Page 12 of A Crown of Tears and Treason (The Curse of Silver Secrets and Cruel Shadows #1)

Chapter

Twelve

EVIE

I shook my head, blinking up at him. “Say that again.”

Because there was no way the mighty prince of the Blood Brotherhood had trekked all the way here to find out if–

“Do you like your new house?” he asked once more.

I was unsure if this was some kind of test. Maybe he’d take it back if he knew the truth.

It wasn’t as tall as the other buildings, but it felt stable and strong. It smelled fresh, like new possibilities, and had a luscious, wild garden in the back I stared at more than I’d like to admit.

“Yes, I do.”

“Good,” he said. “It deserves to have life inside it again.”

The front garden was still a sandy wasteland, but sizzles came from the kitchen and a sweet scent burned through the hallways from the army of candles. I turned on the spot, taking it all in, from up the painted walls, down to the gate. The guards still hadn’t moved. The slightest frown barely pinched the skin between my brows. But, of course, Zandyr noticed. Eyes like a hawk, this one.

“They can’t come in unless ordered,” he said.

“They can’t do a lot of things. Why are you punishing them if they let me out of their sight? That’s insane. I can handle myself.”

“Not against a trained adversary. At least not yet,” he said. “And they’re not my guards to punish.”

I frowned. “Doesn’t your family rule any and all in the Blood Brotherhood?”

“Except the Phoenix Peak guards. Safety precaution and tradition, in case one of us royals goes insane and someone has to kill us to save the Clan.”

“Is that a common occurrence?”

“Depends on who you ask. Great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Ryujin developed a strange, unnatural attraction to statues in his old age. Though he was more interested in building edifices for his dead wife than destroying the Capital.” He rolled his shoulders back, gazing at the building.

“I hope he didn’t go anywhere near Dria Vegheara’s statue–if you really do have it here. You know what’s the best part about this house?” I bit the inside of my cheek. “It’s big enough for when my cousins come to visit.”

“And for when we will live together, after the wedding,” Zandyr turned to me. “But your cousins can’t visit until then. At least officially.”

I skipped over whatever the underworld living-together-after-the-wedding-meant and focused on the more pressing issue. “Why would us being married matter? They’re just guests.”

“Because strangers aren’t allowed in the Capital, and especially not in Phoenix Peak. But after the wedding, they’ll become official relatives of a Blood Brotherhood member.”

My shoulders slackened. “Me.”

“You.”

I shook my head. I missed my cousins more than I could put into words, especially around Zandyr. “So many rules.”

“You say that like it’s a problem. But they’re the reason you can trust that what I’m saying will happen.”

I huffed a laugh. “I trust you about as much as you trust me. So let’s just say I’ll hold you to that promise and pretend I mean it.”

“You and–” His slender fingers went inside a pocket of his armor and took out a piece of parchment, yellowing at the edges, and handed it to me. It looked like it had seen more summers than me. “–the marriage contract.”

My breath caught in my throat. The contract. The piece of paper that had haunted my parents until their deaths. I held it with shaky hands. Such a small thing. A few words that had changed so many lives.

The clauses were as basic as Zandyr had hinted at. No cheating, no killing each other, no trying to destroy the other’s Clan.

“ The Protectorate member and the Blood Brotherhood member agree to share a meal at least once a week, to facilitate understanding, wellbeing, and trust between the Clans ,” I read out loud. How uncharacteristically romantic of Clans.

“So we don’t forget how the other looks,” he said.

I licked the inside of my cheek. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

Even if he thought I was forgettable, Zandyr haunted too many of my nightmares to count. Whenever I closed my eyes, there he was, a looming shadow ready to overpower me. I always woke up in a sweat, cursing myself and him.

As my eyes traveled lower on the parchment, I sucked in a breath. My parents’ signatures. I touched the old ink gently, fingers tracing the swirls in my mom’s name and the harsh lines in my dad’s.

Tears stung the corners of my eyes. They’d been so young when they’d signed this, barely a few years older than me.

What had gone through their minds when they’d written their names down, sealing my fate? The signatures weren’t shaky, as if someone had been forcing them to sign. No hint of hesitation. They’d changed their minds five years later. Why?

My heart thumped with pain. It didn’t matter now, did it? All those sacrifices, wasted. I had still ended up in the Capital.

Their lives should have meant more than that.

My life should have.

But I still had breath in my lungs. My parents’ deaths couldn’t be in vain. If I did one thing right in this life, it would be retribution. I wasn’t a vengeful creature, but my parents, may the gods give them the peace they couldn’t find in this life, had taught me no bad deed went unpunished. It was a mangled sort of fairness that I finally understood.

Fairness meant equilibrium, and those three assassins and whoever had killed uncle Alaric and attacked my wedding had disrupted that balance.

As the Blood Brotherhood queen, I would have more of a chance to get my revenge.

I looked at Zandyr, the man who’d haunted my past. The one who was about to become my future.

Could I accomplish what I needed to by his side, irritated with each other or not? He didn’t seem like the type to stand in my way. He didn’t have an issue with me learning spells. I didn’t know how far I could stretch my power, but I could try. Most Protectorate children began studying proper spellcasting around seven. I was twenty-one.

But when I met my parents’ killers again, I’d do more than swing my switchblade around.

This I swore.

Zandyr had already signed the contract, with crisp, serrated lines fit for a prince they called The Dragon.

Only one name was missing on the page.

The one that would seal my fate.

Mine.

“Why do I have to sign it, too? It’s done,” I said, voice scratchy.

“Formality. You’ve already verbally accepted the marriage. Now we’ll seal it.”

“So I can’t change my mind.”

“If only magic worked that way,” he said and I swore it sounded wistful.

Could I be the Blood Brotherhood’s queen? I didn’t know.

But I’d promised to marry to keep my cousins safe and my blood craved revenge.

“Do you have a pen?” I asked, steadier than I expected.

Out of thin air, Zandyr produced a quill. It didn’t have a feather on its end, oh, no. It ended in a transparent orb, which had blood swirling inside it, like the Blood Brotherhood weapons’ hilts. He tilted it toward me.

“That’s not menacing.” I stared at the haunting quill like it was crying out for my blood. “At all.”

“A magical contract needs to be signed with magic.” Zandyr nodded at the parchment. “A magical quill helps circumvent that.”

Since I had no power and had told him that. And he’d paid attention.

I snatched the quill out of his hand, face heating, and scribbled my name onto the contract.

No swish of energy crawled up my hand, no dire whirlwind engulfed me, and the ground didn’t shift underneath my feet.

But my veins…they throbbed.

I could hear my blood flowing through me, fast and hectic, as if seeking something I couldn’t describe. The quill and contract fell from between my fingers as I swayed on the spot.

My mind was light and scattered, eyelids fluttering as everything around me turned gray. Someone was calling my name. Shouting. No, whispering. But it sounded like a roar in my chest, beckoning. My body jerked.

No, someone was jerking me .

“Evie.” Zandyr’s large palms circled my shoulders. He was the only speck of light in the gray. His icy gaze bore into mine.

“What’s going on?” I muttered, falling more into his grasp than I wanted to. But he was warm, while the rest of the world turned colder and darker.

“Surge of power,” he whispered, pulling me closer. One of his palms cradled the back of my head. His hot breaths warmed my forehead, instilling more strength in me.

“Breathe,” he whispered. The vibrations pulsed through my temples, as if he was speaking directly into me. It was strange.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, knees shaking.

“You’re...welcome,” he said, as if the words felt foreign on his tongue. He released a long sigh. “As lovely as you smell, the guards are watching.”

“So?”

“Why do you think they were instructed to keep an eye on you?”

My muscles seized. “To report.”

“Good girl,” Zandyr whispered. “The Blood Brotherhood abhors weakness.”

“I am not weak,” I hissed.

“No, you are not, but some people don’t understand what true power is. Prove them wrong.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m Blood Brotherhood. I know the show everyone is waiting for. Play with their expectations.”

“I’m not a puppet.”

“No, you’ll be a queen. Act like one.”

Rage rushed through me. It burned at the haze that had enveloped me, the colors slowly returning. Zandyr was no longer the light, he was as dark as the uniform he wore.

My fingers dug underneath my belt. The switchblade flicked–but he moved too fast once more.

He caught my wrist, holding the blade right against his armor. Pushing against it to show me it wouldn’t penetrate the thick leather.

A strange ripple of tension flowed between us as we stared at each other, neither backing down. I inhaled his breaths, and he inhaled mine, caught in this weird struggle.

“Good, but not great,” he said, icy gaze racing over my face. “If you insist on that little weapon, find a better place to hide it. You lose valuable time fishing it out.”

I fisted my free palm against his chest and pushed with all my might. I wouldn’t have been able to shove him, but he played his part as well, stepping back.

“Again,” he said, crossing his hands behind his back. “I’m unarmed. Show me how you can handle yourself.”

I didn’t think.

I just swiped.

My switchblade arched through the air, aiming at his gorgeous face. At his long neck. At his powerful shoulders. He dodged every single blow with ease. He didn’t even move his hands from behind his back, twisting out of reach with that damn smirk on his face.

The final swing almost sent me crashing into the ground.

I steadied my hands on my knees, gulping down air. My switchblade hadn’t even come close to Zandyr.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he whispered in my ear. I flinched, righting myself. He was so close, my back almost molded to his chest. “You train to fight properly and I’ll tell you how to evade the guards–”

“They’ll get in trouble–”

“ Without getting them punished.” His words skittered down my spine. “Though most of them deserve it for what they do at the advisors’ bidding.”

Tempting. So dangerously tempting. “Or you can just tell me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” His breath ghosted against the back of my neck. “Train and we’ll talk.”

I turned, tilting my chin up at him. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, he was right. I hadn’t been able to fight off those assassins back at the cabin. If I ever met them again, I needed to be ready. “Deal.”

He sent me a triumphant smirk that looked almost feral.

“But you can’t be the one to train me.” I sent my own smirk his way. I couldn’t have him knowing my best moves.

“You are such a menace, but…as the lady wishes.” He mock-bowed, but there was a curious glimmer in his eyes. “Until then, don’t forget–play with their expectations.”

“Plan on explaining?”

“After the wedding.”

The wedding. Everything hinged on that blasted day.

“What I can tell you is that if you turn your back to me right now, in a fit of fury, and stomp into your house and go into the library, you might see a familiar face,” he said.

I bolted away before he’d even finished speaking. Whatever that quill had done to me, my vigor had returned tenfold.

I ran up the veranda stairs, past the grand doors I struggled to open, and into the library which had walls filled with leather-bound books. A dream.

But I was more interested in the open book sitting on top of the dark table in the center of the room. I didn’t quite believe my eyes–but I trusted the familiar voice.

“Hello, Evie.”