Page 38 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Thirty-Two

The Command

Isa

Isa wanted to die.

She had never been suicidal. Nor had she ever been dramatic. So when she thought the words, she meant them—death would be preferable to this.

She had always been an assassin. A carefully honed killer that the Father had utilized to keep himself aloft.

One that could walk through noble circles as easily as hide in the shadows.

She was beautiful enough to mesmerize men as she slipped them poison and could disappear just as quickly after a knife in the back.

It had been her joy and pleasure to craft her various instruments to her ends. That joy had been demolished with the collar at her throat.

Her choices were no longer her own.

Her methods were no longer her own.

Her kills were no longer her own.

Now they all belonged to this collar and the Father.

A few whispered words were all he needed before he cast her at his enemies.

Nothing better than a sharpened blade as she was thrust into danger.

Her instincts would kick in, barely keeping her from being caught as she murdered people in cold blood.

Sometimes, she wasn’t even that lucky. The compulsion of the collar was so strong that she would kill anyone who was nearby as well.

She stared down at her blood-soaked hands as she stepped into the Father’s office and waited as silent as a wraith. She wished she could blend into the background and be forgotten, to no longer have to endure this.

“I do not care to hear more of your failure,” the Father snarled at his prodigy.

Roake clenched his jaw. “They kidnapped her. Audria is gone with the dragon speaker, and we’re not even doing anything to rescue her.”

“She is collateral damage at best,” the Father told him blandly. “She had already turned against us. I am not even convinced that it was a kidnapping. It seems more likely that she was already working with Kerrigan as I feared.”

Roake’s features turned furious, but there was a hitch in his voice as he said, “She would never.”

“You trained with them,” the Father said as he rose to his considerable height.

Roake had been a Dragon Eggs champion before joining the Society, and still somehow the Father made him look small.

“You know her allegiance to the girl. She fought against us. The fact that I allowed your feelings for her to supersede the mission was a mistake.”

“I believe we can still extract her.”

“Why do you believe that? They have the dragon speaker. Do you not think they have discerned my plans and are on the way to the Holy Mountain already? It was too late to intercept them after you returned. I have sent another emissary to the mountain to see if we can still acquire more dragons, but if I know Kerrigan Argon, she has already done it herself, and that is on your head.”

Roake gulped. “I was outmaneuvered.”

“That much is clear,” the Father said dismissively. “We will speak of this no longer.”

“But, Bastian…”

“We are finished ,” the Father snarled at the use of his name.

Roake retreated a step. Isa could see something there. A bit of defiance. He loved the girl. That was dangerous. The Father should eliminate him.

No.

She silenced the insidious voice that sometimes echoed what the Father was thinking rather than her own thoughts. Roake should be careful. The Father suspected him, and it didn’t go well for the ones he suspected. Isa was proof enough of that. If there was a way to warn him…

But there wasn’t.

Even if she wanted to.

She hung her head as Roake stomped past her in annoyance.

“Isannah, come here.”

And against her will, her feet moved across the room. She stopped before him, keeping her eyes down. She didn’t want to see his face. Each time, it was worse.

“Do you believe him?”

“No,” she said bluntly.

“Mmm,” he said. “Nor I. I’ll keep an eye on him. I have a mission for you.”

He offered her a piece of paper, and she took it. She opened it to reveal an already familiar address. Her gaze dropped.

“I want you to kill the leader of the human rebellion.”

Isa’s heart stuttered. The leader. No. It was too much. Politicians, nobility, mobsters. The ilk that needed to fall in line. But this?

“Will that be a problem?”

“No,” she said immediately as if she could say anything else. “Consider it done.”

“Good,” he said, sinking back into his seat with pleasure.

She headed toward the door, thinking she had gotten away with it.

“Isa.”

She stilled with her hand on the doorknob.

“Look at me.”

She ground her teeth before meeting his eyes. So full of wrath and love and a million horrors. His severed hand left an absence. The Ring of Endings rested on the other hand.

The red mask sat on the table. He was wearing it more than not these days.

The thing that only he could remove, and the lines between who he was and who the mask made him were past blurring to fully defined.

Once, he’d worn it because of the burns all those years ago.

When he had saved her from the fire that had consumed her mother’s life and led him on this path of destruction.

She cursed the mask that had once been a symbol of hope in her life. Now it was only a symbol of death.

“You know why we do this, don’t you?”

Isa remained still at the question. She had lost sight of the mission. Of course he could see that.

He rose to his feet and came toward her. She couldn’t move when he brushed his hand down her jaw. “It’s for her.”

“For her,” Isa said blankly.

“All this is for her.”

Isa trembled. Was he talking about her mother? He had not mentioned her in all the years since the accident, since humans had burned down their home, leaving him permanently scarred. He’d walked out of the burning house with a bundle in his arms and nothing more.

He’d championed a new world out of those burns. A new world for Fae at least. No one had believed that he would be the leader of the Red Masks. Not when he had done so much good in the world.

But they did not know why.

They did not know the truth.

“I wish she was here,” Isa whispered.

Bastian clenched his hand into a fist. For a moment, she thought he would shatter her pretty face once more for speaking of her, but he let his hand drop.

“Wishes are for wells,” he said as he sank back into his chair. “We do the work in her name.”

“Yes, Father,” she said.

He waved his hand as if dismissing the conversation about her mother. “I’ll need you back to observe the planning for the Society Ball.” He arched an eyebrow. “Do not be long.”

She nodded, trying and failing to hide her enmity.

Then she fled his chambers. This Society Ball was absurd. Why invite all his enemies here? What was his goal? Was he trying to win them over? Or did he envision something more sinister? Would she be forced to kill everyone present? Would it finally claim her life?

She hoped so.

Either way, it was going to be one hell of a party.