Maera’s eyes flashed, her face scarlet and her mouth a grimace. “Unclean thing,” she spat at Red. “Abomination. Your sister is lost, Second Daughter. She’ll bow to the Kings’ wishes, and there’s nothing you can do.”
The decision was made in that split second, that mention of Neve, a reminder that even with all this power, she was helpless.
The roots tightened. Maera’s eyes bulged. And Red let them keep tightening until the life in them blinked out.
“Killing her won’t make it less true.” Kiri’s voice, hoarse. She still moved forward, impossibly strong; behind her, Kayu struggled with the belt, but the magic that let Kiri hear the Kings somehow lent her unnatural strength. “You can’t do anything to stop this. All of it rests on Neverah now, and I’ve seen her darkness. You’re the only thing that could make her hold on to herself, and when you’re gone, so is she. It’s over.”
“Yes, it is,” growled a voice from the door.
Eammon. Veins green, eyes afire, striding across the broken floor. Eammon, wrapping one hand around Kiri’s jaw and the other around the back of her neck. Eammon, twisting, a crack as the High Priestess’s neck broke.
Green-haloed eyes checked over Red, made sure she was unharmed, then turned to Kayu. “I just spoke with Raffe,” the Wolf said, his voice the sound of autumn chilling into winter as the body of the High Priestess crumpled to the floor. “You have some explaining to do.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Raffe
I only did it to escape my betrothal.”
The six of them huddled around a tavern table, shrouded in cloaks, seated in the darkest corner they could find. They didn’t attract much attention. Everyone here was very drunk or on their way to it.
Kayu stared into a tankard. Her third. Raffe wasn’t one for beer, but they didn’t have any wine here and a drink was a drink, so he’d downed two of his own. He stopped there, though—the look on the Wolf’s face was murderous, and Raffe had made a point of staying between him and Kayu.
He didn’t interrogate himself on why.
During their madcap flight from the Temple, the Shrine with its scene of bloodless death shut and locked and hopefully still undiscovered, they hadn’t spared time for discussion. It wasn’t until they arrived at the tavern, needing somewhere to wait out the two hours left until dawn, that the questions—and the anger—had time to reveal themselves.
“So you joined the Order.” Lyra had established herself as the go-between, the cool head that acted as a buffer between the Wolves and Kayu. “Because then you couldn’t be married off.”
“It was the only way to avoid it,” Kayu said. “I couldn’t run from my father forever. I chose the Rylt because it was far away, remote. I’d heard the Order was in some… turmoil… but I didn’t expect the Ryltish Temple to be caught up in it.”
Raffe grimaced. The same reasons Neve had packed the priestesses that didn’t follow Kiri off to the Rylt—the same reasons Raffe had sent Kiri herself and the remains of her followers to join them, after the shadow grove. But, apparently, adherents to a dying religion were willing to latch onto just about anything to try to keep it alive. The three-day voyage had changed the defecting priestesses’ minds about what was acceptable, and they’d spread the poison across the sea, making it the perfect place for Kiri to land. A ready-made cult, just waiting for their leader.
Shit. He really was starting to believe in destiny, in things you couldn’t escape. And destiny seemed to be a bastard.
“By the time I got here, the only priestesses left in the Temple were loyal to Kiri. And once they heard my story, they knew I’d be useful to her. As soon as Kiri arrived and found out who I was, she gave me an ultimatum.” Kayu spoke into her beer, the words kept low so they wouldn’t carry farther than their table. “Either I could go to Valleyda, or she’d send me back to my father.”
“Just go to Valleyda?” Red didn’t look nearly as angry as Eammon did—even though she’d been the one who was almost murdered—but there was a fierceness on her face that Raffe certainly wouldn’t want to cross. “Nothing else?”
The way she asked the question sounded like she knew the answer already.
“I was to go to Valleyda,” Kayu answered slowly, “and find a way to bring Red to the Rylt.”
Eammon was almost completely hidden in a heavy cloak, but his scarred hand was visible, wrapped around his tankard. Every vein went bright, blazing green, his grip tightening until Raffe thought he might break the thing.