One cannot underestimate the power of such a thing. It is enough to build a connection that deceptively resembles love.
And who is to say it isn’t? It feels like love. It tastes like love. It consumes him like love.
Perhaps these two people would not have found any reason to be with each other in any other world.
But in this one, they became each other’s only reason to live.
The slave quickly learned that it was far harder to care about something than it was to care about nothing. For the first decades of his imprisonment, he curated his apathy like an art. Now, in a matter of weeks, it shatters. Every strike hurts more because of the way she reacts to it. Every debasement is more shameful because she witnesses it. Every act of violence against her sends him closer to a line he knows he will not be able to return from—no matter how she begs him for restraint.
Who wins? she asks him, tears in her eyes. Who wins if he kills you?
So the years pass, and the slave does not fight.
But that kind of hatred never fades. It just festers. For years, decades. It consumes his heart like a fungus, until he can no longer remember a life before it.
The king grows more paranoid, more desperate for power, as rumblings of rebellion build in the distance. The Kejari approaches, an open door for all the king’s greatest enemies. As the world beyond his walls spirals further from his control, his desire to control the world within them grows more merciless. He requires constant distraction. Constant reminders of his own power.
The fungus grows.
The idea starts as a little knot of rot buried deep within. It spreads so quickly that even the slave cannot tell when it becomes more than a fantasy—only that one day, it is no longer a possibility, but an inevitability.
The slave starts paying attention to the whispers of the city. He learns of a promising Hiaj warrior, a man who makes no secret of his brutal commitment to his brutal intentions.
The first trial of the Kejari, the slave is allowed to attend alongside the king.
He sits behind the queen and watches her adjust her hair to hide the bruises around her throat.
He watches the bloody colosseum below as the blond vampire hacks apart his enemies with the same ferocity he would use to hack apart the world and take what he wants from it.
He watches the king, and the fear he tries to pretend does not exist.
And the slave, at last, sees an opportunity.
The kingdom is already drenched in oil.
He is more than willing to provide a match.
43
ORAYA
I had no idea where we were going.
It was impossible to fly well with Raihn’s weight dragging me down, even though he did try—unsuccessfully—to help. But that was probably for the better. We dropped low quickly, hiding between the buildings of Sivrinaj while I frantically tried to keep us airborne. I managed to get us to the edge of the human districts before we crashed down on cobblestone streets.
Raihn, despite his injuries, somehow managed to get up quickly, limping along the walls of crumbling brick buildings. As soon as I got to my feet, I tucked myself under his arm to help support him.
I squinted up at the brightening, cloudless sky above.
“We need to get you inside,” I said. “Fast.”
I looked around, searching for an empty building to take shelter in, but Raihn kept dragging us forward, jaw clenched.
“I know where we’re going,” he said.
“Your apartment? You’ll never make it. We’ll find—”
“We’re going,” he snapped.
I was ready to argue with him again, but he shot me a look—stony, determined—that made my mouth close.
In these hazy minutes between night and dawn, it was quiet on both sides of Sivrinaj—vampire and human. But soon, I knew, we would attract attention in the human districts under a rising sun. We made it a block and a half before I spotted the first set of eyes peering through a bedroom window, hidden hastily when I met them.
“People will see you,” I muttered. “We have to find somewhere faster.”
“No.” The word came between clenched teeth. Raihn was moving slower, leaning heavily on the walls—and clinging, with limited success, to the shadows they cast—but he still dragged himself forward. “We’re close. One more block.”
Mother, I didn’t know if we would make it that far.
It felt like an age later that the building came into view, and I felt his breath of relief at the sight. But by then, dark burns marked his cheekbone on one side, slowly spreading across his face.
His steps were so, so slow. I was caving beneath his weight. The sun was rising higher.