CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Zaethan

He recoiled from the taste of the words as they leaked off his lips. While Zaethan suspected them to be true, each turned sour when his voice evolved, emulating someone he’d always known to be much colder and crueler than himself.

As the witch neared the door, Zaethan’s gaze burned a hole in her back. Suddenly his need for an advantage over Wekesa waned and submitted under the weight of Dmitri’s disbelief in Zaethan’s claims; the ache of his dismissal six years ago, and ever since.

The recent night on the docks had reminded his pryde of her true nature. Zaethan wasn’t operating on absurdity, and in that moment, he resolved once and for all to make her prove it. Trapped in this wretched city, he seemed to have lost every personal battle since her arrival.

And Zaethan Kasim was done losing.

“Ah, is papyon what makes your kind come alive, little y’siti?” He heard his tone drop low and callous like his father. Halting, her steely demeanor began to unwind at its sound, and her fingers twitched. “A pair of soft, Unitarian hands all over your b—”

Zaethan felt a braided loc rip from the side of his head before he ever saw her turn. An invisible charge filled the room. The witch faced him on the other side of the mat near the door but, impossibly, it felt as if they were only feet apart. A chill coursed through his limbs at the terror before him.

The past resurrecting, the witch’s eyes blazed unnaturally. Zaethan’s heart skipped wildly when her lashes shuddered, increasing their glow. Her hair, ghostly and unpigmented, wafted around her small frame.

This. Zaethan’s stomach tightened. This is y’siti.

A breeze passed over the tingling wound across his temple. He absently touched the wetness, disturbed by a static shock when he pulled away. Zaethan rubbed the blood between his fingertips.

“There you are,” he said, grinning broadly. Vindication soothed the sting in his flesh.

The y’siti crouched low and roared. It was an unearthly sound, almost animalistic as it harmonized with itself. Springing from her position, she sprinted across the mat, seizing the whip he’d discarded moments prior. Like a tidal wave, she flipped forward and twisted in the space. The tail of the whip slashed violently through the air and snaked around Zaethan’s neck. He had only a moment to clutch the Northern staff within reach.

Gagged by the leather cable around his windpipe, Zaethan jerked the staff with him as he was pulled to the center of the mat and angled it, connecting with her jaw. He heard a satisfying crack at the impact. Breathless, he yanked the cord away, imagining the mark he’d left on her, but his victory was short-lived. Without hesitation, the y’siti stole the staff and used it to vault the distance to her dagger against the wall. She moved too quickly, practically in a blur, and Zaethan scolded himself for not taking his own advice to Kumo.

“Even as a cub, you were a y’siti demon,” Zaethan choked out, voice hoarse. “You just”—he stretched for the grip of the whip—“hide it better now.”

She ran from the wall to seize a curved baton with her open hand, dropping low before flipping to strike it down upon his back just as he struggled to his feet. Zaethan’s chin smashed into the mat. Turning over, he let the whip fly. A thrill of dominance rippled through his arm as he wrenched it back when it licked her ankle, causing the witch to tumble to the floor.

They both rose to circle each other defensively. She rotated the baton in her grasp, eerily mirroring the silhouette of the witchiron dagger in her opposite. A chunk of his loc still hung from the blade. Without warning, she spun. Zaethan ducked away, but not before the baton bruised his rib. In the same motion, her dagger skimmed his upper arm. Warm blood dripped on the mat.

“Some words should not make sound.” She flexed her jaw, a bluish shadow creeping toward her lips. “And I am so tired of hearing that disgusting term.”

Zaethan backed up and nearly tripped over the staff. “It’s what you are.” He stomped on the end, flinging it into the air, and caught it with his left hand. “Do you deny it now?”

Raising the staff, he thwarted her attempts to strike him. He saw her swallow.

“I am not at all what you say, and yet so much more.” She fell to her knees, slicing his calf.

Zaethan stumbled at the sear of the witchiron. He knew he’d feel its burn for days to come. She rotated to the side when he cracked the whip, barely missing her with its tail. He moved forward, but she flipped out of range.

“Maybe,” Zaethan tested, inching closer as she skirted around the mat. “But like all men, even a witch has a weakness. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

He’d picked up on her routine deflection during that last week of their morning trainings. The witch always seemed to avoid close combat, likely due to her small stature—coming body-to-body in a fight with a larger, physically stronger opponent would almost always put her at a disadvantage.

Her thick brows furrowed as she matched his footsteps backward, maintaining the distance of her baton, like always. Timing his strike with her next step, Zaethan whirled the staff brazenly at her middle, imitating her own tactics. Falling to the mat, he heard a snap as her wrist bent the wrong way and the dagger dropped. Zaethan kicked the blade aside and hovered over her.

A cry escaped her lips when he stepped on her injured wrist. He felt the disfigurement of the bone through the soles of his bare foot. Zaethan trapped her free arm with the other.

“What lacking could a Darakaian swine ever find in me?” she panted. The witch virtually stood on her neck and shoulders as her legs hooked around his thighs and tugged. Zaethan’s backside hit the mat forcefully. As she tried to free her ankle, crushed beneath his leg, he thrust the staff upward against her chest with the strength of both arms. They rolled as she again attempted to dislodge her ankle. Pinning him, they landed with her legs wrapped around his torso. The tip of the witchiron dagger cut into the first layers of skin at his throat. He didn’t know when or how she’d retrieved it.

Zaethan smelled his flesh burning as it sizzled under the touch of the corrosive Boreali blade. He gulped cautiously. The brightness of her eyes flickered as they stared down at the metal. One bluer than Thoarne Bay, the other transformed into an eerie kaleidoscope, like those sold to wealthy children on the streets of Marketown.

“Weakness belongs to the Ethnicam,” she struggled to say. Her hand shook as the blade pressed further into his skin. “Such weakness lives inside you all.”

Zaethan stopped fighting. His fingers released the staff, letting it fall to the ground. Keeping his eyes locked on the orbs of light in her face, he brought his hands to her knees, suspecting the altered tactic would disarm her, given her usual prudishness and their sudden proximity. Slowly, languorously, he dragged his palms up the curve of her thighs over the men’s breeches she wore.

Confused, possibly in horror, her eyes darkened, then shimmered with unexpected moisture. The blade subtly eased off his throat.

“What are you doing?” Her voice cracked.

His resolve faltered momentarily at that look in her eyes, but Zaethan had long since learned to press any advantage he found in battle. Hesitation could have fatal consequences, and the witch still held her dagger.

Newly determined, Zaethan’s fingers found her hips and gripped them firmly, driving them into his own. “I told you I found your weakness.”

Her face contorted, as if with pain, and she dropped her eyes to the shallow cut on his neck. Then to her hips. A look of terror filled her gaze, and she hurriedly crawled off his body, retreating onto the mat. The Northern dagger trembled between them, clutched in her shaking hands.

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“All of you,” she whispered, scrambling to her feet. “You’re the real monsters.”

Zaethan stared after her in shock as she fled the training room. He lay there motionless on the floor long after the door clamored on its hinges, replaying those final moments in his mind. He’d thought her avoidance of close combat was merely tactical; he’d never imagined it might have been due to some other, unspoken trauma.

An uncomfortable sense of shame settled into his bones. Bleeding onto the dirtied floor, Zaethan suddenly itched to wash—and for the first time, not because of her.

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Zaethan ignored the debased laughter from a nearby table as his finger retraced a line drawn across a map of the proper. He moved another empty glass to flatten the corner of the parchment where it curled. It wasn’t the most effective solution, but neither was studying his maps in the belly of The Veiled Lady.

“Owàamo, Alpha Zà.” Beautifully sun-kissed arms encircled his chest from behind. “Àla’maia shines for us tonight, uni?”

A knowing chuckle teased the back of his throat as he guided the sound of home to stand in front of his chair. Zaethan didn’t like anyone at his back, especially a woman so adept at accessing men’s coin.

“Not brightly enough, ano.”

“The best papyon happens in the dark, Alpha Zà. I should know.” Her black curls bounced as she leaned forward, her parted lips brushing his ear. “Would you like to?”

Zaethan reached for her hand, nearly the exact shade of his own, and stroked the crevices of her open palm. She purred at his attention, a rehearsed sound.

“I would like”—he picked up a glass off a corner of the map and placed it in her hand— “a refill.”

Insulted, the night-caller sputtered and threw the glass on the floor. “I am not a barmaid!”

“Ah, but yaya, there’s still time, yeah?” He patted her arm. “Bwoloa, and none of that yancy spittle Salma’s peddling. The good stuff.” Zaethan grimaced at the pain in his calf. He could certainly use it.

The Southern night-caller sidestepped some broken shards of glass and stalked off, assuredly cursing him in Andwele as she disappeared into the crowd of patrons surrounding the bar. Hoping her return would be swift, Zaethan rubbed his leg, trying not to draw attention to his injury. While the liquor would help him forget the sting, he wished it could help him forget who he’d become in that training room. Though Zaethan hadn’t known what haunted the Boreali al’haidren—and still didn’t, truth be told—he was ultimately responsible for having taken things too far. And that didn’t sit well with him, despite his differences with the witch.

There was only one man he knew who would knowingly exploit such a thing, and unfortunately, no amount of bwoloa could rinse the taint of Nyack Kasim from his veins.

Returning to his maps, Zaethan again sought a pattern between the haphazard markings. Red lines drafted a distorted circle around the city, sprinkling into the provinces. He had only recently seen the need to classify the bodies found. Crimson hatch-marks clustered the inner proper, where most of the victims had been drained. Miniature stars dotted Marketown and outward toward the docks, as well as the Drifting Bazaar. Sparingly, tiny squares distinguished where a victim’s body was torn apart. Though spread out, the squares dominated the map outside the proper and into the plains.

Same victim. Different kill.

Zaethan bent the corner of the map, accidentally tearing it. The pattern, though present, still didn’t add up.

“Ahoté!” A pair of enormous fists shook the tabletop, sloshing the little bwoloa left in his glass. “Zaeth, didn’t you hear me?”

“Ano…when did you get here?” Zaethan looked around, finding his beta instead of a barmaid. “And where is that waitress?”

“I went to the stables, the offices, your apartments.” Kumo scratched the base of his thick neck. “We’ve been trying to find you for hours, Ahoté. They made an arrest. It’s sheer kakk, though. Just a thief, third offense…” The beta rambled until Zaethan cut him off.

“Doru, cousin. Just stop.” Zaethan held up his hand. “Arrested for what? Lifting some bread?”

“Ano zà!” Kumo’s forefinger pounded the center of the red-marked map. “For this! Total kakk. Wekesa’s pryde wanted an arrest, and the commander bought it. Zahra said they rolled through your offices this afternoon and paraded the gutter rat in front of the sentries like some trophy.”

“Shtàka!” Zaethan snarled and swiftly rolled up the maps. “Let’s go.”

“Go where, Ahoté?”

“To the accused,” he yelled over his shoulder as he plunged through the crowd ahead of Kumo. “Depths, after running night after night through this city hunting the man, I want to look him in the eye.”

“But I just told you!” Kumo hollered over the noise. “It’s all kakk. A kàchà kocho pocket-swiper won’t be able to tell us anything.”

“Which is exactly why I need to talk to him.”

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Zaethan breathed through his mouth as they descended the spiraling stairs into the lower dungeon. Wekesa was really putting on a show, holding a common thief among the roughest criminals in Bastiion. If anyone suspected his false arrest, they’d have to endure these putrid catacombs beneath the city just to question the prisoner—an unlikely measure for most.

As they turned a corner, Zaethan mistakenly inhaled a whiff of human waste. Chains clanked and jangled against the bars of neighboring cells as he and Kumo marched past. A few prisoners called out perverse proposals, while some wailed in pain in the distance. Understandably, their visit was not well received.

“Depths, I hate this place.” Kumo spat into the rag he’d used to cover his nose and eyed Zaethan peculiarly. “Are you limping?”

“Cramp,” he grumbled.

“That’s a limp, Ahoté…”

“How much further, Timon?” Zaethan asked the young Unitarian sentry at the lead.

“Just ahead, sir. Shtàka,” the sentry swore under his breath. “I meant, Lord al’Haidren. Er—Alpha Zà, sir.”

“They all suit,” he assured the sentry, sympathetic that he probably didn’t get out of the catacombs much.

They stopped before a slim opening between two boulders. Torches dimly lit a hollowed space where a man dangled in the center, his arms chained above his head. His spine and ribs protruded through his skin under the grisly lashes across his back.

“Really wanted to sell it, didn’t he?” Kumo scoffed and tossed the rag aside.

“Timon, fetch the prisoner’s personal effects,” Zaethan ordered. “I’d like to examine his clothing, weaponry, the like.”

The sentry shifted uncomfortably. “There aren’t any, Alpha Zà.”

“Then step outside, Timon.”

The sentry promptly nodded and left. Zaethan was grateful his title still meant something in the dungeons, even if it carried less weight above the surface.

“My name is Zaethan Kasim, alpha zà of the Darakaian militia.” He leveled his face with the thief ’s, noting the extreme swelling of his haggard cheeks. “I want to discuss your interaction with another alpha by the name of Wekesa.”

A bloodshot eye tracked Zaethan as he mimed a scar over the side of his head, imitating his rival. The thief ground his teeth—the few left, anyway—and glanced aside.

“Eh, this rat’s not going to talk, Ahoté.” Kumo threw his hands up. “To him, we just chained him up to be punished worse than the crime he did commit, yeah?”

“I’m trying to help you.” Zaethan again moved into the man’s line of sight. “But help goes both ways. Where did Wekesa, or his men, find you earlier today?”

It was a wealth of moments before the thief answered. “Alley,” he croaked.

“This was your third offense, I am told. What did you steal?” His bloodshot eye rolled sarcastically. “Saoirse pearls.”

“Saoirse pearls…see?” Kumo folded his arms.

“Whatever you stole, I assume it was to eat, by the look of you.” Zaethan noted the depressions in the man’s sternum. “I don’t care what it was, so much as where it was.”

“Agost merchant.” The man blinked. “Marrow district.”

Agost honey could buy a family food for a month, if sold to the right bidder. The merchant was foolish to set up a booth near opium tents. Although, Zaethan remembered, many a rich yancy found themselves addicted to the smoked herb—yancies who could also afford goods from Agoston. The type of yancy with whom Wekesa spent his time as of late.

“What was said when they arrested you? Any exchange between the alpha and his men?”

“Makes no difference.” The man sniffed at the blood running from his nostril.

“A third offense loses you a hand.” Zaethan lightly gripped the hilt of his kopar. “You’ve been accused of murder. There is very big difference. Unless, of course, you disagree. Kumo?” He gestured to the exit. “I think we’ve heard enough.”

“Wait!” the thief exclaimed when they reached the opening of passage. “‘Make him unrecognizable,’” he whimpered. “That’s all… all he said.”

“Timon!” When the sentry reappeared, Zaethan ordered, “Take this man to the secondary level. He will provide you his name. He is not to lose his dominant hand—so he may still work. Sear it with hot iron and ensure it’s tended by a physician, then let him go.”

“Alpha Zà?” Timon asked, looking uneasy.

“Do as I ask, and you’ll be reassigned to a rotation upstairs.” Zaethan pointed to the fresh air above. “Just do it quietly. No questions, no answers. Understood?”

“Yes! Absolutely, Alpha Zà, Lord al’Haidren. Thank you, sir!”

Zaethan and Kumo headed for the stair, trying not to vomit when they walked past a man defecating himself. Departing the lower dungeon, both eagerly climbed to freedom.

“Any fool could see that skinny husk couldn’t do the damage we’ve seen,” Zaethan mused, “let alone leap between rooftops.”

“Depths, one look at his clothes. I told you the witch mentioned the shine off the killer’s boot that night.” Kumo shoved his fists in his pockets. “Must be a yancy, yeah? Or somebody dressed like one, at least.”

Zaethan paused on a landing between floors, still inside the catacombs. Abruptly, he looked to his beta.

“Wekesa,” Zaethan murmured. “He bought new boots…”

“What do we care about Wekesa’s kakka-shtàka footwear—”

“Wekesa needed a reason to come to the city. A crisis valid enough for the commander to permit his entry into my territory.” Zaethan’s eyes widened as he shook his cousin’s huge shoulders. “But why would Wekesa wait for an opportunity like that when he could create one?”

He let go and backed against the wall of the narrow landing. It was possible, but would Wekesa really go as far as hurting children to achieve his ambition? Could Wekesa sacrifice innocents simply to usurp his own alpha? “Wekesa doesn’t see them as children,” Zaethan answered aloud. “He calls Boreali cross-castes the vermin of Orynthia.”

“What are you saying?” Kumo asked carefully.

“There’s only one person benefitting from these killings.” Zaethan became lightheaded as a rock formed in his gut. “The same person capable of executing them.”

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