Abisai
The symbols keep spreading.
I watch them on the back of my right hand as I walk down the hallway — silver lines slowly creeping toward my elbow, glowing with a light I can't turn off or ignore. Only hide.
I suppose this is what Vacul meant.
The bond.
The prophecy I've always thought was a scam but has apparently decided to settle into my body without asking for my opinion.
I don't like what I can't control.
And I don't control this.
I arrive at Bamylan's chamber and enter without announcement.
She stands beside her maidens. They all bow at the same time.
"Leave us," I order.
The maidens exit with their heads lowered, and the door closes behind them.
I approach the table and pour myself some wine. I drink it slowly, standing, without looking at her. The silence between us isn't uncomfortable.
I look at her.
Bamylan smiles and steps closer, stopping just near enough for her perfume to reach me.
"What brings you here at this hour?" she asks in that seductive tone of hers.
"Tomorrow, we marry."
Her yellow eyes gleam.
"I should thank fate for the death of your favorite," she says. "Because I never thought I'd have you in my personal space before the ceremony."
I don't respond to that. I give her exactly what she deserves. Silence.
I take two steps and stop close enough to feel her warmth.
"Tomorrow's celebration will be early. After the ceremony, we'll have a meeting with all the clans." I look at her intently. "You will participate. I have a feeling you're a sharper woman than most of this court suspects."
Her smile widens.
"You flatter me," she whispers, closing the last bit of space between us.
I grip her by the nape of her neck.
And in the second before I kiss her, suddenly it's Zabina in front of me. Dark hair, gray eyes, that way she has of looking at me like she knows exactly what I'm thinking, even if I don't want her to.
I kiss Bamylan anyway.
Her mouth tastes of wine and ambition, and it's not the same. Not even close. But the wine and the warmth are there, and tomorrow I'll be emperor, and there are things I've already set as decisions that I won't undo.
Then the marks burn.
I pull away abruptly.
Bamylan is left with her lips parted and her eyes half-closed, not understanding what happened.
I lower my gaze to my arm, where the silver lines pulse with an intensity they didn't have a minute ago — as if something on the other side of the bond had reacted. As if someone had felt what I just did.
I clench my jaw.
I run my thumb over Bamylan's lips with a calm I don't fully feel.
"See you at the ceremony. Don't be late."
I leave before she can respond.
Zymei meets me in the hallway.
"Everything is prepared, prince."
"Perfect."
I keep walking without stopping, with my marked arm burning under my sleeve and Zabina's image still stuck somewhere behind my eyes where I can't erase it.
I press my hand against the wall. The burning is unbearable.
"Abisai, what's wrong?" Zymei asks.
"Nothing," I lie. "What have you heard about Zabina?"
"We know she woke up a few hours ago. Vacul said she was in the chamber."
"Good. I'll go to my study. Gather the other men."
"Are you sure?"
"Don't fuck with me, Zymei. I'm not a child. Obey."
"Yes."
I enter my study and close my eyes. I take a deep breath.
The memory hits me.
I stop in front of the cell.
She's sitting on the iron bed with her back against the wall and her eyes closed, humming something so softly it's almost inaudible. A melody I don't recognize but that has something ancient and quiet that makes me pause before speaking.
She slowly lifts her eyes until they meet mine.
There's no fear in her gaze. Only a calm that I find more disturbing than any hostility.
"The priests believe that if you die, the passage to Galgoth will be sealed forever," I say.
"The priests lie."
"Maybe." I lean against the wall across from her cell. "Nothing they've said has come true yet. But they say your gem is of royal blood. That it's different from the others."
She doesn't answer.
"Are you the last one?"
She looks at me for a long moment before speaking.
"What do you plan to do with me?"
I'm left speechless. Because I know the answer, but I don't know how to say it.
"Are you going to tear the gem from my chest?" she asks with that terrible calm. "Do you think my death will solve anything?"
"The door will be sealed," I say. "Or so they say."
A cold smile crosses her lips. She stands slowly, with the dignity of someone who has been imprisoned for days and hasn't lost an ounce of who she is.
"How naive you are, boy." She approaches the bars. "The only thing that can seal Galgoth forever is a true bond." Her voice lowers, becomes more intense. "Not a gem torn out. Not a life sacrificed. The bond. But the debt isn't paid with intentions or rituals."
She stops.
Her eyes hold my gaze with a fixedness that makes me want to step back.
"The debt is of… BLOOD!"
She slams her hands against the bars. The sound echoes in the stone hallway, and I take a step back abruptly.
The guards appear with their spears raised, but she doesn't look at them. She only looks at me.
"Remember that," she whispers. "When the time comes, remember that."
I uncover my arm in the study and watch the silver marks pulsing on my skin.
She said it.
Years ago, in that cell, she told me, and I didn't understand. Or I didn't want to understand.
The bond. The blood.
I pour myself a drink and sip it slowly, my eyes fixed on the marks that continue to spread slowly toward my elbow.
Zabina.
"Abisai's name came up in the oracle."
Vacul's voice echoes in my memory.
We're in the council chamber. My father on the throne, scribes at the sides, Agur rigid at his right with a furrowed brow.
I'm already twelve years old, and I don't fully understand what it means that my name came up in the oracle, but I know from my brother's face that it's not good news for him.
"What do you mean, Vacul?" my father asks.
"That the sacrifice must be performed by him." Vacul points at me without taking his eyes off my father. "The gods chose him. The prophecy will be fulfilled through Abisai. It's the only way it will work."
My father says nothing. But something in his expression changes. Something I couldn't read then but now, from the distance of years, I recognize perfectly.
Tension.
"I am the heir to the throne," Agur jumps in, his voice furious. "The oracle should have chosen me, not my brother."
"I'm sorry, prince. I am only the gods' messenger."
"Father!" Agur growls. "Are you really going to allow this?"
What followed after was a cold war from my brother.
That night, I follow my father.
I don't know why I do. Something about the way he left the room — too quickly, with that expression that wasn't that of a father carrying the weight of a decision. Something about that sets my feet in motion before my head decides it.
I see him enter the wing where they're keeping the white dragon.
I stop in the hallway.
I wait.
I push the door open slowly when the silence lasts too long.
And I see it.
My father. In the bed. With her.
The white dragon who had been imprisoned for months, who was supposed to be a sacred sacrifice, whom the priests presented as the key to sealing Galgoth — and my father between her legs as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I freeze in the doorway.
He doesn't see me.
She does.
Her gray eyes find mine over my father's shoulder with an expression that isn't shame but something more complicated, darker, which I didn't understand at the time but now, years later, I recognize for what it was.
Desperation.
I clench my fists until my knuckles hurt and back away silently, my stomach churning and something breaking inside me that never quite mended.
I set the empty glass on the desk.
The marks burn.
My father never had any intention of sacrificing her to seal Galgoth.
He wanted her for himself.
And when he tired of her, when she no longer served as entertainment, he handed her over to the priests.
And I, at twelve years old, believing I was doing the right thing, believing every lie they put in front of me, was the instrument.