Page 10 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

A muscle clenched in his jaw and his eyes narrowed. The torch crackled and someone called out in a faraway cell, both sounds drowned out by the too-loud beat of my heart.

He could still say no.

He could still start a war.

Will you lead your men to the mountain pass?

I wouldn’t have a choice, Lemmikki.

Then my father shook his head like he was forcing out any lingering doubts about the son he had raised to take up his mantle of ruthlessness.

“Very well. String the traitor along the curtain wall, and spread the word that she has gone.”

I forced my exhale to be slow, knowing the relieved puff of air would give me away.

“You wish me to tell the dukes that she escaped?” It was a leading question. He would die before admitting that.

“Tell them that we’ve allowed her to return home—for now—and at our discretion. That we have plans in the works that they are not privy to.”

It would almost have been laughable under other circumstances.

My father’s carefully crafted lie was closer to the truth than he would ever know.

CHAPTER SEVEN

My father’s wrath was everything I had expected. And it came just as swiftly.

Blood seeped into my gloves, crimson staining the midnight leather.

We keep as many of our people safe as we can, however we can. No one can take that from us, not even him.

I tried to take solace in Dmitriy’s words, in his memory. But Dmitriy was just as dead as the bodies piling up in the snow.

As dead as I was starting to feel with each new order that came down from my merciless father. My duke.

I turned away from the massacre, taking solace in the fact that this should, at least, be the last of it for a while. Guests would begin arriving tomorrow for Taras's wedding. That would distract my father until our palace was no longer crawling with the scrutinizing gazes of the other clan leaders—at least, that was what I was betting on.

He would be fighting harder than normal to maintain his façade of sanity.

But it would take all of us to pull off that ruse, even my disgusting stepmother, as much as I loathed the idea of working with her for any reason.

“My Lord,” one of the newer soldiers called, pulling me from my thoughts. Vysotsky was his surname, which I remembered because he was so desperate to prove himself.

“Speak,” I said, not in the mood for whatever this boy had to say, and he immediately stood at attention.

“I see footprints leading away from the gate,” he gestured eagerly toward the tracks in the distance. “Several must have escaped.”

Der’mo.

And this was why I typically only brought my own men on these missions, but my father had left me little choice this time. With any of it.

“I took care of that already,” Kirill spoke up, his jaw clenching.

His nostrils flared, a clear indicator that he was lying. I knew it, and he knew that I knew it. But the brand-new soldier who was so very eager to hunt down and slaughter his own people was blissfully unaware, so he only nodded.

“Good,” I said. “Light the pyre, then let’s head out.”

To the general surprise of no one, Vysotsky volunteered. Would he tire of this eventually? Realize there was neither honor nor glory in what we did here today?