Kahli’s heart raced as fast as her mind, sprinting wildly as she tried to figure out what to do. Her gaze landed on Will, and she could feel the sadness flow from him like she’d already left. It startled her to see that expression on his face, the melancholy slouch of his shoulders, the vacant gaze to his eyes. Kahli thought that she was nothing but an annoyance to him. Why would he care if she left? Her gaze dropped to the floor and she swallowed hard. Maybe Will did care. Maybe he didn’t. This wasn’t the time to consider his affections.
Deep in her gut, Kahli knew that there was only one reason why she grabbed the flag, and only one reason why she risked her neck to get it. Therefore, there was only one request she would make tonight.
Clearing her throat, she looked up. Kahli raised her eyes to meet the King, “I know what I want.”
“Then ask,” his placid smile was intimidating, but she wouldn’t be swayed.
“I want you to spare Alice’s life… I want you to skip the Purging this year.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
For a moment no one spoke. Thick silence crept over her skin as she stared at the King. Except for a twitch of his brow, his gaze barely changed. Chaos erupted, and it was like she dropped a pack of wolves in the room. Vampires and humans alike were shocked. Audible gasps came from the humans, but the vamps in the room were louder, more confident of their station. Their voices were loud and cut through the chatter, stating their displeasure with Kahli’s request. As the sounds echoed around her, Kahli didn’t move. It felt like she was locked inside a glass dome with the King. It didn’t matter what was happening around her, what they said—how their indignant voices grew louder—the King made a promise. If Kahli learned anything from her time in the palace it was that the vampires valued their word. If they said they would do something, they did. They King offered her a gift and, according to the enraged vampires surrounding them, this was a hideous misuse of such a precious present. She’d pay for it, that much was clear.
Kahli’s gaze was locked on the King. He looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face. The King’s eyes moved over Kahli like he was considering her request. He knew he couldn’t offer anything and then withdraw the offer because he didn’t approve of the girl’s choice. And she didn’t know about the Purging. Speaking of it to newlings was forbidden.
Kahli could feel Will’s eyes from across the room boring a hole into her head, but she wouldn’t turn.
The King’s voice was so soft that only Kahli could hear over the chatter in the room, “If that is truly your request, then it will be done. The girl will live. Are you certain you wish to spend your reward so frivolously?”
Kahli’s fingers clenched tightly at her sides. Alice was like Cassie—disposable. “Life is not frivolous, Your Majesty.” She bit off the last two words, her body shivering with rage. “Your kind is utterly foolish if they cannot see how their lack of value for other living things has affected them so far. The world has died and been buried in an icy tomb. Your only source of nutrients has died with it. If you didn’t force humans into camps like prisoners, if you let them be, this wouldn’t have happened.”
She’d said too much, but she couldn’t stop. Once Kahli started the words just flew out of her mouth, uncalled. They’d burnt a hole in her tongue since she was a child, since she understood how the vampires devastated her kind. If humans were left wild, like her family had been, humanity would have had a chance. But now their blood was so intermingled that is was poisoned by aliments that couldn’t be corrected. There was no way to undo the damage that was cast by that one decision.
And the Purging was another devastating decision meant to ensure the vampire race survived, even when there were only a handful of humans left. The Purging strengthened the remaining human’s blood by forcing a survival of the fittest on a group of people who didn’t know the first thing about survival. It wasn’t fair, and it didn’t work. Weeding out the weak would not help the strong to survive. If anything, it only made the gene pool smaller and smaller. Kahli’s eyes narrowed into slits, her breathing hard. She couldn’t cover the fury bubbling beneath the surface.
The King saw it. Whenever he looked at that girl, he was intrigued by her curves and coloring, but the decision she just made rendered him speechless. There was no word for what she’d done. He offered her information on her mother. He offered her freedom and a new life. She could have asked for both, and demanded his protection, and he would have granted it—but she didn’t. The insane girl requested he spare a weaker member of her race, one that should have died long ago, one who was sheltered by other humans who tried to keep her alive.
The King turned to Will, and a hush fell over the room. He knew what he had to say, but this would not be the end of it. He’d see to that. “William, Amend my statement about Alice. Apparently she’ll be with us another year.” The King glanced at Kahli out of the corner of his eye, his hand rubbing his chin, his head cocked like she was odd. “There are few who have ever truly shocked me. You stole the other team’s supplies to win… and then you risked your life to save theirs. You damned them, and then saved them. Yet, they’ve done nothing for you. That group would have skinned you and left you in the cold, if they weren’t afraid of bleeding to death while they did it.” He shook his head, as if he didn’t understand, while sliding his hands into his pockets. Glancing up at her he added, “Then you turn around and give that girl her life back. Truly shocking behavior.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Kahli thought the blood would never flow back into her fingertips. They felt numb for so long and then when she first arrived at the palace with Cole, everything was beyond stressful. Bending her fingers over and over again, Kahli tried to get the blood pumping.
Will walked next to her, glancing over at her. “Are you going to let me help you?” he asked, glancing over at her. She was so damn stubborn. He was forbidden from telling her about the Purging, although he nearly broke that oath to warn her. Cassie hushed him and promised to tell Kahli what she needed to know. Will was certain that he was going to lose her again, but Kahli managed to surprise him. The King wasn’t the only one who was shocked at her request. Since Kahli arrived, she was a loner. The only person she spoke to was Cassie, but Will didn’t think she was loyal to anyone. He didn’t know what drove her to that decision, but he admired her for it.
“I’m fine, Will.” She clenched her hand shut and then flexed her fingers, shaking them out again. They didn’t feel right. Annoyed with herself, she shook her head. If she got frostbite after one afternoon outside, she’d kick herself. After all those years of traveling from safe house to safe house, she’d managed to guard her skin against the elements. In one day she’d done more damage to her body than she had in a lifetime. It was because she was distracted, she realized. It was because she thought there would be no tomorrow for one of them. There wasn’t time to think earlier, never mind take care of herself. She limped along next to Will, her ankle still swollen. It smarted when she stepped, but she didn’t want to wait in the maiden’s rooms. She’d rather sneak in after everyone was asleep. All the other girls looked exhausted.
Will took a chance and reached for Kahli’s hand as she was shaking it. He caught it between his palms, and she looked at him with those beautiful green eyes. “You know what frostbite does, and you know I can fix it—and your ankle too. Will you please just let me—”
She cut him off, jerking her hand away, “No, I’m not drinking your blood.” She started to limp away from him.
Her name rolled off his tongue in a breathy whisper before he could stop himself, “Kalahandra.”
Kahli froze, her eyes wide. Slowly she turned back to look at him. “You promised. You promised you’d never say my name.” Panic edged into her voice. It was strange. She stood nose to nose with the King without fear, but Will said her name and it looked like she was going to fall to pieces. A slow tremor made her shiver, as she stared at him open-mouthed.
“I promised I wouldn’t compel you,” And then I promptly broke that promise, but you don’t remember, he thought. Still, he wished he hadn’t done it. He wished he could speak those words and tell the truth. The mistake would haunt him, and if Kahli ever found out, she’d never trust him again. Will stepped closer to her, “Kahli, we can’t leave you like this. Let’s go to the medic and—”
“No. I can’t. I’d rather deal with the frostbite. I’d rather—”
Hearing the panic rising with her voice, he cut her off and gripped her hand gently, “Then let me do it. We can try application instead of drinking. Surely you can stand that, right?” The way he looked at her made Kahli want to cry. He thought that she didn’t like him. He thought that she detested him because he was a vampire. Part of her did, but part of her realized he was also human. At some point he stopped being the enemy, and became Will—the guy with bright blue eyes and a wicked smile that he rarely used—the guy who seemed to care about her.
She nodded slowly, too ashamed to look at him. They walked in silence through the corridors until Kahli finally asked, “Where are we going?” They wound past elaborate tapestries from when the world was green. She wanted to slow down and examine them. It was strange, seeing pictures of summer and deer and birds. All those things were gone now.
Will pushed through another doorway and the hallway suddenly stopped. They stood at a door. Will pulled it opened, and they passed through. He didn’t speak until they began to climb. “We’re going to my room. It’s forbidden to heal you this way. I’m supposed to take you to the medic, and make sure you drink. So I had to take you somewhere they wouldn’t look. Only servants are in this part of the castle. If the Queen finds out you’re here...”
“She won’t,” Kahli said quickly. The Queen was insane, and she surely wouldn’t volunteer that Will offered to heal her unconventionally so that she didn’t have to go to the medic. “You can trust me, Will.”
The words gripped his heart and twisted. She trusted him. That made everything so much harder. He nodded without looking back at her, listening to her small feet climb the stone stairs behind him. Before he opened the door to the upper-landing, he stopped and turned back to her. Kahli glanced up just before walking into him. His eyes searched her face. He wondered how much she knew, if she remembered when he compelled her. “I say this with complete sincerity, so I hope you’ll listen. There is no one—no human or vampire—that you can trust within the palace walls. Everyone is in a fight for their lives. Every person is a player in a massive game with death lurking at every turn. What you did today was incompressible to most of them—especially the king. Never go to see him alone. Ever. You won’t survive.”
Will’s words seemed out of place. One moment she said she trusted him and the next he was spewing dark warnings. “I have no intention of seeing the King. After tonight, I’ll do my best to run the other way when I see him coming. I think I lost my BFF status,” she smirked, but Will didn’t respond. “I know he hates me, and what I did tonight probably made it worse…”