Clythia couldn’t take it anymore as the days progressed. They didn’t find anything more interesting about the Sovereign or the locals than what they already knew. Nothing about the culture jutted out enough for them to find themselves mildly intrigued. The buildings, the people, and even the language were no different from the tongue they spoke. As divided as Zyvern was, ironically, the language was one, and it came as a bit of a shock to find the same tongue in the bubbled village of Stormia.
“We have to get out of here,” she bellowed one morning, abruptly killing the casual murmurs. “What are we waiting for?” Clythia looked at Kay.
The human king rubbed his chin. “An opening.”
Tiyus had also been silent for the past two weeks. As they went out in turns to learn new things, he didn’t chime in to give her new instructions, and Clythia didn’t call him either. She was afraid someone would catch her with the Evil, someone who wouldn’t seal their mouth like Morven and expose her plan. The only thing she was facing for now was the hatred pouring out of the vampire king. His extended silence on the matter was a mercy she needed for now, until he chose otherwise.
Morven wasn’t doing this for her. She was certain it was perhaps the threat of Tiyus keeping his mouth shut, forcing him to turn a blind eye to her betrayal of everyone.
The sooner she dealt with her mission, the better. Clythia didn’t want to sit one more second in the bubbled village. She tossed the fork and left the room, passing the inn’s common room where a few angels and faeries were chugging their oranges and eating omelets or waffles. Recognizing all their meals was unnerving.
How could it all be so fucking normal?
“You can’t go out like that,” Kay scurried behind her. “You are drawing attention.” He grabbed her arm and whirled her around. Everyone had stopped eating and was gawking at her. Kay had turned into the size of an angel, his flaming eyes fixating on her.
Clythia was steaming. She looked down at the large palm covering the upper side of her arm. “I don’t fucking care. Let me go.” Clythia let loose a flame to rise from her arm. It didn’t sear her clothes, but Kay yelped and let her go.
Then, before he could recover and stop her, she zapped out of the room and winked out of sight.
“Tiyus,” Clythia said once she was quite far from the inn, passing the gigantic and minuscule creatures who were opening their shops. “You better guide me to the Sovereign and get it over with.”
“I thought you would never ask.” His voice washed over her skin, raising hairs and leaving a trail of lust.
“I couldn’t with all those idiots around me all the time.” Clythia was gaining speed. In her peripheral vision, she could see Tiyus’ sculpted figure striding along.
Clythia had never seen the Evil in broad daylight, and something in her urged her to look. But what if he was so irresistible she would tip over the edge of pleasure just by looking at him? That would be gross.
Or would it be?
Yes, it would be!
Clythia huffed at her limp will.
“Do you want to look at me?” Tiyus purred as she veered into a deserted alley for no reason at all.
“What? No.” Clythia blurted. Tiyus couldn’t read minds, obviously. If he did, she was dead meat for every time she had cursed him. “I’m just going where my feet are leading me, but it would be really helpful if you led me to the Sovereign.”
“Which one?”
Clythia stopped in her tracks. “You knew?”
“Of course I did.”
“And you didn’t mind to mention it when you tortured me with your presence.” Clythia hissed, her eyes pinned on a road marker that read, 'The Galleys.'
“I sent the seer to you, did I not?” Tiyus stood behind her and whispered.
“You could have spoken in plain language. No beating around the bush or stupid riddles. But you like being an asshole.”
“No, I don’t.” His breath tickled her ears, and it took all her might for her knees to remain steady without buckling. “I like to be in yours.”
All breath was stolen from her lungs. “Stop trying to fill every hole in me and just fucking lead the way to where the Sovereign—the former Sovereign—is. Who is the new Sovereign?”
Clythia whirled to face him, a bit late to realize what she did. If Tiyus was a dark god in her chambers, he was an angel in the light.
A literal angel.
Before her, he grew in size, his eyes a grey inferno.
“What the fuck?” Tiyus was wearing his dark leather outfit as usual, growing in size without tearing it. Then grey wings sprouted out of his back. “You are an angel? You are an angel—that means all those angels, they are Evils? They are Evils. They are Evils! We are fucking surrounded. None of this makes sense, care to explain? The former Sovereign—is it overruled by the Shadow now? Is that why you are here?”
“A servant doesn’t ask questions.” Clythia was yanked forward, the chain appearing before her, ending in Tiyus’ grip. “My queen.”
“Please.” Her lips started shivering. “Don’t come after my people, my companions, and my son. I am your slave, I will do your bidding. I won’t ask questions. I will destroy the Sovereign—though I don’t know how. But this—” she pointed at the chain. “It should end with me.”
“Good girl,” he purred and tugged her forward. Like a mare who understands the signal of a bridle, she put one foot before the other.
They passed “The Galleys” sign. When angels and faeries passed by, they tipped their heads towards Tiyus. They could see him, and more than that, they respected him.
“Are they all your slaves too?” Clythia asked. “Or is that wrong of me to ask?” she added immediately, thinking of her people. The respect radiating from the faeries and angels alike was something she was knew as a queen. It disturbed her to the core to realize that Tiyus wasn’t just an ordinary low-footed soldier Evil.
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“Yes, they are,” he ignored the second question. “But none as precious as you,” he said like a sweet lover offering her flowers, not a collar for her neck.
“They have to have a host,” Clythia said. “Like you do.”
Tiyus was silent for a moment. “Obviously.”
“It’s the faeries, isn’t it?”
“Stop asking the obvious,” he said in a bored tone.
“Who is your host?” Clythia was playing with fire.
Tiyus didn’t answer, but he didn’t punish her either. It was very sad that she felt relieved because she eluded his punishment.
Oh, how the mighty had fallen.
“If you had called on me as often as you should, you would have gotten all the answers you needed,” Tiyus said.
“After I have lost myself, what’s the point of knowledge?”
“With your knowledge, what are you planning to do? Usurp me?” A dark rumble of laughter left his chest.
Clythia bit her tongue until a coppery taste filled her mouth. It was better than saying something stupid that would make things worse for her.
“But you will find me,” he said softly. “I would be your prize.”
Damn the consequences. Clythia didn’t stop herself as she snorted in disgust.
“Do you want me to remind you?” he purred, each syllable filling her with tingling excitement.
“No, I do not.” It was a shame that those words came out as a whimpering moan. “You have to stop leading me like a dog. What if someone sees me?” Someone that was traveling with her. “I didn’t do anything this time. Stop punishing me.”
“You like being punished,” the Evil grinned at her. “And don’t worry, the end is nigh. You are here, that’s all that matters.”
“What end?”
“My queen, if you ask glaringly obvious questions one more time, you’ll wish the only thing you find on your neck is this collar.” He yanked on the chain, making her stumble toward him.
“You could have visited me in those two weeks, but you didn’t,” Clythia stated, a question unspoken, but apparently the evil hated those.
They stood before a hill where a lanky cottage perched atop. On an armchair, an old female was knitting cotton. The female was an angel, and even with her old features, she was devastatingly beautiful with her silver hair, sharp features, and flaming emerald pupils.
“My lord.” The angel tossed her knitting kit aside like she wasn't giving her undivided attention mere seconds ago. She glanced at Clythia briefly before fixing her gaze on Tiyus. “To what do I owe this pleasurable visit?”
“Tell her how to find the Sovereign,” Tiyus said sternly.
“You don’t know where the Sovereign is.” Clythia had stopped asking questions officially; it was better to go with assumptions around Tiyus. This felt a lot like the time she was walking on eggshells when Din was alive.
Tiyus ignored her and vanished, leaving her on the front porch of the angel’s house. Compared to the other buildings belonging to angels with their large doors and windows and knobs the size of clubs, the tilting house before her was a cottage.
The angel’s expression was stern. “Don’t expect me to invite you in. You might have the honor of being Lord Tiyus’s slave, but we all belong to him and his mother, the Holy Shadow.”
Holy and Shadow in the same statement? Clythia chuckled but stilled when those emerald flames danced higher in the old female’s eyes.
“No one knows where the current Sovereign has held the previous one captive, not even our lord. But their existence is a threat to us all, and you must destroy the previous Sovereign. The current one is an upgrade, if you ask me.” Clythia gave her an uninterested glare, but the old lady continued unfazed. “Find the new Sovereign, learn where they kept that bitch, and then destroy her. In the meantime, it would be helpful if you dug around about the Shadow, the angels and their hosts, the workings of a Sovereign, and so on. I’ve already given you too much. Off you go.”
The old lady shooed her with her fingers. Clythia wanted to fight her, to burn her until her bone tunred to charred ash, but remembered the futile battle with an angel in that sandy desert. She had to find their weakness true she was collared by one but it could come in handy one day. Like a defeated foe with no ounce of strength left, she gritted her teeth and began making her way back to the inn. But then remembered something that stopped her in her tracks and turned slowly to face the irked angel.
“An angel was leading us to the Sovereign when we first arrived. Why can’t you do the same?”
The old lady’s face turned grim. Clythia had sat on the throne for a very long time, and she what that look meant.
“You don’t support the Sovereign—the current Sovereign. You think they’re better, but you aren’t on the same side. Neither is Tiyus.” Clythia tisked, taking the silence of the angel as an affirmation. “Interesting.”
“I warn you, witch, if you go scurrying around to find the Sovereign with those angels, you will be in deep trouble.”
“Huh.” Clythia rubbed her chin. “I thought that was part of my mission, finding the Sovereign no matter the method.”
The angel took one step down the stair, and to her credit, Clythia didn’t balk, though her whole being was screaming to run. “Don’t use that method. Try to find the Sovereign on your own.”
“Why?”
The angel took another step, a dangerous step that promised bloodshed. What was with these angels and hatred of questions, for fuck’s sake?
“All right, I will be out of your hair and find a way that doesn’t involve Evils that aren’t on your side, although you all look the same to me.” Clythia closed her eyes and sighed. “You know what? I will avoid Evils altogether and discover the Sovereign by myself.”
Clythia didn’t look back as she headed to the inn. Things were getting more complicated than she anticipated. She had thought Tiyus was leading her directly to the Sovereign, but, as always, it was to a more shrouded path.
What did she know so far? The current Sovereign had held the previous one captive, and finding the current Sovereign would be one step toward destroying the previous one. There were at least two groups of angels or Evils: team Tiyus and the current Sovereign—team Shadow or anti-Shadow. The first angel they encountered belonged to the latter team. Both teams had one thing in common: they were predators, and Clythia and the travelers were the prey.
Who did Clythia prefer to be eaten by, a lion or a jaguar?
As she observed the angels around her, the fact that they could turn this village into a full-scale orgy and the faeries would start dry-humping her legs sent a shiver of disgust down her spine, and she scurried faster to the inn, albeit being invisible.
They thought they were in hiding, but they were hiding in the lion’s den, in its chamber. In its inn. How foolish they were. Clythia couldn’t tell anyone, but she could grill Casarda on how she knew about angels and which race she had heard speak of them in the first place.
Clythia was passing a narrow road and turned left onto a crooked path that led right behind the inn.
Morven was leaning against a charred stony wall, looking down at Afia, who was staring up at him with those golden eyes and smiling as he murmured something to her. She tiptoed closer to listen in on their conversation.
“When are you going to comment on my skills?” the vampire purred at Afia, tucking a red strand to the back of her ear.
Clythia was careful not to get too close, so his sense of smell or hearing wouldn’t register her presence.
“I’m here with you, aren’t I?” Afia cooed. “That is plenty of telling.”
Even from this far, Clythia could notice her pupils dilating. That was an exaggeration, but the way Afia’s mouth was opened as though she was mesmerized whispered one of two facts: Morven’s dick was good, or she was smitten by him—or both.
Morven ran his finger on her lips. “Are you afraid of your queen? Is that why you can’t confess how I make you feel?”
That vampire was older than most ruins in DavinSaw’s museum, but those words belonged to a cringey adolescent. Afia was smitten by him because she didn’t shudder but lit up at that comment of his. Oh, for fuck’s sake! Clythia crossed her arms, pissed and intrigued to hear the response to that.
Afia lowered her eyes. “No, it’s not the queen. It’s just we are sneaking around every night, and this would end at some point when we get back to our lands.”
Every night? Every night?!?
Clythia had known they were fucking when Vina had told her they disappeared every night in the cave, but she didn’t think they would have the gall to do it in the inn too. Or were they sneaking elsewhere?
“So it is the queen,” the vampire said in distaste. “She doesn’t approve, and you are afraid of what she might do to you. But I will protect you.”
Clythia’s blood was boiling. For once, she didn’t feel pity for what Tiyus had in store for the vampire.