Chapter 9
Chapter 9
F or hours, I jog beside Thaden, my feet hitting the rocky ground, my legs aching with every step.
Breathing has become nearly impossible, the air rasping against my throat, burning with every inhale, freezing with every exhale.
At some point, the incline begins to descend—or rather, the path does—while a wall of rock increases beside us until it is chest height, as if the path we’re now following cuts down across the mountain ridge.
The stone is still too low to provide a windbreak, and finally, I stumble.
Veering to the right, I knock into the low rock wall before my knees give way, and I find myself sliding down it, trying to stop myself in a half-crouching, half-stooping position.
“We have to keep going.” Thaden veers back to me, reaching for my arm. “I can help you?—”
“No!” My cry sounds before I can stop it. At some point, the shield I’ve kept around my true feelings has crumbled.
Exhaustion has finally taken its toll.
He pulls to a stop, his right arm extended—the scaled one. “Tamra?”
I know from what Gallium told me that Thaden used his right hand to help Asha forge weapons for the humans back in the Cursed City.
It makes sense to me that he would cover his powered hand in dragon scales.
After all, to render a Blacksmith completely and permanently powerless, all you have to do is cut off their powered hand.
The dragon scales protect Thaden from that.
There is no blade in the world that can cut through dragon scales.
His hand remains only inches away from my shoulder.
My eyes meet his, and I can’t stop my fear from rising; can’t stop my pounding heart.
He looks down at me for a long moment, his expression slowly wiping clean. “You don’t trust me.”
My breathing is too rapid, and I can’t seem to calm it. “How can I when you’ve lied to me about who you are?”
He takes a step back, and his arm falls to his side.
Again, he takes a moment. When he speaks, his eyes are hollow and there’s a bleakness in his voice that I wasn’t expecting. “You know who I am.”
My throat constricts, but I force myself to speak. “I do.”
“Then say it.” He remains motionless, his eyes hollow. “Tell me who I am.”
I try desperately to bring moisture to my lips.
I have nowhere to run.
At my back is a darkness that wants me dead.
In front of me is Thaden, a man as strong and powerful as the Vandawolf.
Thaden may not be carrying a hammer right now, but he could easily take mine and use it to destroy me.
I exhale, knowing that speaking his true name aloud could be my end.
“You’re Thaden Kane Ironmeld,” I say. “You’re Malak Ironmeld’s son.”
He takes another step back, his expression withdrawn, his arms loose at his sides, and his shoulders slowly hunching.
“I won’t let you destroy my sister,” I snarl. “I care about her too much.”
His brow creases, and now he seems confused. “But back at the castle, you said—” The furrow in his brow eases. And then, “You were trying to push her away.”
“I was protecting her from you .” I press against the wall at my back, forcing myself to be more upright. “I won’t let you hurt her.”
“‘Hurt her’?” His mouth is downturned. “I have no interest in hurting Asha. I need her.” He takes a step toward me. “I came to the Cursed City because I need her help.”
He takes a step toward me, and even though it’s a quiet step, it feels angry.
“I need her help,” he repeats softly. “And I will do whatever it takes to get it.”
“Why?” I ask, pushing myself fully upright. “Why do you need her?”
He shakes his head at me, his bronzed eyes flashing. With rage or desperation… I’m not sure.
“You will see,” he says.
That was the answer he gave me when I told him we shouldn’t go to his village or we’d endanger the people who live there.
“No.” I maintain my upright position, even though my legs are screaming at me for rest. “I won’t see.”
His eyes narrow at me. He doesn’t have to ask me why for me to continue.
“Because I’m not going with you,” I say. “I’m not going any farther than this. I won’t take the darkness to your village?—”
He lurches toward me, a sudden step that brings him within inches of me before he stops, his gaze blazing down at me.
His eyes are suddenly hollow again. His voice is a bare whisper. “I thought you might be different, but you’re just like all the others. You’ve already judged me.”
How could I not?
I snarl back at him. “I’ve judged you on your actions, not your name!”
“What actions?”
“You lied to me. From the very beginning?—”
“How?” he demands to know. “What lie?”
“You told me you were human,” I say, my head tipped back, my voice biting. “You acted as if you hate Blacksmiths.”
“I am human,” he snaps back. “And I do hate Blacksmiths. Every fucking one of them.”
I narrow my eyes. “Including me, then.”
“Except you,” he snaps back. And then more softly. “And your brother.” His jaw clenches. “And even Asha. I no longer hate her.”
Other than moving closer to me, he hasn’t made any move to bridge the gap between us.
His arms remain at his sides.
“But you…” Confusion is like lava within me, burning through my thoughts. He claims to be human. He claims to hate Blacksmiths. But he’s a Blacksmith, not a human. “But you’re…”
Still trying to lie to me.
Allowing my anger to rise and give me the strength I need to push away from the wall, I step in far closer than is safe and pin him with my gaze. “You’re Malak’s son. You’re a Blacksmith, not a human.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t hate them.”
I’m close enough to him now that I could collide with him and still, he makes no move against me. “You aren’t human.”
He exhales softly, what sounds like a carefully controlled breath. The tension in his jaw eases as his focus passes across my earnest face. His lips part, then press together, the slightest movement.
Is he weighing his answer?
Is he trying to devise a lie?
Or is he preparing to tell me the truth?
For a long moment, silence passes between us, broken only by the heavy breeze.
Then, he says, “I have always been alone.”
I wait for him to go on, but he studies my face, giving me a chance to speak, as if he expects me to refute him again.
When I don’t, he continues. “I was surrounded by humans and raised by dragons. I learned their ways. I forged bonds with them. But always, I was alone. And always, Milena was never far away.
“All my life, she watched me. Waiting for signs of my father’s cruelty. And soon enough, I realized that the dragons were watching me, too. All of them waiting for me to turn to the same darkness that my father welcomed into his heart.”
Thaden stops again, as if he expects a retort from me, but I remain silent. Not because I won’t act or because I believe him, but because the more I know about his beliefs, the more knowledge I can gain. The more knowledge I have, the safer I’ll be.
“Just as you’re watching me now,” he says.
He raises his right hand, turning it over in the dim light. He’s close enough to me that he could wrap that arm around me.
Or break me with it.
“Even when it became clear that I wasn’t left-handed, the scrutiny didn’t ease. Milena didn’t hold anything back about my father and the things he’d done. She told me everything. The dragon king himself, Graviter Rex, made it his mission to ensure I was aware of Malak’s every dark choice.
“But one day, Milena told me a lie. She found me sitting at the edge of a cliff when I was ten years old. I asked her if I could make wings out of metal and fly away. I wanted to leave my name behind. Find a place where nobody had heard of Malak Ironmeld, and I could be free of his legacy.” Thaden’s voice softens. “Do you want to know the lie she told me?”
“You’re going to tell me anyway,” I say.
He nods. “She told me that my father loved me.”
I blink at Thaden. I don’t know enough to refute Milena’s claim. “How do you know it was a lie?”
He gives me a cold smile. “Because you can’t love something when you don’t know it exists.”
“Are you certain Malak never knew about you?” I ask. “Surely, your mother?—”
“No.” His rebuke is soft, but the growl in his voice tells me I’m in dangerous territory. “If he knew my mother had given birth to me, he would have killed her.”
My forehead is deeply furrowed. “But… why? Malak used everything for his own purposes. If he was worried you could challenge him, he would have done to you what he did to us and stolen your power. I can’t see him killing?—”
“Because my mother was human.”
I blink at him, frozen to the spot. “That isn’t possible.”
His lips twist. “Which is almost certainly why he didn’t think twice about the chance of a pregnancy.”
My eyes are wide. “Both parents must be Blacksmiths.” I try to fight through the whirlwind of confusion within my mind. “Well… Who was she? Your mother?”
His jaw clenches. “I saw her when I was there,” he says softly. “When I went to your Cursed City.” The tension in his features eases, and he gives an exhalation like relief. “She was alive and healthy.”
“Her name, Thaden,” I say, a demand for an answer.
“ Alive and healthy ,” he repeats, the tension washing across his face again. “Because nobody knows who she is or the fact that she brought Malak’s son into the world. And for that same reason, I didn’t speak a word to her.”
“You’re protecting her,” I say, my eyes widening.
“Of course I’m protecting her!” He shakes his head at me, an intensely angry movement. “Even Milena only spoke my mother’s name once. And even then, it was in a whisper. When she was certain the dragons couldn’t hear.
“I want to believe there was a small shred of goodness in Milena that compelled her to keep me and my mother safe. But I know she only did it because she wanted to use us as leverage against Malak. Her knowledge was her power over him.”
Thaden’s presence is now overpowering. His eyes glitter down at me. “So you see, Tamra Silverspun, I didn’t lie. I am human.”
“And what of the rest of your story?” I ask. “Did Milena really change you into a dragon against your will?”
He is silent.
For a terrible moment, I actually want him to lie to me. To tell me a story that I can willfully believe.
All because of that look in his eyes when he told me he’s human. A painful hope, as if he wants more than anything to be human.
For myself, I don’t know what happened to the dragon. I only know that it makes no sense for Milena to have killed one when she’s clearly allied with the dragons. There’s no reason for her to anger them like that. I don’t even know what dragon was killed.
Of course, dragons could have enemies amongst themselves…
I’m certain Thaden could concoct a believable story.
Instead, he says. “Milena didn’t kill the dragon.”
I wait for him to continue, barely daring to breathe, praying now for the truth.
“It was…” He shakes his head. “A tragedy that…”
He closes his eyes for a long moment.
I want the words he isn’t speaking. I need him to fill the silences with explanations, but he doesn’t.
“I had no choice,” he says, his forehead creasing and his eyes squeezing harder closed. “I had to make myself as strong as possible for the battle I knew was coming for me.”
He opens his eyes, and now they’re hard, gleaming bronze and filled with fire.
“I have no choice but to become what Milena and the dragons feared,” he snarls. “To protect what I love, I will embrace the dark.”