Page 4 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

Questions began to build in my mind and I laid my bait, saying, “And what ways might those be? Certainly not birth.”

She shifted on the bed, her lithe fingers stiffening for the briefest moment. Her eyes flitted downward, as if she was debating what answer to give, how much she should share. Then, as if she remembered my threat to drag Rowan back here, she sighed, meeting my gaze once again.

“No, not by birth,” she said, carefully keeping her tone neutral. “My mother and I fled this kingdom when my father was Unclanned.”

That would explain why she had no loyalty to Socair, but not why she would die to protect a princess she barely knew.

“And the royal family took you in?” I guessed, suspicions coalescing in my mind.

Her jaw was set, but she nodded.

“And then used you as a spy. How magnanimous of them.” Once again, I baited her, and once again, it worked.

Since she no longer needed to hide her affiliation, she wasn’t as on guard to hide her reactions, either, it seemed. She bristled, shoulders tightening.

“No, I volunteered for this. I owed King Logan a life debt for intervening on my and my mother’s behalf when his council would just as soon have slaughtered us for the sins of the same men we fled from.” She shook her head bitterly. “Besides that, he is a good man and a good king. When I saw something I could do to help, I offered my services.”

There it was. That had been what I needed to know. This wasn’t just a job for her. She was loyal to Lochlann, and to Rowan’s family, specifically. I could have guessed, but that wouldn’t have been a good enough reason to trust her with what I was about to, something this important.

It was still a gamble, but I had been letting her run around the castle for weeks while suspecting who she was. This wasn’t any more dangerous than that.

Besides, the extra time would allow me to question her further about Ava, and I also needed her to get in contact with the spy at Elk. I couldn’t help but wonder, if Davin had arranged for Rowan to return, did that mean Korhonan knew she had left?

It didn’t matter that he had promised Rowan he would protect her cousin in her absence, not when Korhonan was about as good at keeping his word as Boris was at flying.

Had Davin then bartered himself for his cousin? The last thing I needed was for Elk to have a bargaining chip over us.

I told myself that was the only reason I cared. Not because I saw green eyes lit up with laughter, and identical sets of lips smirking at me from across a fire. Certainly not because I heard the hitch in her voice when she talked about losing her older brother and knew it would destroy something inside of her to lose her cousin, too.

No. This was only about my clan. That was all it had ever been about.

CHAPTER FOUR

It wasn’t hard to find ways to fill my time in the coming days. Though I had done as much as I could from within my rooms at the estate, there were an endless number of things I needed to check on personally outside of them as well.

Like getting my father to sign the marriage contract for Taras. Arès must have sent it not long after Luca returned, because it had arrived swiftly with the exact terms we had outlined.

A rare, honorable soul in a sea of Iiros and Mikhails.

I strode from my room, bypassing the glass that was still onhernightstand and her comb where it was still resting on the mantle above the hearth.

I should have Taisiya take those things away. And I would…tomorrow. There wasn’t time now to bother with such things, not since I needed to take advantage of my father’s relative degree of awareness. Taras reported that he was in his study, which was telling in and of itself.

It meant he was having one of his more lucid days—or at the very least, a day in which he believed himself to be lucid. During the trek from my wing of the palace over to his, I considered the best way to approach him. How to get exactly what I needed,while making it appear as though it were his idea, before he slipped back into delirium.

Like everything with my father, this would need to be handled with precision. After taking a deep breath, I knocked on his study door.

My stepmother opened the door, a pot of steaming tea on my father’s desk, evidence of her excuse for being there. The rage that brimmed just below the surface of my mask threatened to break free at the mere sight of her.

I blinked once, my mind recalling the images of two indiscernible corpses beneath black ceremonial sheets. Then twice, picturing rivulets of blood pouring from angry wounds on pale, perfect skin.

And finally, a third time, imagining the raw, ragged scream I could rend from Ava’s throat if the scalding pot of tea accidentally found its way onto her vicious, hawklike features.

But that would be counterproductive to my purposes today. And though I despised it with every piece of my soul, she was occasionally a necessary tool in the handling of my father.

Someday, though… Someday, I would find a way to handle her as well.

“Evander.” She addressed me, saying my name the way she always did, in a low, condescending hiss, with just the smallest edge of satisfaction, like she was remembering—while simultaneously reminding me—all the times she had said it, just like that, in between lashes searing my own skin.