius said. There was a fire there. He wanted to fight.
He didn’t realize he’d already lost. She survived and came for them.
“Perhaps,” she mused. “Not all will, but the lower born might, and the higher born—let’s just say your name will be dragged through every dirty little secret you thought you could hide. I’ll bring them into the light and show everyone who the Darkovas really are . . . and once the accusation is made, all it would take is a trust spinner equal or greater in power than mother and poof” —she snapped her fingers—“you’re both ruined. Disgraced. You’d be lucky if the N’skari only banished you instead of drowning you in the ocean as an offering to Ramiel.” She tilted her head and with a slight shrug to her shoulders said, “You’ll support my bid for an alliance and anything else I ask for—or I’ll show you the maruda you believe me to be.”
“Percinius, we—” Ethel started.
He shushed his wife with a single scowl and then spun back to his daughter. Quinn didn’t need to say more. She had them—because the one thing she could always count on her parents for was to care about their reputation more than anything or anyone.
“This was a lovely chat.” She reached forward and patted Percinius’ arm, causing him to stiffen as she moved to leave. “Thank you for the welcome home.”
Quinn pivoted toward the temple’s entrance and straightened her shoulders as she marched away, feeling their gazes upon her back. Just inside, Lazarus and Draeven stood waiting. As she approached, Draeven’s eyebrows rose in question. Quinn shook her head slightly and strode past.
They fell in line behind her, trailing after as she moved farther into the temple—past the towers that marked the end of the antechamber and the beginning of the interior corridor. Quinn continued past the smaller pillars as they grew in size until she was all the way into the chancel and before the rounded perches of the Council members.
