Page 25 of A Crown of Tears and Treason (The Curse of Silver Secrets and Cruel Shadows #1)

Chapter

Twenty-Five

EVIE

N othing.

My library was littered with open books, half my own, half snuck out by Goose from the Grand Archives in Phoenix Peak, which was under the advisors’ protection and unbreachable for outsiders.

Thousands of pages.

Millions of words.

And nothing .

No hint at how the assassins had found us.

I read until I saw dark spots. As the nights turned into days, and I fell asleep on top of precious ancient tomes bound in dragon hide, I was less certain about why .

I thought I was on to something when I found the Almanac of Malevolence, a truly sinister book about all the different ways you could kill someone and what each style represented. You wanted to send a message about a Clan member who stuffed their own vaults while the civilians went hungry? You disemboweled them. Someone broke your heart and you truly wanted revenge? Perfectly reasonable to cut their heart out, according to Clan law. Some Clans even had their preferred assassination methods; the Northern ones liked to smash skulls.

Horrible pages. Now I understood why my parents hadn’t allowed me more than a few books to read.

There was no mention about slitting someone’s neck, apart from it being a very effective and fast method, like Allie had said.

I closed the book with a thump and rested my head on top of it, hair cocooning my face.

I’d thought about researching warding spells, but since that had been a blatant lie meant to keep me stuck and docile, that road didn’t have any answers, only bitter memories.

A shiver skittered down my spine. I leaped from my chair and turned.

Zandyr was leaning his strong body against the frame and watching me fret with an easy smile, so different from the sharp grins he used to throw my way.

“Why would an assassin slit someone’s throat?” I asked, ignoring the tight coil in my belly at seeing him again.

He’d witnessed me breaking down over my parents’ deaths and had comforted me through it, the last thing I wanted was to appear weak. Again.

His mighty brows rose. “In a curious mood, are we?”

“Allie says there have been more murders like that in the last few years. And…that’s–that’s how my parents were killed. From what I could see.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. It was a small wonder the pages in this library hadn’t been stained with my tears, but crying wouldn’t help me avenge their deaths. “One cut throat was an emergency. Two–”

“Is a pattern,” Zandyr said slowly. “It could also be a coincidence.”

“What if it’s not?”

He pushed himself away from the door frame in one fluid motion, and placed a black package onto the table, his eyes not straying from mine. “I vaguely remember one Clan doing it. The Quoriliths. They dissipated centuries ago in petty squabbles and incompetence, though they say you can still find a temple or two of theirs wasting away in the swamplands. They slit their traitors’ throats in lavish ceremonies so they would never be able to speak their betrayal in the afterlife.”

“My parents weren’t traitors.” Or part of whatever the Quoriliths had been.

“They did keep secrets.”

“One. Me. And I’m out.”

“Then their assassins wanted to eliminate a threat quickly.”

Allie had thought the same. Perhaps I was searching for answers in the wrong place, but… “I want to dig into this.”

“Do it. I’ll ask my spies to look into these murders The Huntress mentioned.” Zandyr nodded solemnly at me. “Has Adara taught you how to defend your throat?”

I flexed my fists, freshly bruised and bandaged. When I hadn’t been reading, I was getting tossed on my ass by Adara or pushed to my limits by Allie. But the blue tendrils were still stubbornly absent. “We’re getting there.”

“Show me.”

I blinked at him. “You? The sword-wielding–”

He detached his mighty blade and set it down next to the package, the blood in the hilt swirling around in a lazy loop.

“–armor-wearing–”

He huffed a laugh and quickly divested himself of his armor, the capsules of blood winking in the dim light. Zandyr rolled up the sleeves of his black shirt, molded tightly to his strong body. I caught a peek of the dragon tattoo’s teeth digging into the edges of his neck, and the hard shape of his sculpted chest muscles. There was also a scar near his heart, barely visible.

I struggled with my next words. “–warrior who can magic his way into unbelievable speed?”

“I can’t do magic.” He grinned, but it was warm now. Inviting. “Yet.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What did we say about not lying to each other?”

“It’s the truth. And partially why I came here tonight.”

“Because I’m such a master at it and you want me to teach you?”

He bit the inside of his cheek as his eyes slowly roamed over me. “I have no doubt you’ll master magic better than me in the future. Protectorate cares more about power than the Blood Brotherhood. Why do you think we’re better at fighting?”

I opened my mouth to protest, but after my wedding, I really couldn’t. The Blood Brotherhood Elite had been an unstoppable force.

“Because, dear menace, we only get to learn the secret of our magic once our blood hears The Calling. Which happens only when we have something to lose, never before. A partner, a vulnerable child, a kingdom worth defending. So we won’t use it without caution. Until then, we are defenseless if we don’t train. And I have trained every day of my life, much to my childhood tutors’ dismay.”

My chest tightened. “And now that I’m here and you officially have a partner, you can get Your Calling.”

“Trust me, there would have been a million simpler ways to do it, all easier than the marriage options I had. Elysia, one of my Blood Brotherhood Sisters, was getting ready to petition the Senate of Sages to protect her laboratory. She still doesn’t understand why she hasn’t heard The Calling yet,” he said. “She’s dreading the ritual, though.”

The sensation turned icy. “ What ritual?”

“To one created to see if our bodies can withstand the power we are to inherit.”

“You can die?”

“Some do. They bleed out on the sacred stones. Elysia won’t, she’s too stubborn to perish like that.”

“And you?”

“My body has withstood too much to fail me now. But I can’t predict when The Calling will come for me, so I have to take precautions, especially since I’m leaving in the morning.”

A strange, hollow feeling settled at the base of my spine. “Where?”

“More Serpents have been spotted near our borders. I’m leading my Brotherhood Elite warriors and the army there to make them regret it. Before I go, I have something for you.” He nodded at the package. “Open it.”

With unsteady fingers, I pulled the silk bounds to the side to reveal an armor just like his. Black leather, with bands of blood vials criss-crossing the chest and winding down the arms.

“In case you sneak out again before I come back,” he muttered from right behind me. His hot breath ghosted across the nape of my neck.

“Thank you.” I glided my palm over it. The leather was smooth, like it hadn’t come from a mortal being. My nails clinked across the vials. “Whose blood is this?”

“Mine.”

I turned to him, surprised. He was so close, his minty, woodsy scent intoxicating. “You bled to protect me?”

That was…irrationally generous. Blood was sacred to his Clan. An heir’s blood much more so, I’d imagine.

Kaya’s words from that first day rippled through my thoughts.

Now he will protect you too .

“I have a feeling it won’t be the last time.” The grin vanished from his face. “Promise me you won’t leave Phoenix Peak until I’m back. Or until you discover who wants to kill you, whichever comes first.”

“You won’t be gone that long.” My fingers flexed, wanting to reach out for him.

“You might be quicker with your research and find your clues before I’m back. Sometimes the answers are right in front of us.” He nodded at the mountain of books on the table. “Be weary of the guards. Not all of them want the best for you.”

“No, they’re too busy spreading rumors about me.”

“They answer to another master.” His penetrating gaze rooted me to the spot. “Ask Goose to make you a concoction of lavender, cinnamon, and moonbeam fern, and dab it on your shoes and cloak. It will help to hide your scent if the guards ever try a tracking spell, in case you truly need to evade them.”

“Ah, a man who honors his deals,” I said, trying to keep my tone light, even as a knot settled in my chest. How much things had changed in the last few weeks. I’d been frightened to breathe the same air as him at first, and now I was fretting over him leaving.

He would come back. He had to.

“It’s only fair, you’ve kept your end of the bargain.” He took a step back, tensing his shoulders. “Let’s test your lessons.”

“You want to train now?” I huffed a startled laugh.

“Indulge a potentially dying man’s last wish.”

The tightness in my chest grew. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“I won’t even use my unbelievable speed .” He chuckled low in his throat.

I saw the laughter and the glimmer in his eyes for what it was–an invitation to detach from the rest of the world, even for a moment. To play and keep whatever this tenuous truce between us was.

I tilted my head to the side, assessing him like I would an opponent. This much I had learned from Adara, to look for weaknesses.

Zandyr had none. No weird angle to his knees, no exhausted redness in his eyes, or a contorted slope to his shoulders. He was a warrior with a body that had been trained to kill and defend.

If I wanted to learn how to defend myself, I might as well try it with a prime fighter that wouldn’t actually hurt me, right? And I didn’t want him to leave just yet, especially since he’d be gone for gods-knew how long, bleeding on some ancient rocks.

“It can’t hurt,” I said, even as my heart began to patter. “How do we start?”

His smile turned feral. “Hide.”