Blood Oath (Darkest Drae #1)(49)
“I’m fairly certain I didn’t threaten you.”
“Right. You just said you’d hurt someone that matters to me if I didn’t hurry up with my bath. That’s not a threat,” I said sarcastically.
“You think he matters to you, but do you even know him?”
“I know he takes care of me,” I snapped. Tyr was kind, gentle, and risked his life to care for me. Unlike Irrik. But the doubt he’d planted nagged at me. I lathered my hands and scrubbed at my scalp and skin. Something inside me burst, and I continued vehemently, “You showed up in my room, acted like you wanted to help, but for what? Maybe that was just for Mum, not her stupid Phaetyn daughter, who couldn’t really be her daughter if Mum was killed by a blade dipped in Phaetyn blood. Which means my whole life has been a lie, and no one knows the real me, not even me. Then I get beat all the time. Now, something good happens to me and you’re going to destroy that, too. Of course you are. Drae means death.” I’d been half joking when I’d said the words before, but this time they dripped with honesty. “I hate you.”
The tub was filled with suds from my vigorous scrubbing, and I’d done all I could to be clean. I wanted to be out, to be done. To have this terrible interlude with the Drae be over and finally get some sleep. Finished with my tirade, I huffed my frustration as I reached for my towel.
In a blur of movement, he was at the tub, standing over me. I shrank down, under the suds, cowering from the anger he radiated.
“You think you understand the game that’s being played?” he asked in a low voice. “You know nothing of betrayal, pain, or real suffering. You can’t fathom what’s going on. You say you hate me, but you don’t know me. Every single thing I do has a reason. Everything. You? You’re a cyclone recklessly acting on emotion and impulse. You’re only alive now because of the generosity of others and your Phaetyn powers, but if you continue down this path, you and everyone you care about will be—” He froze and pursed his lips. Then, raising his voice, he said, “You’re the worst kind of fool. Tako mi je ?ao.”
“I get it, al’right,” I screamed. More and more, every minute, every second, my hate grew. I hated that he was right, and I hated myself for my stupid, selfish actions. I wanted to cry for the hurt I’d caused Mum, Ty, and most likely Tyr, Arnik, and Dyter. I’d been a fool, but I was done. I steeled my heart and swallowed my emotions. They would do me no good here. “Please leave so I can get dressed.”
I would do everything the king told me, everything. I would make him think I was the most compliant prisoner ever. I wouldn’t ask for anything more than what they gave, and I wouldn’t put anyone I loved at risk. I would be patient until the moment was perfect. Then, I’d make sure they all paid.
When I stepped out of the washroom in my fresh clothes, Irrik was barking orders at two guards in the room.
“I said to put it on the table there,” he snapped, pointing at the short table by the couch. “Then you can leave.” The other guard stood, waiting. Irrik held a scroll of paper in his hands, reading. The first man set a large silver tray down and went to the door where he waited for the other guard.
Irrik snorted, a sound I now recognized as his favorite expression of disgust, and crumpled the paper into a ball. “You may tell King Irdelron I have received his message. I’ll only dispose of those I perceive as immediate threats to her life. You’re dismissed.”
The guards eyed the Drae warily, but as they turned to the door, I caught one sneering at me. Gritting my teeth, I tilted my chin up and walked toward the couch where dinner waited. My legs were weak from not eating, and my heart pounded from the exertion of the day. I was determined to eat everything on that tray. Even if I threw it all up later. But my mind wasn’t as strong as my body, and four bites into the rich meal, my head swam and my vision blurred.
“I think they poisoned me,” I slurred, sliding sideways on the couch. “In the food. I’m dying.”
I closed my eyes as my stomach roiled.
I laid my head on the soft cushions and decided this was the perfect place to die. Irrik couldn’t be mad at me because I’d been poisoned.
Darkness swallowed me in its arms, and as it claimed me, I heard Irrik say, “You can’t be poisoned, Khosana.”
21
The sunlight woke me, and I stretched with a luxurious slowness as I took inventory. I was whole, my soreness gone thanks to my Phaetyn blood, and I was ravenously hungry. I sat up and looked down at the table for the silver tray with food. But it was on the other side of the room, by the couch.
The couch where I’d fallen asleep . . . and was no longer lying.
I gasped, sure I must still be in a nightmare because there was no way I’d willingly be in Lord Irrik’s bed. But I was. Fully dressed, thank the stars, but in his bed nonetheless.
The Drae was gone, and the panels were wide open, exposing a large expanse of sky from a short balcony. I strained my ears to listen, but couldn’t hear him in the washroom. My curiosity swelled, and I jumped from the bed and crossed to the terrace.
I could see all of Verald, the main roads snaking through the pale dust of the Harvest Zones. There were small patches of green here and there, dozens of them throughout the kingdom. As I stared, I thought of my mother and her green thumb, and I wondered if those were the places she visited to help. Had I moved dirt at each of these places? Had I sprinkled Mum’s special water mix over them? A mix I was fairly certain contained my bodily fluids?