Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The sudden, enraged surge of power that flows out from Reave takes my breath away.
“Take your hands off her,” he says. “Now.”
Faron shakes his head. “I’m afraid that’s not how this is going to work.”
The air seems to tighten and freeze around us, clinging like frost to my skin, making every breath hurt. I hear the chilling cry of distant dragons—abrupt, shrill cries that quickly draw closer, as though they sensed that sudden power from Reave and immediately twisted in mid-air to answer it.
“But we’re willing to exchange her for the safe release of our own,” Faron says calmly.
Reave doesn’t reply. The moment stretches into a tense, volatile silence. It’s like watching sparks hover above dry tinder, just waiting for one to ignite.
Kestrel looks as though she’s considering attempting to break free and single-handedly snap the necks of every man touching her.
She’s already covered in blood, but otherwise appears perfectly fine.
Perfectly capable of slaughter. I suspect it’s not her own blood staining her, and I wonder how many she killed before they managed to capture her.
“Don’t make me turn violent,” says Faron, flashing a little smile that makes me think he wouldn’t mind turning violent at all.
Reave glares at him for a moment longer before giving a nearly imperceptible nod. Keeping one eye on the men holding his sister, he beckons one of his guards closer. They speak briefly, rapidly, in the language of Mouren. The guard bows deeply and hurries away.
“We’re in agreement, then?” Faron asks.
“He’ll be safely escorted to you momentarily.”
“Excellent.” Faron’s smile brightens. “And here I was told the King of Mouren didn’t know how to compromise.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” Reave replies.
Another uneasy silence settles. No one speaks.
There are sounds of ongoing skirmishes in the distance, but they feel far removed from this standoff.
No one pays them any mind. Faron paces along the line of his fellow intruders, his hands casually clasped behind his back, while Reave stands perfectly still in front of me.
The warmth and strength is fading from my muscles; I haven’t seen or heard Sesca for several minutes.
Where did you go? I think.
No reply—though I hear more of Mouren’s dragons swarming closer, their low, rumbling calls and the occasional gust from their beating wings making a few of our opponents cast wary looks upward.
Did those dragons frighten Sesca away?
I’m still scanning the skies, trying to remain calm, when the sound of footsteps and the rattle of chains catches my attention. Twisting around, I see two guards marching toward us with a man secured between them.
I gasp.
Commander Gareth.
His face is bruised, pale, and completely expressionless as he walks forward. One foot after the other, looking at no one. He’s shoved into the empty space between the standoff.
Kestrel is dragged to the same area.
I hold my breath as the handlers step away, allowing their prisoners to carry on alone toward their respective sides.
Kestrel moves much more quickly than Gareth. The instant she’s safely behind a line of Mouren soldiers, Reave lifts a hand. He holds up two fingers and makes a quick, subtle slicing motion.
Gareth is mere steps from his own line of safety when two arrows fly from somewhere above us, striking him on either side of his neck. Blood spurts and silence overtakes the entire yard as he manages one last step. The next turns into a wild, stumbling pitch forward.
There’s more stunned silence after his face hits the ground, as he gives a few violent twitches and then goes completely still.
One, two, three, four heartbeats of silence, and then finally movement from the Dralsk side—weapons being drawn, a shout going up, boots shifting forward in response.
They stop at the sound of dragons roaring closer. Several of the beasts swoop down and land atop the nearby walls, claws scraping and wings flaring.
The same gold-masked force that accompanied Reave the night we first met is suddenly here as well, sweeping silently out of the shadows and forming a line on either side of him. The cold magic Reave possesses seems amplified by their presence, thickening the air around us into an impenetrable wall.
The Dralsk forces are not just outnumbered, they’re grossly overpowered. And, judging by their expressions, they realize it. Most of them are backing away.
Only Lord Faron takes a step toward Gareth’s fallen body. He only makes it part way before he stops, lifting his eyes to the King of Mouren. “You bastard. You—”
“I agreed to his release,” Reave says, evenly. “I never said he’d make it safely out of my kingdom.”
Faron looks too furious to speak.
“Next time you decide to try and force me into a hostage negotiation, maybe you’ll bring a proper army to support you.”
The Dralsk Lord stares at the blood pooling around Gareth’s head. Swallows hard. Composes himself, then finally meets Reave’s eyes once more. “I’ll consider this your official declaration of war, then.”
“As if you hadn’t already fucking declared it by sending a spy into my palace. Now get the fuck out of my city before I shoot the rest of you. Oh…” Reave pauses as he turns away, glancing over his shoulder as he adds, “and give the royal family my sincere condolences for their loss.”
The masked Mouren soldiers surge forward with synchronized, deadly poise, ready to intercept anyone who might try a desperate counterattack. A few seem to be considering it, but ultimately, they all sink back toward the shadows, including Lord Faron.
Sesca is still nowhere to be seen. My body is cold, my vision fading back to its usual impaired state as I stare at Gareth, trying to make sense of everything that’s just happened.
I stumble a few steps toward his corpse. I don’t know why, or what I plan to do, but it doesn’t matter; I don’t get far before Reave grabs my arm and jerks me roughly to his side, marching me into the palace with him.
He ignores my questions, my demands, gripping me more tightly every time I try to break free of his hold.
Kestrel follows us, giving orders to further secure the palace and its grounds as she comes.
We reach the hall that leads to Reave’s office. Guards fill in behind us. Reave finally releases me once we’re secure in this relatively quiet space, then turns to his sister, briefly cupping a hand to her face and pressing his forehead to hers.
“That was a rash display, even for you,” Kestrel scolds when he takes a step back—though her voice is missing its typical bite. She’s shaken, I think, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.
“We both knew his execution was imminent,” Reave answers. “I’m just ahead of schedule. You’re always complaining about me being late, aren’t you?”
She gives him a withering look.
My shock is wearing off, turning into something closer to fury. I grab Kestrel’s arm and force her attention to me. “Where is Briar?” I demand. “She was with you, she was helping you—”
“Calm down,” she hisses, prying my hand off and shoving it away. “I left her in the banquet hall, where our guests are sheltering along with most of our guards. I’m sure she’s fine.”
I squeeze my hands into fists only to unclench them, over and over again, trying to keep numbing panic from setting in too deep. “Because so much of tonight has been fine, hasn’t it?” I move as if to go search for Briar on my own.
Reave grabs my wrist, stopping me.
I jerk away from him so hard I nearly lose my balance.
The intimate, vulnerable moments we shared on the rooftop feel a lifetime away as we glare at one another, my deep-rooted hatred of him coiling tight around my heart once more, choking out any other feelings that had started to bloom.
“…I’ll go find her and send her your way,” Kestrel offers.
Reave looks as though he wants to protest her leaving his side, but she continues before he can.
“Just let me do something useful. After letting them get their disgusting hands on me, I need to balance things out. I’ll be fine.
And if I do happen to run into any lingering, stray enemies, you should be worried about them, not me.
” She smooths her blood-stained dress and combs her fingers through her tangled hair before calmly striding away.
Reave sighs as he watches her go, then gestures me toward his office.
I want answers, so I don’t protest—though I keep a wide berth between us.
The words flood out of me the instant he locks the door behind us. “So, when you all told me Commander Gareth was otherwise engaged, what you really meant was that he was rotting away in your dungeon.”
“Yes. And it was far better treatment than he deserved.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, focusing on lighting the small lamp on his desk.
I try to remain calm, logical, but it’s difficult when all the violent events of the night are flashing on repeat through my mind. “You should have told me the truth.”
Reave braces his hands against his desk and bows his head. “I was still trying to figure out the truth for myself.”
“But you’re certain he was a spy?”
“Yes. I thought those Dralsk bastards had a Flameseer among them, as I told you. It turns out it was just Gareth feeding information about you and your progress to them.”
“And you know this because…”
He lifts his gaze to me. “He confessed.”
A chill skates down my spine. “That doesn’t sound like something the stubborn man I knew would have done.”
“I have my methods for making people talk.”
“Torture?” The word chokes out of me. “You tortured him, didn’t you?”
He doesn’t deny it.
The room is starting to spin. I tuck my head toward my chest and briefly close my eyes, trying to stop my stomach from churning.
“It was no worse than what he likely had planned to do to you.” I glance up to find Reave studying the bruise along my collarbone, which still hasn’t fully healed. “He had already crossed a line with you. And I believe he would have crossed more, had I not intervened.”
“If he’d wanted to kill me, he could have already done it. I don’t know why you—”
“I’m not saying he would have killed you. Because he knows the stories as well as anyone.”
I give him a curious look.
“About the kind of destruction divine dragons have rained down upon those who kill their chosen bonds,” he explains.
“It’s only happened a few times throughout history—because it drives them to a kind of madness that levels mountains and empties seas, that swallows cities and rages until there’s nothing left to destroy.
He wouldn’t have risked that.” He runs a hand through his hair, making a bigger mess of the already disheveled waves.
“But there are worse things than death, Arowyn.”
“I’m well aware,” I snap.
He sighs, pushing away from the desk and moving to the window, staring out of it as he says, “His actual orders were likely just to find you. To test you. To make sure you were who we believed you to be, and then to feed his kingdom whatever information they needed to make their next move. And he needed my resources to do these things. Dralsk wouldn’t have had the power to comb those desolate places where we found Sesca, or to apprehend both her and you. ”
“And Mouren would have just slaughtered any regiment they sent into the Ashlands, anyhow.”
Another brutality he doesn’t deny.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, fighting off a second wave of nauseating dizziness. “You sent your condolences to their royal family…” I think aloud.
“I believe Gareth was related to them, however distantly. Though I obviously didn’t know this when I elevated him to the position I did. I fell for his lies, because I…”
“Because why?”
He turns to face me, leaning against the wall beside the window with his arms folded across his chest. Several times, he seems close to speaking, and I think he might be on the verge of letting one of his many secrets free.
In the end, he only shakes his head. “The reason doesn’t matter, now. I never should have trusted him. Never should have let him get as close to you as I did.”
“I could have handled his anger. Whatever brutal attacks he decided to throw at me, I would have survived.”
“I never doubted that.”
“I wasn’t afraid of him.”
“I know you weren’t.”
I barely resist the urge to throw my hands up in exasperation. “Then why did you lock him in the dungeon? Why escalate it so recklessly to this point? Kestrel was right to call you rash. The political fallout of this…”
I trail off as his gaze fully takes mine, my breath catching as I realize: He isn’t looking at me as though I’m merely a political piece, or a weapon that needs to be carefully kept and maintained.
He isn’t studying my sharp edges with his usual cold, calculating precision, wondering how he might set me and my dragon upon his enemies.
He’s looking at me like he wants to protect me from those enemies, if only he could figure out how to do it.
Like he doesn’t care about any of the ramifications of anything he did tonight, even though we both know he should. It’s the same look of conflicted yearning I saw in his eyes earlier.
And, just as he did earlier, he quickly averts his gaze. “We can discuss this more later. For now, just…stay in here and wait for Briar, please. So I know you’re safe and guarded while I go clean up more of the mess outside.”
It sounds like a command, even though he slips the word please into it. I bristle, but I can’t bring myself to argue with him.
Instead, I walk over and sink into the chair behind his desk, one hand gripping the edge of that desk, while I rapidly try to replay every interaction we’ve ever had, wondering how I ended up sitting here, unable to take my eyes off him while a dozen different, confusing feelings all claw for dominance in my tired heart.
He’s nearly to the door by the time I finally find my voice again.
“The other night in your room…you said you wouldn’t let me fall into the brutal clutches of Dralsk’s royal family.”
He pauses with his hand on the doorknob. “I stand by it.”
“And if you really did just start a war over me, as Lord Faron suggested?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Then I made my choice,” he says as he opens the door, “and I don’t regret it.”