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Chapter Thirteen
Talyria
T his man had saved my life. And to top it off he was handsome. And asking me to marry him.
I could work with this. I offer him what I hope is a flirtatious smile. It’s been a while since I’ve had to do this, being imprisoned for twenty years doesn’t leave one with many opportunities to flirt.
And before that, my husband and I were at odds and had been since he learned that I was running a criminal empire on the side. So, I dearly hope my smile looks coy and not like I’m nauseated. “How about we start with getting your real name and go from there?”
“That isn’t a no,” the man says, pointing at me.
“You’re incredibly astute.”
“No, actually I’m Victor,” he replies smoothly.
Poor puns? I’m beginning to see why he is proposing on the road to random women, but there is something about it that is actually endearing. So much so that I find myself holding out my hand. “I am Talyria.”
“A lovely name for a beautiful woman,” he says as he bends over to pick up the knife that he threw at the wolf. I add brave to the list of qualities of this stranger.
I’m not sure that just anyone would have helped me. Not that I needed help, but I enjoyed that he put the effort in.
“Your name is very strong, I hope it proves true.”
The corner of his mouth turns up as he twists the dagger in his hand, he keeps his eyes on it. He doesn’t immediately boast to being strong, so I also add humble to my imaginary list. He inhales deeply and looks up at me. “Where are you heading?”
“Isn’t that a bit of a personal question?”
His eyebrows raise. “More personal than asking you to be my wife?”
“Fair enough,” I say with a small chuckle. “Then you won’t mind if I ask you the same.”
“I’m going back home,” he replies as he reaches up, brushing a curl off his forehead.
“And home is…?”
“On the coast, it’s a small town.”
“What a coincidence,” I lie. “I was just heading for the coast.”
Victor is silent for a long moment as he bends over, wiping his blade off on the grass to clean the blood off, but then he leaps to his feet after he has sheathed his dagger and is all smiles. “Well, then I think we’re both in luck. You should come with me.”
“I should?”
“Well, these are dangerous woods. Don’t you know, there are wolves about?” He leans toward me and winks. “I could use the protection, and you could probably use the company.”
I decide to cross humble off my list, but hey. Handsome, strong, brave, good natured… he seems to have many good qualities. So, I find myself nodding.
Who knows? Having a guy with those qualities willing to marry me could come in very handy.
“So, you lied to me.”
Victor pauses, the door he had just opened swings back toward him but is stopped by his foot. “I didn’t lie,” he argues, placing his hand on his hips. “I just… didn’t give you all the details… immediately.”
I arch my brow. “You knew I hated guardsmen, and then you failed to tell me that you were a guardsman.”
Victor turns his attention back to the door and pushes it open. We’re in the middle of searching the other rooms of the inn for the scattered guests. Then Victor has the grand idea of making them all read from a spellbook to make certain that they aren’t sorcerers. I’m not sure what he plans on doing when we find the sorcerer, but I guess I should just be glad that he hasn’t thought of having me read that spellbook.
As a sorceress that could end poorly for me.
I don’t have it in me to feel glad, I’m just too jetting frustrated. After all this time, I am back to the same mistakes of the past. Married to a guardsman?
I married a guard once and I’ll take the blame for that. I thought our love could overcome our moral differences. But to be fooled into marrying a guard again? That’s Victor’s fault.
“What was I supposed to do?” he protests. “You only informed me of hating guardsmen after we were married. I can’t change what I was, I’m not actually a guardsman anymore.”
“Once a guardsman, always a prat.”
“You aren’t honestly mad at me over this are you?” Victor demands, whirling towards me. “It was a former employment. I never even liked being a guard. Besides, me being a guard never came up and when it did—”
“You lied to my face. You had the chance to come clean and you chose to keep me in the dark.”
“Um… maybe I should go check a different room,” Estelle suggests as she gestures down the hall. I ignore her as I stride after Victor.
“I never lied,” he argues. “You just never asked, and don’t you think we have more pressing issues right now?” He reaches up, running a hand through his hair, clearly agitated.
I feel a quick pang of guilt over being so angry. It’s true, I didn’t actually ask Victor if he was a guard when we met. Victor isn’t Petrov. I can’t very well place my first husband’s transgressions on him.
And yet, aren’t they the same? They are both guards, they’ll always put their first love—the law— before me. I learned that the hard way when Petrov learned of my criminal undertakings.
I had thought that he had sworn to stand by my side forever, but that was apparently only if I was a law-abiding citizen. Instead, he sold me out, led to my downfall, and then got himself killed before we had a chance to make things right.
And if given half the chance, Victor will do the same thing.
He already has Petrov’s ridiculous self-sacrificing tendency, just proving that these guards are all the same. They’re too good, too righteous for a sinner like me.
Somehow, I’ve wound up bound to yet another one. I’m not ready for another thousand years imprisonment only to wake up as if it all happened yesterday and to feel the heartache as fresh as ever.
I jab Victor in his chest. “It makes me wonder what other secrets you are keeping.”
This takes Victor aback, the frustration in his expression is quickly replaced by panic. “What? Nothing!” he says too hastily, too desperately.
Estelle pauses on her way down the hall and away from our drama. She lets out a snort. “Please, just because Victor is a guard doesn’t mean that he is leading a secret life. He’s too straightlaced for that. If there is one thing that you can always count on, it’s that Victor will be the same old person he always was. It’s a bit boring, but hey at least he’s dependable like that.”
Victor whips his head to Estelle, his eyes narrowing. “Precisely,” he says even though the words seem to pain him.
I work my bottom jaw as I study him. “Take off your shirt,” I say after a second.
Victor backs up a step, clutching at the fabric of his shirt as if scandalized by my suggestion. Estelle’s eyes widen in shock, and she turns, taking off down the hall finally making good on her suggestion to leave us to our marital disagreement.
“Now is hardly the time, dear ,” he protests.
“You should be dead; you should be bleeding everywhere and yet you’re not. I want to know why. Now. Take. Off. Your. Shirt.” I tilt my head, arching my brow. “Or should I remove it for you?”
His eyebrows shoot up, and he pauses a second as if seriously considering my offer. But then his fingers tighten around the collar of his shirt as if he is really concerned that I’m about to rip it off him. His knuckles whiten as he turns his brown gaze to me. “All the ways I imagined you saying that tonight, I never thought it would come out sounding so threatening.”
I ignore him and lunge at him, grabbing at his coat. “How can you be all right? That glass should have killed you; sorcerers don’t miss.”
He jerks his coat out of my hand. “Don’t sound so disappointed, honey.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re lying to me.”
“I think you need to calm down,” he says holding up both his hands.
“ Don’t tell me to calm down. I demand some honesty. I’m your wife, you owe me that much at least.”
Victor looks like he is about to give in, but then his eyes flash with something I can’t quite place. It isn’t an emotion, more like a shimmer of green in his very deeply brown eyes.
I don’t know how to describe it except for a second it almost seems like something else was in there with Victor.
“Why are you so paranoid?” he demands.
“Because that’s exactly how my last marriage ended,” I blurt out. I inhale sharply as my words hang in the air between us. Victor stumbles back like I physically slapped him. To be honest, I’m a bit surprised myself. I’m not sure if I had intended to say that, but now that it’s out in the open there’s no point in continuing to be secretive. “Secrets got between us, and he wound up dead.” I tilt my head, forcing a smile to try to hide the pain behind an even tone and a nonchalant act. “We wouldn’t want that to happen again, now, would we?”
Victor’s mouth pops open in shock and I make the split-second decision to utilize that shock. Now is my chance to get the upper hand and force him to tell me what he is keeping from me. “What do you mean previous marriage?” he asks. “Talyria, what—”
I drop to the ground, swinging my leg out under his. Victor isn’t prepared in the least for my move, he hits the wooden boards in a second. I crawl onto him before he can have the chance to respond and pull his dagger out of his sheath.
He chokes on a breath, the breath obviously driven from his lungs. I tilt my head as I study him. “What? Did you really think that you were the first?” I ask.
His eyes find mine only now the green flash is gone, all that remains are soft brown orbs betraying a wounded nature, and I wonder if perhaps I went too far.
But then I remembered what Petrov did when he couldn’t accept me with all my imperfections, and I decide that it doesn’t matter that I hurt Victor. Better than he hurt me first.
And if he can’t accept me the way I am then it’s better to learn now.
“Marriage is built on trust,” I say as I press the dagger to his cheek. “I’ll have the truth out of you, or I will have nothing at all.”
Victor clenches his jaw as he regards me in a challenging manner as if daring me to cut him. I glance down at the knife. I hadn’t been expecting him to call my bluff. I certainly was not anticipating that he would be angry and hurt enough to not be afraid of me.
I think I need to get some help because I keep ending up in situations like this with my husbands, where I wind up pointing weapons at them.
But I’ve already showed my hand, I can’t pull back now. I stare down at him, wondering if I should give him a real quick shave to show him that I mean business when suddenly that green flash is back.
In a second, a small green tentacled creature is on my hand.
“What?” I gasp out as it wraps its suctioned tentacles around me.
Victor’s eyes round, and for the first time since I put a dagger to his cheek, he actually looks afraid. “Likho, don’t!” he cries out just as the creature pulls back its head and sinks a tiny beak into my skin.
“Ow!” I cry leaping back, losing my hold of the dagger as I do.
I stop a few paces away, holding my hand to my chest as the sea creature leaps from my arm and wraps its tentacles around my dagger. If I’m honest, it looks like the illustrations of krakens I have seen in bestiaries before the great collapse of my people. But much smaller.
And krakens are supposed to live in the water.
“What is that thing?” I hiss as Victor pushes to a sitting position, holding the side of his head. He looks at the miniature kraken then back at me. “Uh… this is Likho. He doesn’t like it when someone threatens me. Someone who isn’t him, that is.”
I furrow my brows. The name Likho sounds familiar. As I think about it, I realize that the name is from the pantheon of demigods. He is the demigod of chaos and ill fates. One of the winter months is named after him.
I always served Jarus, the demigod of shadows, just as my sister did, but I am aware of who Likho is. When I came of age, I was allowed to choose any demigod to be my patron. It was a Higher Elf custom that the Lowlanders and Lower Elves of the valley hated. They said that the demigods did not deserve our worship.
As if the gods did. The Lower Elves’ god was dead, what made him any more worthy than a demigod?
Victor holds out his hand and the kraken crawls onto it, leaving my dagger behind. The kraken grows smaller and flatter until it seems to be a mark on his skin, inked there but then even that fades until I’m left wondering if I ever saw it or if I’m perhaps going mad.
It’s just like Likho to make me doubt my sanity.
“No, I suppose I haven’t been entirely honest,” Victor says quietly. “But I don’t think you have either.”
To answer, I hold out my hand and use Jarus’s power to take control of the dagger on the ground. It slices through the air, landing hilt first in my hand. I quietly slide it into my belt.
“Are you…” Victor begins, pulling his knee to his chest as if afraid to ask the question because of what the answer might be. “Are you the sorcerer who killed those men? Who tried to kill me?”
I give my head a sharp shake. “No,” I say quickly. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“But you are a sorcerer.” It’s a quiet phrase. Not quite an accusation, but he does sound disappointed.
“So are you,” I counter defensively.
He shrugs halfheartedly. “In a sense.”
“I’ve never seen sorcery manifest like that,” I say, gesturing to his now empty arm. “What was that?”
“I’m not just a sorcerer who worships Likho, I’m his vessel. I died a few months ago and made a bargain with Likho. I would be his tether to the physical living world, and he would keep me alive. It’s why I wasn’t killed by the shards of glass. Technically, I was already dead, and the same power of the demigod that had brought me back has been keeping me alive since.”
I can barely believe his words. It all rings of madness, but there is a sincerity in his confession that makes it impossible to doubt him. I find myself wanting to tell him a secret equally huge.
“I’m a thousand and sixty-year-old ex-vampire,” I admit. I reach out rubbing my finger against a stain on my tunic. I wonder if it is blood, although whose I have no idea. It’s been a long night. “You may have heard of me; I was the fabled Thief Queen.”
Victor’s eyes shoot up at that. It’s clear that he’s heard of me. I wonder what stories lasted all these years. I wonder how true they are.
“I dabble in thievery,” he says after a moment. “I was just coming back from robbing some manors off the capital when we met.”
I exhale slightly. It feels like a weight I didn’t even realize was there has lifted off my chest and now I can breathe fully. I hadn’t realized just how exhausting my ruse was, but now I find myself realizing that I don’t have to keep lying. At least not to Victor.
I don’t know why I was so worried about him being an ex-guardsman. He is like me. Perhaps we are more compatible than I’d first realized. He is someone who has lived passed what he should have, has been touched by sorcery, and now lives with thievery in his blood. I may have actually fallen in love with him before our vows instead of marrying him for the convenience of it all.
“Talyria?” he says softly after a long moment. It’s as if it’s painful to even say my name.
“Yes?”
“Were you really married before?”
I press my eyes shut, remembering Petrov’s face, the light in his eyes, the way his smile made me feel. “That was a long time ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, softly.
“Probably for the same reason you lied to me. I was scared you couldn’t love who I truly was.”
“You were right,” he says quietly. He reaches up, I think to fiddle with his wedding ring like I’ve noticed him doing quite a bit before. But instead, he pulls it off. “Marriage is built on trust.”
I feel my mouth drop open, but I’m not sure what to say. I won’t beg him to have me. Suddenly the weight is back. I was completely right in all my fears after all.
Victor won’t meet my gaze as he drops the ring and pushes to his feet. “How could we have expected to start a new life together when we both had so many lies?”
I watch him, trying to find a reason for the cavernous pain I feel opening up inside of me.
I barely know Victor, he barely knows me. Clearly, we were wrong about who we thought the other was.
And yet… is he really going to walk away just like Petrov did?
I bite down on my lip hard, trying to keep from crying as I pull off my own ring. I fling it down onto the ground, it makes a slight ringing sound as it lands on top of Victor’s.
Another failed marriage and this one didn’t last nearly as long as the last one had.
I think it’s time to face it that people like me don’t get eternal love. That’s the price of power. Even the power that I no longer have creates a vacuum that sucks at everything in my life. Leaving no room for love.