Reign of Darkness (The Prince's Assassin #2) - Ariana Nash Page 0,16
for hours.
“Yasir is fast asleep,” Niko said, leaning a little closer so the patter of the rain on the wagon roof didn’t drown him out. “You can head inside, if you like.”
“It’s fine.”
A flash of silver caught Niko’s eye. He glanced down at the unsheathed dagger in Vasili’s lap.
“I still see them in the shadows even though they aren’t there,” Vasili explained. His hood hid most of his face, revealing only the tilt of his mouth as he spoke. “I hear them… all the time.”
Niko pressed his teeth together and stared ahead. The light was so poor, he could barely make out the road, just tree trunks in the dark like prison bars. The only elves here were those inside Vasili’s memories.
Julian had told him how elves had kept Vasili caged and bled him for the power in his veins. A power he hadn’t fully possessed at the time. There were details Niko wished he didn’t know, and while Julian’s tales could have been lies, given the evidence, they were all likely true. Julian had lulled the young, tortured man in the cage into his confidence, befriending him, freeing him, all the while the elves had fed Julian Vasili’s blood, making him their efficient tool, seeding him inside the Caville palace.
Vasili had trusted him.
Julian’s betrayal was absolute.
Niko rubbed his chest, over his heart, where it ached whenever he thought of the war and the terrible things he’d seen, and of Julian.
Vasili’s hooded head bowed, hiding all his face in shadow. “I led them to me.” Rain patted on the wagon roof behind, puncturing the thick silence. “When I was twelve, I used the tunnels to leave the palace. I’d visit a smallholding outside the city walls—met a farmer’s son.” Vasili paused, weighing the memories. “Alek. And while I was with him, I wasn’t a prince, the dark flame didn’t haunt my blood. I was… nobody.” He paused again, perhaps to capture the memory, or to guard himself against it. “I collected eggs, milked cows. It was mundane and earthy, and I… Joy was rare in the palace, and I… enjoyed my time outside its walls.”
Niko closed his eyes. Gods, to think of Vasili in such simple surroundings did things to Niko’s resolve. He saw Vasili chopping wood again in a memory that had never seemed real, even when he’d watched it happen. That memory and his words twisted Niko’s idea of the cruel prince, made him think things, realigned how he saw the man.
“My father discovered my excursions,” he continued, voice thinner now he’d wrung all the emotion from it, “barred me from the tunnels and from Alek. So I found another way, and I kept going for years, even after Alek’s father realized who I was. People saw me dressed in drab clothes, my hands filthy. Nobody cared.” He still stared at the trees, as though talking to them and not Niko. “The palace staff got so used to my wandering, they made sure to leave the doors and gates unlocked. Until, well… ” He waved like he could wave the war and his torture away.
The elves had discovered a valuable Caville prince’s wanderings. Gods-damn those bastard creatures. Had Vasili been left to mature as the true king, the war, the curse, it might all have been so very different. But they’d stolen him away and countless lives had changed in that moment, not just Vasili’s. Loreen went to war for the missing prince. Families torn apart. Generations wiped out.
Because Vasili left a gate open.
Vasili’s heavy sigh carried with it the weight of all his sins. “I didn’t know there was a war. I didn’t know if anyone searched for me, and as time went on, I stopped hoping for rescue. The memories of Alek and those days on the farm stayed with me. But on my return with Julian, I learned how Talos—looking for someone to blame—had Alek and his father executed not long after I was taken. All those nights I’d thought of that life, and it was already dead and rotting in the earth.”
Niko swore under his breath. Had the man speaking been anyone else, he’d have offered a comforting hand, but the prince was locked behind his unemotional armor, and if Niko touched him, he’d earn himself another scathing glare.
Vasili blamed himself for his capture and for the death of the family who had shown him a kinder way. All this time, he bore the weight of their deaths and the subsequent war.