CHAPTER 130: ONE HUNDRED & THIRTY

Valka

When Rafael’s guards come to get me, I am ready for a world class act. Kohl runs down my face in streaks. My hair disheveled from running my fingers through every second. My clothes are stained with dust, my nails broken. And my eyes are filled with sorrow and anger.

Before his summoned court, I am forced to my knees.

The air swells with formidable pressure and I pray to the gods that Rafael is stupid enough to eat the words right out of my mouth.

"How do you plead?" he repeats, voice echoing through the chamber of his great hall.

I raise my head, furious tears filling my eyes. "How could you?"

Rafael pauses. His dark brows furrow with confusion. Every member of his court freezes at the dastard question flung out at him in the open. Lilith who sits beside him has enough sense to look worried.

"Excuse me?"

My voice shakes, carrying over the crowd. "You took me from my mate against my will. You killed him. Still I swore fealty to you. I denounced him and bent the knee to you. I saved you from the traitors scheming in your castle and you repay me by locking me up in your dungeons and starving me. And our baby."

Rafael jerks forward in his seat. "Have you gone mad?"

I mirror the rage I feel inside. "No, have you gone mad?"

He blinks. Nostrils flare wide. The guards close in, no doubt to hit me for the blatant disrespect, but Rafael raises a hand. "Leave her." To me, he says, "I will overlook it this one time, but speak to me like that again and I will tear out your tongue."

After seeing the horrors in the dungeons, I now understand that he isn’t bluffing.

His fingers clench tightly around the throne’s arm. "Speak."

I start sobbing. Ugly, snotty tears. Murmurs begin to stir in the room. "He said no one had to know. He called you an overconfident fool. He said the war would not be won because the King of Voss had betrayed you."

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. But if I just play this right...

The Vossian emissary, a human male in his late thirties called Hunter, who has spent the last couple of weeks engorging himself in platter after platter of food, wine, and women, snickering every time I entered the room and prodded at me with the edge of a sword that day I was paraded around here, cutting open the strap of my dress and baring my left breast to the world, shoots to his feet. "Nonsense! Our alliance is one forged in blood. King Cyrus would never betray you."

King, huh? I could almost see the darkhaired pretty man seated on the throne. It does suit Cyrus.

I almost despise myself for what I’m about to do. But if Rafael can ignite a war by lying, who’s to say I cannot do the same thing to ruin his alliance with humans?

Truthfully, it’s a plan that formed several days ago, having being forced to have dinner with the king and Lilith and their usual plethora of guests. I’d listened in on their conversation. A lot banked on their alliance with Voss.

Most of the troops being sent to Ebonheart to conquer it were soldiers from Voss. And half-breeds. Rafael kept his real army surrounding the borders of Silvermoor, never straying too far from home, making it damn near impenetrable.

He expected that he’d win the war. The pieces on his board or chess had been set into play. I am about to ruin it.

Rafael rises from his seat with speed, crossing the distance. He yanks me off the ground roughly by my arm, glaring down at me with livid eyes. "If you are lying to me--"

"You saved my child," I cut in swiftly. "You have protected me, even when I didn’t deserve it. I did this for you." I force a quiver to my lips. "Did you ever check?"

His frowns. "Check?"

"Kaelin. He was in on it. He said he received a missive." My voice breaks. "He was very drunk. He wouldn’t stop talking about taking your place once you were gone. He called you mad and self-serving. He called you a wuss. He said you always were controlled by your emotions. By anything blonde with a cunt."

Rafael’s gaze sharpens as I speak the words I know will sink into his bones and hurt his fragile ego. And I continue to weave the lie, sounding clumsy as I spilled it, sounding hurt. "He said you would never see what was right in front of you. They planned to fill you in with lie after lie of Voss’s involvement, until it was too late. And then, he said he would slit your throat."

I shake my head as if the thought of him dying is too much to bear. The murmurs have grown louder now.

"I told him it was a lie. And he said he had a letter from the Voss King himself, through the emissary. That if I spread my legs for him, he’d show it to me. And give me his protection. I was overcome with rage at the insult, at his betrayal, and maybe it was the echo of the bond long lost between us, but I was suddenly driven by the urge to... to protect you. And..." Another loud sob and I bury my face into his chest. "And I... oh gods... I killed him. For you."

Rafael hesitates for a beat too long before pulling me away from his chest. His grey depths are dark and uncertain. "I have known Kaelin since we were children. He had his vices, but he was no betrayer."

Tears force my eyes into a squint. "You call me a liar. Then it should be no problem to search amongst his things for proof of a missive. Of my lie. If you find nothing, then I will gladly accept my punishment."

Rafael’s jaw clenches and his voice echoes over the chamber. "Search his chamber," Rafael orders, voice hard. "Find every scrap and bring me every scroll, every note."

****

Half an hour later, the guard finds the note.

It didn’t matter if the emissary wrote it or not. It didn’t matter either that the emissary accused me of writing it and planting on Kaelin at the dance.

It also didn’t matter that he was right.

I was sobbing uncontrollably and Rafael’s ego had been hurt. The words I’d used had sunk in deeper than the crime of betrayal. And the fact that he wanted to believe so terribly that I was shivering against his chest and wetting his shirt because I wanted to, because he’d hurt me by throwing me in the dungeons.

And it sure as hell didn’t matter when Lilith rose from the throne, eyes wide as he stalked for the emissary. "Your Majesty, you cannot! The war--"

He rips out the male’s throat, spraying blood everywhere. And then, he says, "Send his head back to Cyrus in a box. Let him know what the price of his betrayal is."

I imagine if Lucien were here, he’d call me brilliant.

At the thought, worry gnaws at me. Where is he? Is he alright?

Worry, it would seem was futile, because Lucien responds in a way no sane man would.

The next morning, the first reports come in during breakfast. I am by Rafael’s right hand today and Lilith is all the way across the table, glowering at me. When I’d walked in, I hadn’t been treated with disdain, but fear. Enough of it that the guests had bowed and called me, "Your Grace."

The guard rushes in, eyes wide and full of terror. He pants, his chest looking seconds away from bursting. There is a dark stain between his breaches, as if soiled with urine. "Sire I--" Harsh pants. "The walls--Oh gods--The walls--"

And we all follow as one as Rafael jerks out of his chair tightly.

The smell hits first, copper and rot, sharp enough to slice through the morning air. Then the sounds, the frantic flutter of crows circling the keep, cawing and shrieking as if the world were coming apart, mingling with the cries of the people beyond the castle walls.

We spill onto the terrace, and I think, for one heartbeat, that my eyes deceive me.

Lilith gasps, falling to her knees.

Every wall from the outer courtyard to the gates is painted in blood. Not streaked, not splattered, painted. Deliberate. Careful. The symbols are old, older than this castle, older than any tongue the wolves speak.

Skinned bodies of half-breeds and soldiers, nailed up like macabre ornaments. Their faces are twisted in agony, mouths sewn shut with sinew. Some are hung upside down, their blood dripping down the stones to form words in the dirt below.

Words that even Rafael, for all his cruelty, takes a step back from. "What does it say?" he breathes, his voice shaky for the first time.

I know the words. And I say them with my heart racing fiercely, because I know the message is for me.

"I’m coming."