Page 46 of A Storm in Every Heart (Enchanted Legacies #2)

I grab another piece of cheese and shove it in his mouth. I don’t know what he was going to say, but I think we’re all better off never finding out.

“To quote you,” I say slowly, “‘we can do this the easy way or the hard way.’ You tell us what we want to know now and I’ll make sure you’re not tortured when we get to Vernallis. Or, you can try to keep your secrets, but I’ll warn you that’s not going to last long.”

“You really think I’m afraid of pain?” he asks, swallowing the rest of his cheese. “I’ve died so many times I could fill a burial ground ten times over. Give me your worst, darling. I’ll enjoy it. You can do whatever you can think of, and I’ll just keep begging you for more.”

Something dark flashes in his eyes that makes me think he’s not bluffing. Threats of pain will not work on this man. But what about threats of another kind?

“Have you ever met a siren?” I ask.

“Sadly not. I’m pleased to meet you though. Feel free to show me whatever it is that makes men lose their minds.”

“Oh, I will,” I say, a syrupy sweetness in my voice.

His eyes widen in surprise, and I feel Kastian shift behind me but no one says anything.

I lean closer to the pirate until I can see my own reflection in his ocean-colored eyes.

“Imagine this. I could ask you to tell us the truth and you would. I could tell you not to leave this room, and you wouldn’t be able to.

Then I could ask you to do more. You could spend the rest of your immortal life as my puppet—no control, no escape—aware of what’s going on but completely unable to control your own body. ”

“Maybe I’ll make you test all the ways you can’t die…being swallowed by an animal was an interesting idea. Or we could visit the quicksand again, or maybe I just tell you to drown. Drown indefinitely, never ending, never dying, just stuck at the bottom of the ocean until?—”

“Alright!” Connell says testily. “Fine, you win, darling. Fuck, I thought you weren’t interested in torture.”

I stand up, brushing dirt from my dress and smile at him. “I’m not, but it is in my nature.”

I walk back over to the bed and sit down. Kastian is staring at me, wide-eyed, but I can’t quite read his expression. He doesn’t seem alarmed or surprised, exactly…more like intrigued.

I reach for my own portion of dinner, finally sitting down to fill my aching stomach as Jett takes over questioning the pirate. “Alright, now that’s settled. Who tried to kidnap Dessa?”

“And why?” Kastian adds.

Still looking a bit shaken, Connell sits up straighter. “The King of Hydratta.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Jett says instantly. “She was headed to Hydratta already, and if they were the ones to plan this, then why would you kill their emissary?”

“King Magnus hired us to kidnap the darling Odessa and make it look like Solistine did it.”

“Why?” I demand, my mind spinning. “What did Solistine do?”

“No idea,” Connell says. “Give me another bit of bread and I might think of something.”

Looking wary, Jett reaches over and puts another bit of bread into the pirate’s mouth. Connell smirks and takes an unusually long time to chew and swallow before he finally answers. “So far as I know, Solistine didn’t do anything.”

“If you lie our agreement is off,” I snap.

“I’m not lying, darling. I can’t say I know the King of Hydratta that well—royals don’t usually spend much time socializing with their hired killers, you know—but I didn’t get the feeling this was about Solistine. It was about you.”

“Me?” I ask incredulously. “He doesn’t even know me…not really, anyway.”

“Not you , darling. You, like your court. It was about Vernallis.”

My head spinning with questions, I turn to Kastian, who hasn’t said anything. “What do you think?”

He blinks at me, as if coming out of a stupor. “I believe him.”

“Really? Why?”

“This is exactly the kind of thing Magnus would do. The bastard is incredibly opportunistic and cunning, but he’s also patient. He waited years to find the moment to usurp my father.”

And he made multiple plans when his original ideas got foiled. I think, wishing desperately I could say it out loud.

“He did?” I ask, as it’s the only thing I can physically force from my throat.

Unaware of the war I’m waging inside my head, Kastian nods. “He’s been lying low for a while because conquering Hydratta was destabilizing.”

“And he won,” Jett adds. “No offense, Kas, but it’s not as if you’ve been much of a threat to him. He’s likely thought he was untouchable until now.”

“Hang on,” Connell says, glancing from Kastian to me to Jett and back. “Just to be sure I have this straight, you’re Kastian . Like Prince Kastian ? The one who was supposed to have died years ago?”

Looking resigned, Kastian just nods.

Connell’s eyes widen in apparent delight as he nods from Kastian to me. “And you’re with her?”

“No,” I say flatly at the same time as Kastian says: “Yes.”

Connell grins. “…and she was going to marry the king who killed your family and stole your throne?”

“Yes, sort of.” I answer at the same time as Kastian says: “Absolutely fucking not.”

Connell cackles with laughter. “Oh, that is absolutely poetic. I wonder if King Magnus knows or if it’s a coincidence. Gods, I wish I could be there when he finds out. I’d pay real money for that.”

“Alright, shut the fuck up,” Jett snaps.

Connell turns his attention to Jett. “Wait, who are you then? What’s your role in this deliciously tragic little drama?”

“I’m the guy who you’re really fucking lucky you didn’t meet on that train. If I’d been there like I was supposed to be, then we wouldn’t be sitting here now having this conversation.”

Connell cocks his head. “You know, I actually believe that. Unlucky for me then that you weren’t. I could have avoided so much unnecessary suffering.”

“Can we get back to the actual point?” I grumble. “All I want is for this conversation to end so we can go to sleep.”

Kastian nods tightly, his brow furrowing with exhaustion. “If Magnus wanted your kidnapping and death blamed on Solistine, he must have had a reason. I’m guessing that the reason is Daemon.”

“What do you mean?”

“Magnus knows Alix and Daemon are new rulers, but they’re building an army. They’re only a few years away from being extremely dangerous if they wanted to be. My guess is he wants them as allies in case they wake up in ten years and decide to conquer the entire continent.”

“They won’t,” I say confidently.

“Yeah, but Magnus doesn’t know that,” Jett chimes in.

“I think Kas is right. Magnus is covering his own ass, and he’s willing to sacrifice Solistine to do it.

Ashwater would go to war with Solistine if he thought they ordered your death.

He and Alix already said as much in our meeting the other day. ”

“Was that really only a few days ago?” I sigh. “I feel like I’ve lived years since then.”

“Hang on,” Connell says. “I never said anything about death. He didn’t want us to kill her, just kidnap her.”

“What was the endgame of that?” I ask.

Connell shrugs, but Kastian interjects. “That makes sense too, actually.”

Jett nods. “I agree. So, let’s say you’re Magnus, you propose a betrothal to Dessa as an alliance between Hydratta and Vernallis, but you know that’s not likely to work out because Dessa is hundreds of years younger than you and looks like that,” Jett gestures toward me.

I blush, but don’t interrupt. Neither does anyone else as Jett stands up from the bed and begins pacing, still thinking out loud.

“So you know the betrothal is a long shot, but you have a backup plan of organizing Dessa’s kidnapping.

As soon as the kidnapping becomes public knowledge, you contact Daemon and get him to agree to go to war against Solistine together.

Then, maybe, you rescue Dessa and she’s so grateful that the marriage works out anyway.

But even if not, you’ve just gotten yourself the alliance with Vernallis which was the entire goal to begin with. ”

He stops to take a breath. “You have to admit, it’s kind of a brilliant plan. Any way you look at that, it works out for Magnus—there’s no scenario in which he doesn’t get the alliance.”

“Except for this one,” Kastian growls. “Now that we know what Magnus had planned, Dessa won’t go to Hydratta and we’ll go back to Vernallis and tell Daemon before Magnus can get to him.”

“How long do we have, though?” I ask the room at large. “King Magnus will be expecting Connell’s crew to kidnap me, so when was he going to contact Daemon about the potential war?”

“I can answer that,” Connell says. “If?—”

Anticipating his request, Jett shoves a piece of cheese in Connell’s mouth. The pirate swallows, then grins at Jett. “I see you’re learning. Good boy.”

“Just get to the point,” Jett says grumpily.

“We were told to sail through the Stait of Scylla and around Hydratta until we reached Solistinian waters. Once there, I was supposed to wait for Hydratta or Vernallis to come after us. It would have been a suicide mission for anyone else, but for me…” he trails off, smirking.

“How long would it take to reach Solistine?” I cut in. “It would usually take over a week, but you were going by the Strait of Scylla…so five days?”

“Six,” Connell corrects.

I heave a deep breath. “Alright. We’ve already lost two days as far as I can tell, by the time we’ve slept we’ll only have four days left to reach Vernallis before Magnus contacts Daemon and Alix and tries to start a war.

That’s not a lot of time—without flying or taking the train, I’m not even sure it can be done. ”

“It’ll have to be possible,” Kastian says flatly. “Magnus already destroyed one kingdom, I’m not going to let him do it again or manipulate our friends into helping him do it. Someone needs to stop him, and I’ve been waiting nearly a century to do it.”