Page 5 of A Crown of Tears and Treason (The Curse of Silver Secrets and Cruel Shadows #1)

Chapter

Five

THE DRAGON

“ W hy, in the name of all the Fourteen Clans of Malhaven, did she say yes?” I asked as the storm within me continued to rage.

I’d played my part of the ruthless Dragon Malhaven feared.

I’d threatened a pregnant woman and Evie’s cousins. Her entire Clan. For the love of Xamor, I’d sliced her groom in two splattering halves.

I’d cowered two of the most powerful Clans in Malhaven just by walking among them.

What could have possessed her to agree to come with me? The Code demanded I go to the wedding and stake my claim on her hand, but she could have said no and then dealt with the Council’s wrath by herself.

Now she’d doomed us all with one decision.

I sat at the head of the ceremonial table of the Blood Brotherhood Elite’s council room, with only four of my most trusted allies present. This was a delicate, dangerous situation. The fewer people knew about it, the better.

We had to figure out what exactly we were dealing with. And who .

I didn’t trust Evie.

Eyes always hid the secrets to one’s soul. Foul or pure, all intentions shined through. Evie’s face had been obscured by that blasted bloody veil of hers, I’d barely made out the graceful outline of her face as she’d looked defiantly up at me. The high cheekbones. The stubborn tilt of her chin. But not a glimpse of her eyes. Would her gaze have been petrified? Rebellious? Accepting? I’d imagined a million different emotions staring back at me, trying to figure her out.

Oh, she’d been afraid. Shaking from the tips of the silver pins encasing her mane of hazelnut locks which just begged to be let loose and flow wild, down to her slender bare feet, racing away from me through the Protectorate garden as if the sea breeze itself gave her strength. A little forest sprite that manifested in the middle of a bloody battle.

Yet she had faced me. Had been the only one to cry out when my blade was dangerously close to Orion’s wife. I would have never attacked a defenseless woman, but Evie couldn’t have known that.

That took a kind of bravery and selflessness few in the Clan world had. An instinct nobody could train.

As we’d dodged arrows next to the tree, I would have liked nothing more than to lift Evie’s veil and sate my curiosity. The need was so powerful, I had to tense my hands to keep them from straying to the airy fabric. Now I was left wondering what steel gaze hid behind it.

“She was supposed to say no,” I said in that calm, detached tone that spiked fear into my enemies’ eyes. Cold and calculated was more deadly than red rage. “She could ruin everything.”

My gaze traveled over our weapons lined on top of the dark wood, my sword in the center. The symbol of a completed mission. We’d given our offerings to the gods for those who had passed, burned their bodies, and engraved their names on the funeral column in our most sacred temple. The last part of the ritual was displaying the blades of those who had fought for the good of the Blood Brotherhood.

My Clan had been built on tradition and rules, and this was not the moment to crack them open and let the venom drip out.

“She must’ve come out wrong. Maybe that Vegheara blood has finally turned poisonous, like we all feared,” Calyx said, dabbing a crude-smelling ointment on his left leg. One of the arrows had nicked his muscles, barely slashing the skin, but it had sent the mountain of a man tumbling down. I’d barely found him in time to drag him to shelter before running after Evie.

Whoever had imbued those poisoned arrows had done an excellent job.

“I see two explanations.” Soryn stared at his crossbow in the center of the table with the same pinched expression he had whenever he couldn’t explain something. He prided himself on his intelligence. He’d earned the right to. Brain like an archive, that one, capable of remembering everything he ever read. “Extremely naive or extremely cunning. Either way, a danger for our Clan.”

From the other end of the table, Elysia clicked her tongue as she played with the rounded rings on each of her slim fingers. Pretty to look at, but deadly; she hid a different poison in each and wasn’t afraid to use them. She hadn’t earned the nickname The Viper for nothing. If anyone could find what that sickly green poison had been made of, it was her. “Nobody is that naive. She stabbed her groom.”

Barely a knick. Evie had hesitated to kill him and had seemed terrified when I had. Her lithe body had shivered and her neck had gone taut in a shade of red that would have been delightful in less gruesome circumstances.

I didn’t regret ridding Malhaven of Fabrian’s greed. He’d sealed his fate long before Evie had returned, since he’d sunk three fishing vessels belonging to Blood Brotherhood civilians, off the Coast of the Unforgiven, while he’d been smuggling weapons. I always protected and avenged my own people.

“She was a distraction and we all know it,” Ryker, my second-in-command, said. They called him The Shadow. In this room, he was the Blood Brotherhood’s Commander, the best assassin in the history of Malhaven.

“She was bait,” I said. “The perfect lure, set by someone bold enough to deceive Fabrian and risk our wrath.”

“Whoever attacked the wedding didn’t want any of us getting out alive,” Calyx said. “It’s a miracle we survived.”

I hummed low in my throat. “It’s not a miracle.”

Calyx shook his head. “We were all there to see that cloud of arrows take down hundreds, right?”

“Soryn?” I said.

“Statistically, with our training, weapons, armor, and sheer numbers, at least two of us could have walked off that island alive and taken the reins of the Blood Brotherhood Elite until the crisis passed,” Soryn said. He’d always been better at explaining minutia. “Though the attackers might have been optimistic beyond common sense.”

“Or they had specific targets in mind,” I said.

I’d suspected a Protectorate trap since I’d gotten the anonymous letter informing me of Evie’s reappearance, the same one which had also been received by the Council’s magistrates, who were adamant that blasted arranged marriage contract needed to be upheld. The information hadn’t reached us out of the goodness of someone’s heart.

Only the gods knew mercy, not the Clans.

Not acting would have brought the wrath of the Council on my Clan and my parents, who’d signed it back when I’d been a babe. Contracts were more sacred than gods to the magistrates, and they demanded retribution in blood.

Usually. Now they’d crafted a more cunning punishment for us and the Protectorate after what had happened at the wedding.

Alaric Vegheara, leader of the Protectorate, had been killed. Poisoned dagger straight to the heart, blood turning green from the toxin that had laced the blade.

The Council and Protectorate blamed my Clan. As if I would ever risk the Blood Brotherhood on such a sloppy assassination.

“Does The Huntress know?” Soryn asked, looking at Ryker.

“Not yet,” he said in that unflinching way of his. He was pissed. I would have been too if I’d have to be the one to tell Allegra her father had been murdered.

“Do you think she’ll try to decapitate you before or after you deliver the news?” Calyx asked. “She looked ready to do it at the wedding, before you’d even met.”

Ryker slashed him an unforgiving look that would have terrified any other living man. “I think she’ll be more interested in who tampered with their precious Protectorate magic.”

“It’s unheard of. Which means we’re dealing with a powerful opponent. To find out who attacked all of us–” All eyes in the room swiveled toward me, waiting. As the de facto leader of my Clan, I felt all the responsibility crowding on my shoulders. I usually welcomed it. Enjoyed it, even. Not today. “We need to discover how the Protectorate wards failed.”

Nobody said a word. Nobody knew.

The mystery had been haunting me since we’d stepped onto the island. No burns on our skin, no silver tang in the air, no breeze trying to push us back.

Nothing .

Sanctua Sirena had been devoid of all protection. Definitely a trap, but not of Protectorate making.

How. Did. Their. Wards. Fail ?

Something was very wrong in the Protectorate, and if I wasn’t careful, whatever blight had taken over them might infect my own Clan.

I fisted my palms. I hated puzzles I couldn’t solve. I should have scorched the entire island and be done with it.

"Until we find out who we’re up against, we don’t trust anyone outside this room," I declared. My Brothers and Sister nodded.

“What about the Lost Daughter?” Ryker leaned forward. His blond hair, cut short to his scalp, caught the light from the ceremonial chandelier.

I clenched my jaw. Lost Daughter didn’t suit the woman I’d met. The one I’d held in my arms as the arrows had hissed through the air and who’d gripped that useless little weapon of hers, ready to attack me. Saying I needed to earn her murder. Adorable.

“What about her?” I asked, voice more cutting than I’d intended.

Ryker raised his brows, a flicker of power sparking in his curious gaze.

"Maybe we were misinformed," Soryn went on. "She could have been trained while in hiding. Assassin. Master thief. Xamor, maybe she’s The Phantom. That would explain why we haven’t found him."

My jaw ticked. “She doesn’t seem like the type.”

Evie hadn’t struck me as violent or cunning.

Yet she had agreed to marry me, with only the slightest hesitation. Behind her small frame, Evie must have hid enormous power. Though she had said she couldn’t do magic. Preposterous. She was the lost jewel in the Protectorate’s thorny crown, a descendant of Dria Vegheara herself. Of course she had power.

“She might be used to death and mayhem.” Elysia sipped from her dainty teacup. Her cat, Lord Purrlock, kneaded innocently in her lap, as if it hadn't just tried to tear through Soryn's pants and had stared hungrily at Calyx’s wound. Nothing, not even a Blood Brotherhood meeting, interrupted Elysia’s tea time.

“She might bring death and mayhem. She could have a plan.” Ryker said, followed by a sudden stillness. When he talked, people listened. "Perhaps she’s part of a plan."

I wouldn’t put it past the Protectorate to use their own to try their hand at destroying my Clan. Alaric, may the gods take pity on his bones, had been a smart man. Perhaps too smart–and he’d gotten a dagger to the heart at his niece’s wedding for it.

“I alone will deal with her,” I said. “You already need to sacrifice so much.”

“I still can’t believe we have to fucking marry those Protectorate brats,” Calyx growled.

I couldn’t either. When I’d promised Evie her cousins were safe, I’d meant none of my Brothers or Sisters would kill them, which was beyond reasonable given the animosity between our Clans.

But Alaric had died. The Protectorate had broken the Code.

We either married the Protectorate First Family cousins or we risked a Clan war and the Council’s vengeance.

The rest of the marriage contracts were already being written by the Council’s most esteemed scribes. No contract had been signed between Evie and Fabrian, though. Curious.

Another piece of the puzzle I had to unravel.

Later.

All that mattered now was saving our hides. So the Blood Brotherhood Elite and the Protectorate’s First Family would marry.

“We’ve all bled for our Clan.” Elysia gestured dramatically, her rings clinking. “A marriage alliance, even with the Protectorate, is nothing compared to being tortured in a grimy basement in the North Isles.”

“We also have to think of the benefits.” Soryn splayed his hands on the table. “An alliance between the most powerful Clans in Malhaven could make us stronger.”

“Or our fiancees could kill us in our sleep,” Calyx said.

“Or that. But we might finally have peace between our Clans.”

“Clans despise peace,” Ryker said. “They were built on chaos.”

“We’ve survived worse. For the good of the Blood Brotherhood,” I said with finality. Nobody argued. “Soryn’s right. Marriage could mean power. Blood power.”

The four of them grinned viciously, looking like the feared Brotherhood Elite that haunted Malhaven’s nightmares. That was another piece of information nobody outside the Clan needed to know about.

“Blood power is great, but…” Calyx began, gaze sweeping over all of us.

An expectant silence fell, brimming with possibilities.

“Is nobody going to say it?” Calyx asked. No reply came, only curious glances. “I can’t believe I have to be the voice of reason.”

I raised my eyebrows as Calyx looked my way.

“You’re going through with the wedding like you planned?” he asked.

I nodded solemnly. “I took an oath.”

A deadly oath I’d made before I knew Evie was alive. If I strayed from it, the ancient spell would burn me from the inside out. Thousands of people would die. The venom would seep into my Clan until the Blood Brotherhood withered and died.

That wedding day would decide all of our futures. Not even the gods themselves could change anything now.

“I hate to agree with Calyx,” Elysia began, reluctant.

Calyx looked up at the embossed ceiling. “Someone notify the sages, a miracle is about to happen.”

Elisya slashed a look his way, but it didn’t have her usual poison. “But…shouldn’t you warn her, at least?”

“Anything I say can get back to her cousins,” I said. “We can’t risk it. Since when did you all decide you have hearts?”

Grumbles resounded around the table.

“Fine,” Calyx said. “I’m the only one with a conscience in this room–”

Elysia cleared her throat pointedly.

“ Fine . I and Elysia are the only ones with a conscience in this room–”

“If you ever tell that to anyone outside these walls, you will regret it,” she said in that tone she used whenever the two of them had an inside joke the rest of us didn’t understand.

“But isn’t it a little crazy to lie to the one person you’re forced to spend the rest of your life with? Especially a lie as big as this one?” Calyx finished.

“No,” Soryn and Ryker said. Even Elysia shrugged, unsure. Yes, Calyx had a big heart, but bigger muscles and the deadly skills to pull it off in our ruthless world.

“I won’t lie,” I said. “I’ll delay sharing information.”

“I’ve always trusted your judgment, Brother,” Calyx said. “But this Lost Daughter won’t. She wasn’t raised like us.”

“That we know of,” I said. There was something peculiar about Evie, and I couldn’t place my finger on what rattled my brain about her. She might have been dangerous beyond belief. Only a fool would trust someone from the enemy Clan, no matter how harmless they seemed. The innocent-looking ones were the most deadly.

Calyx raised his open palms. “All I’m saying is that she can turn into our worst enemy. Don’t give her reasons to be the next groom she stabs.”

I steepled my fingers on top of the table. “She’ll find out after the wedding, when she officially becomes part of the Blood Brotherhood.”

Her cousins could still intervene up until that point. The Protectorate was obviously going through a crisis, but those four cousins of hers had the power to do some serious damage with the right tools. And the right information.

“Then the Lost Daughter can’t suspect anything until then,” Soryn warned.

“She won’t,” I said. We’d already survived a bloody wedding, we didn’t need a second.

“Be careful around her.” Ryker looked at me pointedly. “She agreed to marry her fiance’s murderer. Calyx is right–”

“Always.” Calyx grinned.

“–there’s something wrong with the Lost Daughter. ”

A grin finally twisted my lips. “ She needs to be careful around me .”