Blood Oath (Darkest Drae #1)(71)

So he would tell me, would he? He’d reveal the person who had betrayed us all by revealing Dyter’s location. He’d destroy the last traces of me by parading Ty or Tyr in front of me. He’d crush my last sliver of love.

I couldn’t handle it. I wanted to go on believing Ty had been there for me, and Tyr had gotten free and was working to save me still, not willing to stop until I was safe. I didn’t want to know.

But it had to be one of them.

The doors were pushed open behind me, and I heard twin sets of marching footsteps, accompanied by grunts of pain. The person was thrown onto his knees in front of the king and the black hood ripped off of his head.

My chest tightened, and I swayed on my feet. My heart thudded painfully.

“Ryn,” he said, spotting me. He wobbled, trembling and shaking as blood oozed from his torn lip, his face a mottled mess of bruises and battered skin. What had they done to him?

What had they done to Arnik?

I lifted my eyes to the king’s.

A cruel smile danced across his lips. He held a ringed finger just underneath it on one side. “Not who you were expecting, dear Phaetyn?”

Arnik groaned, and one of the Druman guards kicked him savagely to the ground.

The king stood and sauntered from the dais, radiating triumph. He glanced toward Arnik then faced me. “Your friend has been most accommodating,” he said. “We have a number of locations and names that we didn’t before. But he doesn’t seem to know where the mysterious Cal is.”

“I don’t know where he is,” Arnik mumbled, mindlessly, as blood dripped from his chin to the ground.

The king bent over and patted his cheek. “No, I don’t believe you do.” He straightened. “You’re quite useless to me now.” He stepped away from Arnik with a gleam in his eye. “Irrik. At your hand.”

My knees shook. “No,” I whispered as Irrik moved toward Arnik. “No, Irrik! Please!”

The king laughed. “Why are you pleading with him, Phaetyn? He answers to me and only me.”

“I’ll do anything,” I screamed at the king.

He laughed harder. “You already will, dear girl. You already will.”

I sobbed, crying in fear for what I knew would come. Through my tears, I could see Arnik crying, too. I tried to reach him, but two Druman forced me to kneeling. Arnik lifted his head, turning his face toward me, his swollen eyes barely open. Could he even see me?

“Did you ever wonder about us, Rynnie?” he asked, choking on my name. “Did you ever think of us married with children?” He shook as if he knew Lord Irrik was nearing him.

I brushed away my tears, nodding. A long time ago, but I had thought it many times back then.

“Yes,” I said, knowing I was misleading him.

“I thought about it all the time, Rynnie,” he whispered, voice breaking.

The king’s Drae shifted one hand into a massive claw, black talons shining like a scythe.

Arnik’s lip quivered. “I love—”





29





I screamed and closed my eyes as Arnik’s head slid from his body and hit the throne room floor with a wet thud.

I heard his body slump to the stone, and I screamed again and again, the image of his head leaving his body seared behind my eyes.

“Shut her up,” the king boomed.

Lord Irrik was back with me, his now human hand over my mouth. The same hand that had killed Arnik. I kicked and twisted to free myself. Get that hand off me, I pleaded with him silently.

He choked on a breath and removed his hand.

I didn’t scream again, but I cried, my shoulders shaking as I grieved, unable to look back toward Arnik. Dead. Another person I loved was gone. I didn’t blame him for the information he’d divulged. I didn’t judge him for it. He’d been broken, and I’d come close enough more than once to know what that felt like.

Nausea rose in my throat as the coppery smell of his blood permeated the air.

I gagged, and Irrik pulled me farther away from Arnik.

King Irdelron returned to his throne, white aketon splattered with Arnik’s blood. Reclining in the seat, he stretched his legs out and offered me a contemptuous smile. “Do you see?” he asked. “No one can deny me. No one will thwart me. If you don’t change your loyalties, Phaetyn, you will meet that same fate.”

His threat broke through my mourning like he’d fired an arrow at my heart. I whirled on him, charging forward until Irrik grabbed me around the waist. He held me fast. Unable to break his hold, I leaned forward, screaming, “Why should I care? You’ve already taken away everything—”

“Everything?” He snapped his question, rising in his throne to glower at me. “How wrong you are, girl. I’m just getting started! This Dyter person will be next. I’m told you once worked for him. Then the peasants’ precious Cal. I will find every single person you’ve ever thought you might have cared about, and I will slaughter them. I will not stop until your will is mine.”

I stared at Irdelron until the horror inside me spread throughout. Before I’d been numb, but now, with my future laid before me, I broke. Racking sobs tore through my chest, and I made no attempt to stop them. The king already knew how much he’d hurt me. The only punishment I could return now was to make him hear. I sank to the floor and bowed to the power of my grief.