Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
The meeting goes in circles for another hour, at least, before Selwick and Brynn are satisfied enough to retire to their guest rooms.
A few more visitors are waiting in the wings to sneak in moments of their own with the king, but these conversations don’t last nearly as long, thankfully. Still, it’s long past midnight before we finally escape everyone.
We check on Arlo, only to be aggressively shooed away by a grumpy Kestrel, who reminds her older brother that sleep is a necessity when running a kingdom. Particularly a kingdom on the verge of war.
“And how many days has it been since you actually slept for more than an hour or two?” she demands of him.
“It’s hardly the most pressing issue of the night.”
“It’s the only issue I care about, presently,” she snaps back. “Now get out of here before I throw this teapot at your big stupid head.”
Reave starts to protest, then seems to change his mind as Kestrel’s hand actually goes for the teapot in question.
“She wasn’t bluffing, was she?” I ask as we quietly close the door behind us.
He tenderly runs a hand through his hair, as if remembering a former bruise. “It wouldn’t be the first thing she’s thrown at me. And she has impressive aim. The irony, of course, is that I’m the one who taught her how to throw.”
I smile wryly.
His hand finds mine as we make our way back into the quiet halls. It happens without any conscious thought—our fingers intertwining, my steps falling into sync with his—and then suddenly we’ve walked all the way up to his bedroom with barely a word spoken between us.
I hesitate at the door.
He lets go of me and casually slides his hands into his pockets. “You have more questions, I’m assuming.”
“Of course I do.”
“I won’t be able to sleep for a while yet.” He glances between the door and my guarded expression. “I thought we could talk more privately.”
My heart skips a few beats at the thought of being alone in his room with him, but I ultimately agree; the walls between us are finally beginning to crumble, and I don’t want to give him a chance to shut himself away and rebuild them before I get more answers.
I head inside first. He lingers in the hall for a moment, giving instructions to a servant, who then bows and hurries away.
Clean clothing is brought from my room a short time later, and Reave sits at his desk and works while I disappear into the washroom, soaking away the last of the mud and trying to soothe and settle all the parts of me that ache, both literally and figuratively.
When I reemerge, there’s a small platter of food waiting in the same glass-walled nook we dined in the last time I was here. I don’t realize how famished I am until I catch sight of it.
I strongly suspect Reave hasn’t eaten anything lately, but he refuses everything I offer to bring him, his focus never lifting from the letters and notes he’s sifting through.
As my own food settles, I pour two glasses of some sort of crisp, sweet wine and carry them both over to his desk.
“You promised more answers,” I remind him, placing one of the glasses next to his hand as he continues to write.
His pen slowly stills against the parchment. “Ask away, then.”
I lean against the desk, considering for a moment before deciding on my first question. “I felt the air shift in your office earlier. It turned colder, heavier…that was magic?”
“Yes.”
“In the woods earlier, you told me that every time you call upon dragons or their magic, it risks making your curse manifest itself with more conviction.”
“And?”
“And…how much more can you risk, before you do something irreversible?”
His answer comes slowly, quietly. “I wish I knew. Arlo has never wielded magic, as far as I know, yet he had transformed entirely—however briefly—by the time he was five years old.”
“And Kestrel?”
“Has never shown signs of losing herself, but she’s also only used magic very sparingly. I suspect she has more in her blood, but she refuses to take any chances with it. And I don’t want her to.”
“You were all born with these talents and curses?”
He nods.
“So that horrific chamber under the Temple of the Mouren Flame…”
“Was sealed off by my grandparents before I was born. I’ve visited it only a handful of times myself, just to make sure nothing there is amiss.
I never participated in any of the rituals or experiments that went on there.
But whatever mutation or sickness it caused in our ancestors, as I said earlier, it… ”
“Became hereditary.”
“So it would seem.”
It’s unfair.
Nauseatingly so.
But this bit of information also relieves the tiniest bit of weight from my weary heart. Because if he’s telling the truth, it means he is different than past Mouren rulers, just as I’d hoped. Inheriting monstrous things isn’t the same as making them yourself.
But the question still remains—what will he ultimately do with those things?
And how do we fix any of it before it’s too late?
I look to the rain-splattered window just as I did in his office earlier, thinking of Sesca. More and more, I find myself wanting to go to her in these moments when the world and all of its cruelties and complications stop making sense.
“A new divine age, Brynn said…” I think aloud. “What did she mean by that? Do you think there will be other divine dragons making an appearance sometime soon?”
“That’s what the rest of the empire is hoping, I’m sure.
Historically, they’ve tended to appear in close succession across all the kingdoms.” He picks up the drink I brought, but doesn’t sip from it, only swirls and studies the contents of the glass for a moment before he adds, “As far as I know, however, there’s been no other signs of any. Just you.”
“Which is why I’m such a target.”
“Exactly. Even if more eventually appear, every kingdom wants to be the first to lay claim to the next iteration of divine dragon power. It’s always been that way.”
“Always?” I frown. “There was peace in the beginning, surely? The kingdoms were all even when they were established, according to legend—each dragon representing a part of a singular whole. Hearth, Inferno, Ember, Ash…all the collective parts of a flame’s life cycle.”
He studies me for a moment before giving a noncommittal shrug. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Do you think the empire could ever return to something so…whole? Something healed and peaceful?” Even as I say it, I realize what an impossible question it is.
Especially for him, the centerpiece of this kingdom that has been responsible for so much of the breaking, and which I now realize is far from whole itself.
Reave lets out a sigh. “I think…that’s a discussion to be had after we’ve both managed to get a decent night’s sleep.”
If that ever happens again, I start to say—until I notice him wince slightly as he reaches for something at the edge of his desk, and concern catches my tongue.
He needs more than sleep, I think.
“And maybe after you’ve dealt with the alarming amount of blood still on your clothing?” I suggest, pointedly.
He glances down at his tattered shirt, peeking out from under his unbuttoned coat, as if he’s just remembered his injury. “Yes; that should probably be a priority, too. Though it’s not as bad as it looks, for what it’s worth.”
“The famous last words of the King of Mouren, spoken right before he died of infection from his untreated wounds.”
A ghost of a grin crosses his face. “That’s dramatic.”
“Go take care of yourself,” I order, “or I’m going to tell your sister.”
“Devils, both of you,” he mutters, but then relents, getting to his feet.
Before he slips away into the washroom, he points me toward a stack of papers on his desk—detailed reports from the regiments of Gault, along with some of his recent correspondence with Baroness Serath—and suggests I look over it myself while he’s gone.
Another gesture of no more secrets between us, I guess.
I carry some of these things back to the glass-walled nook, sitting and absently picking at more food while I try to focus on reading.
But I think my mind has reached the limit of what it can absorb in a single day.
And my gaze keeps drifting toward the washroom, anyway. Reave partially opens the door to let the steam out after he’s done bathing, and as the fog settles, I notice him tending to several angry-looking wounds along his side and back.
I hope it’s not as bad as it looks, as he claimed, because it looks fucking awful.
Curiosity and concern get the better of me. I get up and move toward him, leaning against the doorway. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
His answer is annoyingly predictable. “I’ve been worse.”
I loose an exasperated breath. Studying the wounds closer, I notice a web of dark discoloration spreading out from the main marks…and starting to form scars that look almost identical to the ones on his forearms.
Another mystery solved, but with no sense of satisfaction; it just makes me feel ill.
“It’s the toxin he exhales,” he explains. “It’s in his claws and teeth, too, and the ridges along his tail. It was the tail that got me tonight.” He sucks in a sharp breath as he runs a hand along the worst of the new marks.
“And the old scars on your arms? They were caused by the same thing, it looks like.”
He nods. “Those happened during his first transformations, when he was smaller. Kestrel has a few lasting souvenirs from those days, as well.”
The molded, dragon-scale accessories she usually wears…that’s what they’re covering up, I suspect.
He picks up a small glass jar from the counter and starts to apply its contents to the wounds.
“I developed this salve that seems to prevent any lasting marks well enough, so long as it’s used within a few hours.
And the toxin seems more deadly to other dragons than to humans, luckily.
Still burns like hell, though.” He speaks so calmly—as though this is nothing at all to him, just a part of his daily routine.