Chapter Thirty-three

Naya didn't know where they'd landed, but there were more trees, endless woods to surround them on all sides. The sobs that were tearing from her throat were harsh and unforgiving, leaving her coughing and gasping for air. One of the Illyrians who wasn't the leader took her by the arms and shoved her against a nearby trunk.

It scratched her through her sweater, tearing between the stitches, but she didn't feel the pain.

"Search her." The leader ordered, and the Illyrian's hands were on her, feeling their way down her sides, over her arms, down her hips and over each leg. He tugged one of her boots off and shook it, repeats with the second, not caring that her feet bury in freezing snow with nothing but socks to warm them against the ice and mush. When he's finished, he tosses them at her feet and waits as she puts them back on in a rush.

The ring on her finger feels restricting, like the band is closing around it and cutting off the blood flow. The gemstone feels too bright, too obvious. She folds her arms over her chest, tucks her hands into her elbows to hide the jewelry and pretends it's from the cold. Her sniffles help her ruse as she shivers purposely.

She didn't know if it would do any good. Azriel may not come for her now, not after how the leader had lied and targeted her as a traitor and an enemy. If he did, he may just be coming for blood.

"Nothing." The Illyrian shoved away from her and addressed the leader who had stood by and watched him frisk her, dark gaze never letting her out of his sight.

The relief came slowly, having difficulty finding space amongst the fear and pain. Elain had to be alive, she told herself. Azriel would keep her alive long enough to get her help, and if he could find her after Elain was safe, she would explain everything, make him understand this was all some trick to plant doubts into their minds.

"Wait." The leader pushed his companion aside, and took up the space before Naya. His grip pulled her arms from her chest, having no difficulty against her fighting to keep them in place.

"What is this?" He picked up her hand and examined the ring.

She tried to yank away, but he held firm, his fingers paling her skin where they dug.

"Nothing." She bit.

He used his thumb and forefinger to pinch the ring, to slide it over her finger and let it fall to the ground. It took every ounce of her willpower to not watch it drop, to not collapse from its loss, the loss that was Azriel's way to her.

"Then you won't mind us leaving it behind." He dragged her towards him. "Forgive me if I don't trust your friends."

They winnowed from the spot, leaving that hope to be buried by the next snowfall.

OOO

She was been taken to a building that was old and decrepit. The concrete walls were splintered and cracked, great crevasses veining up the dirty bricks. A single light lit the small room she was in, where she'd been for what felt like hours. A dusty window told her she was several stories up, high above the streets, too far to jump. The Sidra through it told her they were in Velaris.

They had deposited her on the floor and left without a word to explain why they had come here, to this city where her friends were so close that she could almost feel them. She could hear footsteps outside her door, a door she had already tested to be locked, and so many voices she had hoped if she were to scream loud enough one of them may just find her and help her.

She had shouted until she could no more, until her throat was dry and straining, until she'd used all the pain of seeing Azriel mistrust her, all the agony of watching Elain fall with a knife in her back to strengthen the sound.

Perhaps they would leave her in here forever. To rot.

She had just resigned to the fact when the doorknob jiggled. The lock clicked and someone pushed the heavy wood away from its frame.

He looked like her, that's what she thought first, or rather she looked like him. Mor's father had the same color hair, the same shape of his eyes. If Naya looked there, and only there, she could pretend it was Mor's she was gazing into.

"What do you want with me?" her voice was hoarse, a gravelly sound that grated against her ears.

Keir walked into her tiny space, filled it up with his person. He radiated cruelty. It wafted off of him in waves of putrid heat that made her lip curl.

"It's not me who wanted you." He spoke, and his voice was smooth, almost cheerful. "You are just a part of the bargain I struck to get what I want."

His dress shoes were spotless. The black leather reflected the light in the room, made them look shiny and new. If she leaned in, she bet she could see her face peering back at her.

"And what is that?"

Keir buried his hands into the pockets of his slacks and smiled down at her to where she sat, too tired and too heart-broken to stand. "Velaris."

Naya's gaze snapped up. He would have to be the only male in all of Prythian stupid enough to attempt it, the only one with enough ambition and hatred to formulate such a fool-hardy plan. Even if he had the entirety of the Hewn City behind him, he would fail.

"You would need an army," she spit with as much venom as she could muster. "And even then, against my friends…" she trailed off, let him fill in the gaps with his imagination. His own daughter could squash him like a bug beneath the sole of her shoe.

"I have one." He gestured behind him to whatever lay beyond the door, to whoever was making all the noise. He shrugged, unbothered. "And as for your friends, they'll be too busy trying to save that stupid girl's life, too busy looking for you, the traitor amongst their mix who betrayed their love and trust."

He placed a hand over his heart, feigned a pained expression. "Tell me, how did my daughter react to her lover's," he gagged on the word, made a show of wiping his mouth clean of it as if it were the worst thing he'd ever tasted. "Disappearance. Did she weep?"

Naya saw red. Her hands fisted at her sides. Her teeth bared against him.

"I just hope they got the girl back in time so Mor could watch the last of her life drain from her eyes."

Naya bounded to her feet, was on him in a second. Her fists never landed a blow, her nails never found skin to tear. He was ready for her, thrilled in his game of tormenting her. He grabbed a fistful of her loose hair, twisted it in his grasp to force her to her knees with a whimper.

He wrenched her head back to peer down at her as an Illyrian male rushed into the room at the sound of the commotion. He was familiar, she thought, some part of him called to her memory.

"It's okay." Keir lifted his other hand behind him to stop the interruption. "Stay where you are."

To her surprise, the Illyrian listened, halting as soon as the order was given. Illyrians were proud folk, warriors who followed rank and didn't give much heed or care to outsiders. They'd sooner cleave a person's head from their shoulders than take insult or commands.

Something Azriel had told her rang in her mind, forcing her back to the camp when she'd just returned with Kirtida. He had said that Illyrians were making their way into Velaris in large numbers, more than the city's streets had ever seen.

"You have the Illyrians behind you." It was not a question. He had found some way to control them, or at least some bargain, as he'd said, to make an alliance.

She turned just her eyes to the male, unable to so much as move her head an inch in any direction under Keir's grasp.

"What could he have possibly given you to toss away your pride?"

Keir tightened his hold, provoking another yelp. "You, for starters." He bent so low that his breath wafted over her face. It smelled of cinnamon and tea. "And a new High Lord when we take over the city, one who will stay out of the Illyrians' way and leave them to their business."

"And a distraction," The Illyrian added, stepping around Keir so he, too, stood over her. "So that we can finally put an end to that camp of yours, and any ideas for a future one, once and for all."

"You're lying." It was a trick. She would not believe them. They had protections in place. Even the workers' memories had been wiped of its location. "You don't even know where it is."

"We do now." he spit, and the ball of salvia landed between her eyes, dribbled down her nose where she could not clean herself of it. "Thanks to you for bringing Kirtida home."

Kirtida. She had been the first female to come to them, so battered and bruised that one would have to be cold-hearted to not feel pity and sorrow for her situation, for the life she had lived.

Naya couldn't believe that she would give them up. She had chosen to be a part of the revolution, had been given a place, a home, where no one would ever be allowed to lay a hand on her again. Why would she abandon all of that, give that safety and comfort up to the males who had harmed her in the first place?

Marcius' worries from that first night around the dinner table flashed in her mind. He had not been entirely sure that the ones who had come would come to stay, had told them abused people sometimes missed their abusers, mistook their beatings and manipulation for love.

Even he hadn't seen it though, that day she had come to beg them to take her to her son, so good was her act. She could have exposed them then, when they'd been trapped in her camp, surrounded by those who hated them, if it had been her plan from the beginning.

She had been smart though, knew the location was a bargaining chip to grant her way back into her husband's good graces, to have all forgiven for her leaving.

Naya remembered her kneeling beside her son, whispering what she'd thought were sweet goodbyes into his ear.

"We will see each other soon." She had said. Naya had thought nothing of it at the time, had been blinded by what she thought was a mother's love.

She now recognized how she knew the Illyrian male before her. He had stepped forward on the morning Kirtida had declared her want to see their camp, had tried to stop her. He was her husband, the one who had dealt out the beatings that turned Kirtida into what she was.

"Where is she?" she lashed out, unfeeling against the ripping of the hair from her scalp as Keir twisted harder. "Where is the bitch?"

He did not smile. She wondered if he ever had. "Dead." He said simply. "As valuable as she proved to be in the end, I have no forgiveness for traitors or females who reach beyond their place."

This time, she felt no pity for the female who had cost them so much, who had sacrificed lives beyond her own. She was happy that she had found her end.

"You'll see it soon." He continued. "The wrath you have caused, when we tear apart that camp and slaughter everyone there. Everything you've attempted to build, everything you tried to take from us will burn to the ground."

Marcius! He was their only protector, the only one trained for combat. The females who had staged a coup were strong, had proven so by taking over their camp, but it had been in the dead of night. They'd had surprise on their side. Marcius would be outnumbered and outmatched, and she knew, knew in a heart that was screaming to warn him, that he would never abandon them to die alone.

"No!" She wailed. "You can't do this! You can't hurt them!"

The back of his hand struck her across the cheek, and she couldn't even flinch away from the second that blinded her with tears as Keir held her in place, an easy target for the Illyrian's anger.

"When this is over," he growled out. "We will kill you slow for all to watch, so they can learn what happens to females who try to be more than what they are."

He lifted his hand to strike her again when a horn blared, loud and siren-like through the building. More followed its wake, down the street and into the heart of Velaris. A signal for the battle to begin.

The pounding of hundreds of feet marched through the building, gathering outside below. Their battle cries tore at her ears.

"In your ivory tower," Keir tossed her away from him with enough force to send her across the room. "You can watch Velaris fall."