“So we still have a few hours to go?”
The guard only nodded.
Nikator cursed again, pulling her to the side of the hall. He didn’t let go of her hand, and there was a murderous glint in his eyes as rage danced over his normally shuttered features. Biyu couldn’t even relax, because not meeting with the emperoronly prolonged her anxiety about her fate. There was no way he would let her live after finding out that she had discovered a way to use magic and subvert the wards. He would scour every room of the palace for any hint of someone helping her, colluding with her, and plotting something sinister. Yat-sen would be discovered. And likely everyone who sided with him. The emperor would purge any and all spies and traitors from the palace. She had likely doomed everyone.
“Please, Nikator,” she whispered, hating how she was trying to appeal to the monster. “I didn’t mean?—”
The glare he gave her made her shrink within herself. The muscles along his jaw tightened. “You’re a liar. I’ve known since day one that you’ve been up to no good. That was the whole reason I even decided to shadow your every move. I knew you would slip up eventually. I just hoped you wouldn’t fuck things up too badly. Do you even realize what will happen to you now?”
“You don’t have to tell him,” she begged quietly. “Please?—”
“I am not your friend, nor your ally,” he snapped. “I am loyal to His Majesty, and His Majesty alone.”
It was useless to try to appeal to his humanity, or lack thereof, but she had hoped, had prayed, that he would show mercy. That he wouldn’t be as much of a monster as her memory reminded her. Maybe the week or so they had spent together had made her think he wasn’t as vicious as he actually was. Maybe because he had stayed silent, watched her, and hadn’t touched her or hurt her in any way, she had gotten the sense that he wasn’t that bad. And yet she should have remembered who he really was.
A trained killer for Drakkon Muyang.
She thought of the night the throne was usurped. Her family’s blood on his sword. The blood splatters on his clothes. The coldness in his eyes. The indifference. The cruelty.
“Damn it. Stop that!” Nikator ground out, grasping the front of his chest with a blood-speckled hand and breathing out through his nose, as if it was too hard to breathe properly. When the wave seemed to have passed, he turned to her sharply like she had done something, but she only stared back blankly. “What are you doing to me?”
She blinked at him.
“Damn it.Forget it.”
They stood in silence for a few moments after that. Biyu silently sniffled and tried to keep her weeping in check, while Nikator was still as a statue, his muscles flexing like he was in pain, or like was physically clawing beneath his skin.
“Nikator, what are you doing here?”
Biyu snapped her head up to find two Peccata members, Vita and Minos, a few paces away from them. She didn’t know much about the two and had never actually spoken to either. From what she had heard, Vita was rather cold and distant, a woman of few words. Minos, on the other hand, was charming and laidback.
Vita and Minos both gave Nikator a once over, pausing at the cuts and gashes along his body, and then staring pointedly at his hand clasped on Biyu’s wrist.
“What happened to you?” Minos asked, a dark eyebrow notching up. He said something in a foreign tongue, his gaze lingering on Biyu, and then at the scroll in his hand. His tone sounded … mocking, almost. Or jovial. She couldn’t tell completely, since she was missing the context.
Nikator’s face twisted and he snarled, “Fuck off.”
Minos only grinned wider. “Come on! What’s got you looking like?—”
Nikator growled back at him words that Biyu didn’t understand and Vita pursed her lips together. They both appeared to bicker for a few moments in their native tongue,Nikator tense and furious, and Minos with a playful, dismissive tone. Eventually, though, Minos’s smile faded and he glanced over at Biyu with renewed interest. Vita’s eyebrows shot up.
Likely, he was explaining what had happened. Biyu stared at the floor, wishing a chasm would yawn open and swallow her whole. At least that way she could avoid her eventual execution. The torture. Yat-sen’s disappointment. She squeezed her eyes shut as the imagery of the headless torsos came to mind.
She was going to die.
She was really going to die.
13
A tremor ranacross Biyu’s body as the thought of her death intensified.
“Let’s talk somewhere more private,” Vita murmured, breaking through her macabre thoughts. She tucked a strand of light brown hair behind her ear and motioned toward the opposite end of the hallway. The guards stationed on this floor were sending furtive, curious glances at them from time to time.
Nikator looked like he didn’t want to comply, but when Vita and Minos began walking down the corridor, he gave in and followed them, dragging Biyu along. Five minutes must have passed with the four of them silently moving upstairs, down a few winding, confusing paths until they finally reached their destination. Minos entered and held the door open, ushering them all inside.
It was a spacious, mostly empty room with weapons of every kind displayed on the walls, stuffed dummies shoved in one corner, a few couches and a short table at one end, and a row of windows overlooking the capital. Biyu got the sense that this was a training room. She had never been here before, but she was certain they were still in the inner palace, though there wereno banners, signage, or anything related to the Drakkon dynasty plastered in this room.
Minos shut the door behind them and Nikator released her wrist like she was the plague itself. The muscles along his shoulder, his arms, and his body tensed like an uncoiled beast, ready to spring into action, to attack, to kill.
