“So?”
“So I know you’re strong, pet, but how long can you tread water in the middle of the rough sea? That is, if you survive the blast—and the sharks.”
“I’ll be sure to save enough wood so I can float.” She pushed her flames to burn brighter.
Alōs sat back, seeming not at all concerned by her threat.
“I’ll ask one last time, Alōs: Why am I here?”
“We both know why.”
“Remind me, then.”
A beat of silence as his stare bored into hers. The flames along her fingers fluttered their anticipation. Burn, her powers whispered, burn, as the room grew suffocating with Alōs’s unwavering attention. His energy always seemed to churn, pulse, reach, a weed looking for more ground.
“All right,” he began. “Masked or not, we both know I’ll always recognize you, Niya Bassette.” His eyes roamed her disheveled body. “Sister to Larkyra and Arabessa Bassette, daughter of Johanna and Dolion Bassette, Count of Raveet, of the second house of Jabari . . .” Niya’s blood ran cold and colder still as Alōs flicked out icy-green threads of his magic, ticking off each name and smothering her flames with a hiss, until he stopped on the most important one. “Dancer of the Mousai.”
Niya watched a smile twist its way across Alōs’s lips. This was the nightmare she had dreaded since that cursed night so very long ago, when she’d been nothing more than a foolish young girl tricked into believing something stupid—that she had found love. Here sat the one person in all of Aadilor who knew every one of her identities and wasn’t spellbound to keep them secret.
“And as I promised that night,” continued Alōs, his voice chilling the air, “I’ve come to collect.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Alōs had always found pleasure in watching a fearsome creature become cornered, especially if he was the one forcing them back.
He had worked hard to obtain this winning card and had waited patiently to play it. Leverage was the most valuable currency in their world, and he’d known the moment he’d first seen the fire dancer perform that acquiring the identities of the most-feared creatures in the Thief Kingdom was not something to trade in without an invaluable return on investment.
It had been a risky endeavor, sacrificing a part of himself he knew he could never regain. But what things worth having were easily caught? Four years Alōs had held on to this information, watching Niya squirm in rage, knowing he held her fate in his hands. But now was the time. He needed something, badly. And luckily for this woman, she happened to have the key that would free him to get it. Removing the bounty on his head was merely the necessary first step.
“You bastard,” spat Niya, shoving the blazing heat from her palms.
Alōs pulled up his own magic, which sat like dewdrops on his skin, forcing up a shield. His veins buzzed as if ice swam within. Their gifts slammed together, his cool, hers hot. The two powers sizzled, water and fire creating steam, canceling each other out.
A heavy silence hung over the room, the wetness in the air still lingering, and he pulled what liquid he could grasp into his veins once more.
He watched as Niya began to lightly sway her hips.
Oh, no you don’t, he thought.
Alōs knew this woman, had studied her kind of magic, and understood that, while she was strong, only movement held her power. Just as proximity to water held his.
Swiftly, he stood, kicking a sandbag that rested on a box beside him. It thudded to the ground, and the fur rug directly below Niya snapped up, capturing her like a fish in a net and cutting off the beginnings of her spell. He would have truly been stupid if he hadn’t ordered this room rigged before placing her inside. The hunter’s trap now hung from a rafter’s beam, the perfect snare for Niya and all her graceful movements.
She thrashed and screamed, the tightly cinched bag swaying.
“There’ll be no more of that,” said Alōs, circling her.
“I’m going to kill you,” came Niya’s muffled growl.
“You have every right to try.” He poked the bag. “But I wouldn’t.”
She let out another snarl, the trap still wriggling.
Alōs grinned.
“Whatever you have planned,” Niya ground out, “it won’t work.”
“And why is that?”
“Because even if I don’t get the chance to kill you, my sisters will.”
“It’s quite humorous hearing threats from you when you’re tied up so nicely.”
The smell of something burning floated past Alōs’s nose, and he glanced up; the rope cinching the bag closed was on fire. Clever girl, he thought.
The tie snapped and the rug fell open, depositing Niya with a thunk. She rolled out of the fur and sprang to her feet, a small flame flickering on her pointer finger.
“I only need a little to do a lot.” She smiled and launched herself forward.
Alōs spun away, but the room was so small it merely put him in striking distance on the other side. In a blur of motion, she kicked him in the stomach, and he staggered with a grunt. She continued to move dizzyingly as the tiny cabin began to heat with her gathering magic.
An orange blast shot out of her core. Alōs threw up his hands, forcing out his gifts through his palms, a cool current of green that deflected her hit.
She twirled left, away from the ricocheting spell. It crashed into the far wall, singeing its surface.
Annoyance bloomed in Alōs’s chest at seeing his ship harmed. His focus sharpened.
While Niya might have been one step faster, his advantage lay in his size combined with the confined space. It was only a matter of crowding his prey.
She knocked against stacked crates as she dipped and wove from his attempts to grab her, but despite her evasion, he kept sliding forward, knocking away spell after spell, forcing her into a corner. Within a grain’s fall, he had her against a wall, forcing her arms by her sides, her legs tightly pinned between his thighs.
“You shan’t be placing any spells on me this night,” he growled in her ear, breathing in the familiar scent of honeysuckle after a rain through her salty sweat.
“We both know I can do many things to remove myself from your grip.” Her blue eyes blazed as they met his.
“Yes, but because I value my ship, I’d prefer it not to come to that.”
“Something you should have thought about before kidnapping me and bringing me aboard.”
“Valid point, but still. Can we stop all this nonsense? Really, fire dancer, how much longer will you try to kill me?”
“Forever,” spat Niya, struggling against his hold once more.
He pressed harder into her, holding her as tightly against the wall as he could until she gasped for air. “It would be a fool’s errand,” he began. “For if I am found dead on this ship by your hand, there are those around Aadilor that will be sent instructions of where to find what I hold in my mind.”
Niya went still.
“You are finally starting to understand?”
“Let me go.” Her quick breaths were hot against his neck.
“You will behave?”
“For now.”
It was as much as he could hope from her.
He released his grip, and Niya quickly withdrew to the other side of the room.
Alōs stomped out the small flame still eating away at the rope attached to the fur.
“What is your plan, then?” she asked.
He straightened his jacket. “I am holding the Mousai’s identities ransom for a pardon from the Thief King.”
When Niya made no reply, Alōs found her unfocused gaze staring into the corner of the room, a frown on her lips. He knew this was her nightmare realized, for him to finally use this knowledge for his own gain, for her sisters to possibly find out what she had given away to a monster like him.
If he were anyone else, he might have felt bad for the fire dancer. But Alōs had stopped feeling many years ago. He had sacrificed enough from caring. He was still sacrificing. He had no more decency to give.
And he was glad.