He sneered, revealing lengthening fangs. “We can stop them. Me, Talen, and you—Kesh Lasota. We will stop them. Because, despite all the lies, all the illusions and misdirection, you saved those people on Calicto. And you want to save more. But up until now, you couldn’t. You’ve always been in a cage, always been someone’s slave, but now you have a choice.”
I opened my arms and stepped back from the glass. Nothing had changed. I was still in a cage or was it a goldfish bowl and I was supposed to be Kellee’s precious little fish.
“You can get close to them. You know how they work, how they think, and you’re in the confidence of their new king. A king who only rose to power because you killed the queen.”
“I loved the queen.” At least, I believed I had, but sometimes even I fell for my own karushit lies. Kesh’s life, I’d fallen for that one. Fallen for the people the pretend messenger held dear. Hulia, Merry, and others throughout the years.
“Your love is a lie,” Talen said, his back to me as he crouched beside his cot and rifled through his books. “You don’t know real love.”
Kellee arched an eyebrow as if to say, “Even the fae agrees you’re a cold-hearted bitch.”
“You have a choice, Kesh Lasota,” Kellee said, leaning forward. “You don’t have to kill for them. You can save people with us. You are in a powerful position, and for the first time in your life, you can use that power against the fae. You’ve already killed a queen. What’s a dead king to you?”
His heroic ideas were pretty, his hope blinding and so typical of the marshal’s view of the worlds. “I don’t save people, Kellee.”
“Liar,” he drawled.
What he was asking was impossible. All my life I had killed for the fae. Without them, I wasn’t sure who or what I was.
“Lie to them as you did to us,” Kellee continued, sensing my hesitation. “And they’ll never see the blow coming.”
I glared hard back at the vakaru and the honorable ideals shining in his green eyes. I had known a boy like him, a proud boy, a boy filled with defiance and heroism. Aeon had begged me to help him, and together he and I had plotted against our fae masters. He had trusted me, and when it mattered most, I had turned on him and killed my fellow saru to the sounds of a cheering crowd, earning my first marks in service to the crown. Deceit was all I knew and I was good at it. Did I have it in me to wield deceit against the crown instead of for it?
“And if you don’t…” Kellee lifted a syringe, the liquid sloshing inside. “Eledan will be waiting in your dreams.”
I slammed a palm against the glass, rattling my cage. “You would use his abuse against me?”
“Let’s get one thing clear, Messenger.” His eyes were cold, hard, and honest. “I cared for you. I believed in you. And you shattered my trust.”
“That’s your mistake!”
He waited, letting my words ring throughout the cavern. “And I can’t afford to make that mistake again. I have no idea who you are, and until I do, I’ll trust you as much as I would any enemy.” His beast shadowed him, darkening his eyes and sharpening all his teeth to points. Here, now, he was the predator, the last of his species and I was his prey. “Do we have a deal, Wraithmaker?”
Kellee’s cage or Faerie’s?
I glanced at Talen and found him lying on his side in his bed, flicking through a book as though this were just a minor discussion. His eyes flicked up, and a fierce resolve burned there.
When I faced Kellee, I shrugged and backed away from the glass. He would use me like I had used him. That was fair.
“We have a deal, Marshal,” I lied. As soon as I got free of the cage, I would return to my prince—my king—and in doing so, I would keep both Kellee and Talen safe. Because Kellee was right. I could save lives. Theirs.