City of Spells (Into the Crooked Place #2) - Alexandra Christo Page 0,95
like never before, with an army that loved him and an army that hated him.
He would win this war.
He could win back his home and have the life with Tavia that he’d always thought was out of reach. Nothing was going to stop him.
32
Zekia
DANTE ASHWOOD, LEADER OF USKHANYA’S magical nexus and capital city of Creije, was sipping Cloverye. He let Zekia have some, mostly because she was bored and he didn’t seem much for conversation in the late hours of midmorning. Ashwood was like a moon flower, blooming best at night when the shadows and the darkened skies came out to play.
While he sipped his Cloverye and the glass disappeared beneath his cloudy lips, Zekia toyed with the core of an apple. They brought her out in a rash whenever she ate them, but she liked the taste, and scratching away at her skin almost felt like she was scratching away all of the evil things inside of her, like the fruit was bringing the rotten parts to the surface and Zekia could scrub them into nothingness.
“There’s still much to do,” Dante Ashwood said. “So much left to conquer, even after Yejlath falls.”
Zekia nibbled at the apple core.
“Your once Kin, for example,” Ashwood said. “Your once family ran and escaped like the treacherous rats they are. They couldn’t face us and our vision for this great realm.”
Zekia put down the apple core and scratched at the rash on her hand.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt them. You promised that we’d wait until I was ready. That busker Nolan—”
“Gave me what you couldn’t, little warrior.” Ashwood shook his head and placed his Cloverye in the center of the table. “You and Wesley are starting to disappoint me.”
Zekia looked to the floor and kept scratching, but the more she did, the more a voice scratched at the back of her mind. As though Wesley, upon hearing his name through the winds of the world, had come to say his piece.
Zekia, he whispered.
His voice touched at the back of her mind, like he was tapping against a door.
Zekia opened her thoughts to him.
“Let me tell you a story,” Ashwood said. “About a little boy who grew up on the streets of Creije, long before you were ever born.”
He wiped a hand across the surface of the table, smudging the dust between his forefinger and thumb.
“He was raised by a doting mother, who only wanted what was best for him, but she was too poor and too sick to be of any real use. She couldn’t take care of the boy or give him what he needed.”
Ashwood circled the table, running a hand along the back of Zekia’s chair. She stiffened in response.
Zekia, Wesley whispered again.
To Wesley, she said, Hello! There you are! You didn’t forget about me. And smiled into the very corners of her mind.
“The little boy was fascinated by magic and one day he met a busker who promised him wonders,” Ashwood said. “He begged the crooked fellow to give him something to help his mother. Then the busker pulled out a vial, bright as the sun, and told the boy it was the secret to happiness. And so the boy ran home as fast as he could and poured the elixir into his mother’s soup and watched her drink it. He waited for the moment it would fix all of their problems.”
Ashwood paused with a long sigh.
“The elixir did not fix anything,” he said. “It only made the boy’s mother sicker, until one day she died. The busker had called it happiness, but it was the destroyer of happiness.”
Zekia had never heard this story before, but it echoed with familiarity. Ashwood had named her elixir the Loj because of ljoisi uf hemga—the light of happiness. She had never questioned why he’d chosen that name, but it made sense now.
Zekia had finally given him what nobody else had been able to.
It’s not your fault, kid, Wesley said. Don’t listen to him. Listen to me. Listen to my voice.
Zekia bit down on her lip.
“Before the boy’s mother died, she told him a secret,” Ashwood said. “She told him his father’s name with her dying breath. Magnus Robertsson.”
The old Realm Doyen. Zekia knew the name just as anyone in Uskhanya did.
“He knew he was my father and he didn’t care. He turned his back on his family just like he turned his back on the realm. He tried to erase my destiny.”
“But leaders aren’t chosen by blood,” Zekia said. “They’re elected.”