To overthrow the cruel King who brutally slaughtered her foremothers, the last surviving water witch Elara Consuli must team up with novice warrior Juda Vikaris from the Serpent Order and realise an ancient prophecy, before the blood-thirsty ruler d...
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Juda didn't give a shit that Luca Zar-Kuron was dead.
As far as he was concerned, Zar-Kuron had been a boorish, over-privileged swamp skunk with fish guts for brains and a lust for blood and death that turned even Juda's stomach. He deserved to be nothing but fodder for the dark waters of the Setalah.
He didn't even care that Luca had been murdered, because by the dead gods, he'd thought about slitting his throat practically every day since he'd joined the Order. Zar-Kuron had that effect on people. If he wasn't relishing every second of painting the training arena with the blood of his fellow Highguards, he was doing his best to shirk his responsibilities in the novice quarters. The man was as lazy as he was ugly. Or at least, had been until someone had done what Juda could only dream of doing.
It was just the poor fucking timing of it all.
The Grim never granted favour to any of the novices, but this was a Zar-Kuron, after all. A golden son of the infamous gold merchant family of the upper echelon and close to Ban-Keren himself. There was no way the King would let this affront go unpunished and if that meant torturing the whole of Grimefell with thirst and ripping the slums apart – stone by grubby stone – then, so be it.
No, The Grim would have no choice but to follow orders and send the Highguards to the port to divert the shipment from Dreynia and crush any hints of unrest that would undoubtedly erupt once the slum rats realised they had been well and truly fucked.
It would be a bloodbath.
And what was worse, it was going to ruin all of Juda's plans which meant he had to act fast before his time and skills were commandeered for law and order and bloodshed. He'd been plotting this for the past two cycles, and if he didn't get into the catacombs under the citadel soon, then all opportunity would be lost to him and that was something Juda could not bear. He would not.
Leaving the protection of the novice quarters this eventide was risky, especially when the Order was on high alert, but they still had no idea whether it was an attack on the Serpent Order itself or just Zar-Kuron's bad fortune. Juda wouldn't have been surprised if it had been the latter. Luca might have been a brute force, but he lacked Juda's speed and agility and if he'd wandered off course while on patrol in Grimefell and had become cornered by one of the cut-throat slum gangs, then all the strength in the world wouldn't have saved his arse. Juda supposed that's what happened when luxury and wealth softened your guts and made you idle, and if that had been the case, then poor luck to Zar-Kuron.
In fact, fuck Zar-Kuron.
Grabbing his cloak, Juda draped it over his shoulders and fastened it as his throat, avoiding his own gaze in the mirror. He'd tried telling himself that the permanent mark of the batak tree oil slashed across his face was a small price to pay in comparison to the end goal, but whenever he felt the lingering touches of the burn, he imagined his mother, the ghostly remnants of her fingertips brushing over his skin, the frown cutting into her smooth forehead.
