Page 64

Chapter

Forty-Eight

Nuo

“ A ssassins?”

Kazhi was quick to react after I rolled the dead body at my feet. Long grass stuck to the black clothing and well-made weapons—the first giveaway that our attackers weren’t Aethar.

The day was only beginning as the sun peeked over the horizon.

I’d been leading Kazhi and Bastane across the southern river lands toward Danuli.

With each passing day in the two weeks since we left the confinement of those canyons, we put miles between us and all the shit that was revealed.

We stopped for nothing because we couldn’t explain why we were headed north without the Aspis because fuck me, everything was fucked.

“They aren’t Aethar,” I said, pulling up an assassin’s shirt and revealing his back.

“Guardian tattoos? One of our own attacked us?” Bastane ripped the shirt open, showing me an Aspis tattoo on leather-like skin—a Mount-leg.

We hadn’t seen an Aethar since leaving the desert and passing what remained of South Aspis.

“The question is, did the Council order this? Or is Falizha working alone?” I wiped off my knives, regretting that I didn’t get a chance to interrogate them. However, turning my blades on my own sickened me.

“My guess is Falizha’s covering her mistakes. She failed to deliver the Guards to the final battle and then left us for dead.” Kazhi was pulling her knives from several dead Guardians. “I bet she’s had them watch the roads for us to exit the canyons.”

Bastane pulled the bodies off the road and hid them in the long grass. “Do we go back to the Guardian lands if we have hired killers after us? This is unbelievable,” he grunted, lifting the legs of a particularly large man and dragging him off the road. “They are our own people.”

“We go back.” Kazhi checked the assassin’s pockets, taking crystals and weapons, and scored some dried meat.

“We’re taking the Council down. Let’s not forget the Council has hired assassins before to kill our own.

I was one of them.” She brought several bundles of food to my horse and added them to the bags I already carried.

I snatched one from her hand. “Why am I stuck with all the bags again? I can barely fit my seat.” My ass was sore from something digging into it for several hours straight.

“You’re bag boy.” Kazhi took the bag back, tying it to my horse.

“I am not the bag boy. I am the mapper, the Interrogator, the best-looking one among us that makes me the fucking leader of this operation.”

“The biggest pain in the ass gets stuck with the bags,” Bastane added, wiping his forehead. “Guess who takes that title? Every time.”

“You two never learned to respect me. When Brekt finds out?—”

Kazhi snorted. “He’s going to knock out your teeth when he finds out what a shit you’ve been these past months.”

I busied myself with my horse. It was my own godsdamned fault for bringing him up. I avoided discussing what we saw in the canyons. The others … it was like everything was back to how it was before he became the Aspis.

I shook my head. “He doesn’t need to hear everything. That is if we ever see him again without having to calm his rage.”

Liv said she’d seen him, not as that dark creature but as a man—as himself. I wasn’t sure I believed her. Fuck—I wasn’t ready to believe anything.

I clutched the strap on my horse, holding my breath. Only when my vision blurred, and the pain eased from my chest did I exhale.

“Haven’t seen the beast since we left it circling in the canyons.” Bastane walked behind his own horse, making it difficult to hear him.

The beast took off several days after the Ikhor …

after Liv left. It flew south over a cliff and hadn’t reappeared since, and I waited for the skies to go red, the sun to go out, or the ground to break open.

Some sign he was dead. But every day I woke, the world went on, and nothing changed—the final battle hadn’t taken place.

The Guards were useless. We couldn’t kill the Ikhor, as Liv had said, because she healed from the magic that possessed her, and we couldn’t follow the Aspis because we had no airship.

So we fell back on our other plan—to discover the secrets of the Council.

“We’ve discussed this every day. Regretted the decision to abandon the Aspis,” I said, waving my hand in the air. “I’m over it. He can take care of himself.”

After the canyons, we’d found a small village in the desert where we bought sand angulas to ride until we reached the river lands and traded for horses. In a few days, we would need to hire a boat and sail for the Guardian city and find Guardians to ally to our side.

The assassins put a dent in those plans.

I lifted a foot and set it on a broken, damp log. “I agree with Kaz. Being on the run does nothing for my beauty sleep. We go back to the city, have a nice meal, let the people see we are still alive and badass, and start getting others on our side. I’ll do the sweet talking.”

Bastane muttered something about my mood improving, then added, “Hopefully, the Aspis shows up so we don’t look like fools.”

He was fixing his hair—the poor prince worried about his image while surrounded by miles of nothing.

Kazhi’s dark stare swept over the clouds. “I wonder if that’s why it followed us before—somewhere inside, he knew.”

I scoffed, turning back to my horse, pushing the bags around to figure out what had been poking me in the ass. “Well then, the bastard hasn’t changed. He still does whatever he wants while I suffer and carry all your shit.”

“Keep your mouth shut, and I’ll carry them. Until then, you suffer.” Kazhi’s mocking smile dropped when her attention went to something behind me.

I followed her line of sight to find a dark figure tearing through the sky. “Fucking finally,” I muttered, though my heart rate didn’t match the tone of my words. It sped with anticipation as I went over all the things I was going to say when he showed his face again.

“Think Brekt will show up at some point?” Kazhi asked.

The Aspis glowed golden on one side where the morning light hit its scales.

I was about to answer when the Aspis dove for the ground.

“What in the Endless Night?” Bastane yelled.

It didn’t slow as it wound in circles, aiming for a flat patch of land twenty feet from where we stood.

I sucked in a breath, taking several steps back. “It’s going to nose dive?—”

The Aspis disappeared into black smoke as a whirlwind of darkness replaced the beast and blew away on a breeze, leaving a lone figure standing in the grass.

Morning light shone off the dark head of hair—a head that was void of curling horns. He dusted himself off, spotting us gaping like fools, and regarded us with obsidian, normal, annoyingly casual eyes.

Then, he waved as if he’d seen us only yesterday.

My mouth hung open for several seconds before I could speak. “A fucking wave?”

Kazhi raced toward him, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. Otherwise, I might fall apart.

It’s a trick, I told myself, even though I’d seen him a few weeks ago.

He let out a grunt when she collided with him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

No horns, no fangs. Was this a hallucination?

Bastane was on the move.

I was— no . I wasn’t scared. You’re a fucking Guard.

Bastane clapped Brekt on the shoulder while Kazhi remained wrapped around him.

His gaunt face broke into a grin as he looked my way. “Get your fucking ass over here.” His arms went out as if to welcome me.

My brother’s voice. My dead brother’s voice.

I tried to move forward but couldn’t. I fell onto my knees, and the image of Brekt blurred.

It couldn’t be him. He was dead. I watched him fade away. I watched pieces of him float into the sky and vanish. I watched the blood gush from his chest after the Aethar stabbed him. I held him as his eyes closed for the last time.

I watched him return as a beast and then fade to the Aspis again. Now, as if all I had suffered was a dream, he was before me, grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me to my feet.

I stared into a face more familiar than my own—one I’d known since we were boys, though there was a new scar on his face, over his left eye.

I’d seen every expression that face could make.

I’d seen it battered and bruised and seen it lit with joy, even if only briefly.

Nothing could fake this. No magic could conjure that look he was giving me.

“Always knew you were a sap,” Brekt said, drawing me in for a hug.

I couldn’t speak. What the fuck . I yanked him close, and if the cursed bastard wasn’t as rigid as he’d always been.

Then my sister was there, and my second brother—my family. And I fucking wept. I wept because the gods had never blessed anyone as well as they had me in that moment. I had not loved many. In fact, they were all right here. The only ones I would ever let into my damaged, rotten little heart.

Brekt pulled away, his face streaked with tears. All our faces were. Then he backhanded me in the gut.

“Cursed Night.” I coughed around a laugh. “Did you have to come back?”

“We’ve got a lot to catch up on. Stop whining.” Brekt wiped a hand down his face. And I shook off the tremor running through me. “Pull yourself together, team. The fucking Guards are back in business.”

Kazhi tilted her head back and howled like an animal, making the birds screech high above. She jumped on Brekt’s back, swatting him in the head. “Lead on, you handsome bastard.” Her hands were in his hair, messing it around his face.

“What in the Endless Night happened to Kaz?” Brekt sent a look at Bastane, who shrugged.

“Miracles can change a person. And we’ve all unloaded a little baggage since you’ve been gone.” Bastane wiped at his face and pushed his hair back, standing straight. “It’s disturbing to see, to say the least.”

“You got that right.” Brekt grabbed Kazhi by the wrist, trying to smooth his hair from his face.

I swallowed the sob that threatened to escape. “How? Last time, you were not yourself.”