Jeweled (17 page)

“I offer you the chance to try,” came a deep voice from behind her. Evangeline stilled, recognizing the deep timbre from the alley. “Some days I’d be happy to let you.”

Lilya’s chair scraped the floor as she stood. “Evangeline, meet Gregorio. Gregorio, Evangeline.”

Evangeline whirled to face the brute who’d killed the rapist in the alley two weeks ago.

“Actually, we’ve already met.” Gregorio’s dark eyes met hers. “Haven’t we?”

“What are you doing here?” Evangeline narrowed her eyes, her hands fisting at her sides. She tried to drudge up some gratitude for what he’d done for her in the alley, but it was drowned out by the knowledge of his identity. “Need a quick fuck during the break in the executions at the palace?”

Gregorio winced as sure as she’d slapped him. “I want you to know that this was not what I’d planned. This was nothing like what I’d hoped for when the lower classes rose up and took their fates into their own hands. I’m deeply shamed that the executions going on at Belai are being done in my name.” He paused, seemingly at a loss for words. Then he spread his hands. “I was too much of an idealist.”

Evangeline stalked toward him. “I don’t care how you feel, sir. I don’t care what you would have wanted, or if you were too much of an idealist.” She sneered the last. “The only thing I care about is that an exceptional man is in the claws of your rabble-rousers and is soon to lose his life for the mere crime of being who he is. Anatol’s blood is on your hands, Mr. Vikhin. This is
your
fault!”

He said nothing in response, but he didn’t need to speak to let her know what he was thinking. Nor did she need to taste his emotions to know how he felt. Thick, dark hair shadowed eyes heavy with guilt. He shifted, looking away from her. “You’re right.”

“I
am
right. I’m right about something else, too.” She gripped his sleeves and forced the huge man to look at her. “You started this madness, and that means you’re the only one who can end it.
You
are the only one who can save Anatol now.”

 

 

The woman’s gray eyes should have seemed cold given their coloring, but instead they were hot, full of passion and emotion. A faint hint of hopefulness sat in her expression and even in the lilt of her voice. She thought he had the power to save her lover. Gregorio’s belly tightened with that familiar sense of helplessness, the one he’d had ever since he’d gotten his fondest wish and the nightmare it had sparked.

Gregorio had tried to stop the madness. Oh, he had. Over and over. He’d tried the impassioned speeches that had worked to call the lower classes to arms. He’d tried coercing them. He’d appealed to their sense of right and wrong and asked them to have mercy.

But the bloodletting never stopped.

The lower classes were drunk on the carnage, lost in the joy of their newfound freedom. It was an outcome he’d considered but had never actually thought would come to pass.

Some gifted intellectual he’d turned out to be.

And now here was this beautiful J’Edaeii female before him, pleading with her eyes for the life of the man she loved. A J’Edaeii who had a gift, a
wondrous gift
bestowed upon her, one she couldn’t help possessing but would be killed for if the mob discovered it.

Like in the alley, a powerful sense of protectiveness rose up in him, only this time it was natural and genuine, not the result of this woman’s magick. He would protect her from harm with his dying breath. He would protect her lover, too . . . somehow.

Maybe he clung to this woman and her lover as a way to find redemption. Or perhaps he’d fallen into her expressive, soulful eyes and found some sort of connection with her. Maybe he’d even fallen in love with her a little back in that alley, after she’d emptied him of his emotions and then filled him back up as easily as a serving woman managed her wine carafes. Gregorio didn’t know what drove him to do it, but he did it anyway.

He reached out, cupped her cheek in his hand, and said, “
I will
.”

But it was wrong to make promises he might not be able to keep.

Pain blossomed through Anatol every time he moved. Blood crusted the left side of his face and streaked his arm. The only thing that made the wounds of his beating bearable was the cold of the cell they’d thrown him into. It numbed his body and dulled the aches and pains they’d inflicted on him in the street outside the boardinghouse.

It had been the second week of his new life working the docks and he’d been recognized. Sold out. One of the J’Edaeii who’d also been working there had slipped and showed his hand, used magick to lift a heavy crate.
Stupid
. Anatol had used illusion to cover the gaffe. Instead of making a show of solidarity, the man he’d helped had thrown Anatol to the wolves for the reward, and the wolves had been only too eager to tear into his flesh.

No good deed ever went unpunished.

They’d taken his jewel, scooped with a rusty spoon from the flesh at the back of his neck. They’d taken a clump of his hair along with it.

He moved his hand, fingers dragging across the gritty floor of the cell. He touched straw and the scent of it filled his nose—moldy and sharp with the smell of other people’s unwashed bodies. His head ached and his throat burned for lack of water. Pushing himself over on his back, he groaned. His chest burned with pain, as though on fire.

“I know you,” came a broken voice somewhere near his left. A man. Cultured tones. A nobleman, maybe.

It took a minute for Anatol to move his head around far enough to peer into the shadowed corner where the voice had come from. It looked like a heap of rags sitting there, face cloaked by grime, a beard, and shadows.

The heap shifted a little. “I know you. The hair and eyes. Black and blue. Striking. I recognize you. They took your jewel. Your neck is bleeding.”

His neck was bleeding, but since pretty much everywhere else on his body was also bleeding, he hadn’t paid it much mind.

“So, you recognize me.” Anatol gave a tired groan. “So what.” He closed his eyes. Saw an image of Evangeline. The only thing he could be thankful for now was that she was safe. He didn’t know how things would turn out for her, but she had a chance. His heart squeezed at the thought of never touching her again, not being able to watch the beautiful transformation she was beginning to undergo. If she made it through, Evangeline would be a sight to see—crystal and steel and the softest velvet.

Loss opened in him like a chasm, darkness sucking him down into a spiral of despair.

“You’re Jeweled. I was with one in my room when the palace was stormed. Lithe little light-haired one, cold bitch with a hot body just asking to be fucked. I can’t remember her name. She’s probably dead now.”

No, this was not a nobleman. This was royalty. Anatol’s eyes opened. “You’re Roane.”

Nothing.

Anatol closed his eyes again.

Roane’s voice came from the shadows. “I’m dead.”

Sometime near dawn Anatol was awoken by the sound of the iron door whining open on rusty hinges. It clanged and Anatol roused, looking down the length of his body to two men coming toward him. They grabbed his arms and legs and dragged him toward the door, grunting under his weight.

Anatol twisted around, grunting at the agony in his chest, and peered into the shadow of the cell to search for Roane. It was empty. There was no trace that anyone had ever been there. He wasn’t sure if he’d hallucinated the encounter the night before or if they’d come and taken the royal out while he’d been sleeping.

“Off to the Lady for you.” One of the men carrying him spat on the floor as they entered the corridor. “Morning crowd needs a bit of amusement. May Joshui have mercy on your soul.”

Anatol had already figured that’s where they were taking him. He watched the ceiling of Belai’s dungeon pass by, rusted and water-spotted. The heels of his boots dragged on the stone floor of the corridor. To either side of him were cells filled with moaning, desperate people, their grimy fingers reaching past the bars.

The cold air of early morning rushed through him and the sounds of the crowd filled his ears—the shuffling, sighing anticipation of another day of seeing what they believed was the fruition of their dreams—the exultation of the people over power.

They were so deluded.

His body sagged as they deposited him on the icy ground. Cold water seeped into his clothing, numbing his skin. Above him rose the wood and steel contraption that would bite his head off.

He closed his eyes.
Evangeline
.

Blessed Joshui, he hoped she wasn’t watching. God, he just hoped she wasn’t going to see him die. He hoped she was far from here, fled back to Cherkhasii Province to find her family. Or perhaps gone to seek shelter at the Temple of Dreams. He hoped she was anywhere but here.

He wished her well.

Wished her the best.

He wished he’d had more time to love her. He wished he’d been able to show her she was capable of loving back with a full and open heart, without fear of loss. It was in her and someone would be lucky enough to bring it out of her. Someone would be honored to show her that she was worthy of adoration.

But it wouldn’t be him.

That truth was worse than the hands that pulled him upward and set him on the slab of wood frozen with the dark brown blood of those who had come before. It was worse than the kiss of the cold blade as they set it to his neck, making sure he was positioned correctly so that it would sever his neck and not stick into his shoulders or head. Worse than the tacky blood of the recently dead against his cheek, or the sight of the decapitated heads resting on the badly cleared snow of the steps below him.

Anatol closed his eyes and called his magick.

It rose up from his depths, blowing away the grief and fear that clung to him. It bubbled out of him like a fountain turning into a gusher. His back arched, his chest screaming in pain, and he yelled out—a hoarse, guttural sound that grated the frigid air.

He wove a spell around them all.

A forest, dark and deep, tangled with vines and tree limbs. Shadows slipping and churning in the ground beneath their feet. Low growls of savage animals echoing through the foliage. His power filled the air all around the perimeter of Belai, immersing all the viewers in the illusory depiction of the wild tangle of emotion that clawed at his heart and mind.

The people gasped and screamed. Some ran, only to bump into one another or collide with the iron fence that separated them from the palace courtyard. They jostled one another. Fights broke out. The guards surrounding Anatol backed away into vines that coiled down from tree limbs, grabbing at arms and legs and pulling them screaming into darkness.

Straining, body on fire from the pain of his wounds, magick hammering out from every pore of his body and burning him up, Anatol contracted his stomach muscles and rolled off the blood-soaked slab of wood. He hit the cold ground with a hard thump, shoulder and chest exploding with pain and making him grimace. His magick never flickered. Chaos reigned.

Above him the guillotine came down with a silvery
thwack
, blade embedding where his tender throat had just rested.

“Enough!” roared a man from about ten feet away. “Be calm!”

The man’s voice broke through Anatol’s magick, made him lose his grip. It was the voice of command—heavy and low. The people stilled, watching the man—awarding him with respect. The bustling about him stilled. The shouting and murmuring quieted.

Anatol’s magick slipped from his lax metaphysical fingers—spent. He rested his head against the ground and breathed out a long breath, and then closed his eyes.

“It ends now!” the man roared.

Silence.

Stillness.

Boots crunched on the ice and snow-crusted pavement. The man—Gregorio Vikhin, Anatol had no doubt—walked up and down in front of the gate like a schoolteacher reprimanding his class. If only it were so innocuous.

“You have had your victory.” Each word was loud, punctuated in the chilly air. “You have prevailed over your masters and thrown off their yoke.” He threw an arm up to encompass Belai. “You now rule the ruins of their short-sightedness and ineptitude. You now have the power.”

A cry went up, but died back down after a few moments.

Anatol forced his eyelids open, feeling the faintest stirring of magick affecting him. It roused in him a sense of respect and hopefulness, pride, and the desire to do the best, most noble thing he could. Emotional magick.
Evangeline’s magick
.

“Now it is time to harness that power. It is time to take this new world in hand and make something new, something better, something different, something that
honors you
.” Vikhin swept his arm down to show Anatol lying on his side. “To take the broken and make it whole. It is time to leave the bloodshed behind, my friends, the brutality and the violence. It is time to take the higher path, to create a state that honors us and is worthy of us all!”