Aaron #2
I flex my fingers, the new power humming through them, more than I’ve ever held.
“Funny thing. With all this in me, I see things I couldn’t before.
” My eyes go to his. “I know why you really want them gone. The coven turned on you in the Great War. So did the dragon shifters. But the dragons, you forgave. You let them keep their place in Wintermoon, walking our markets. The coven did the same. Them, you’ll never forgive.
So you’d rather wipe them out than face the double standard in your own house. ”
Amir’s grin holds, but something behind it shifts.
“You don’t know the first thing about betrayal.
” His voice drops, the game gone out of it.
“You think it began for me in the Great War. It began before these lands had a name—before these mountains rose. I was betrayed by men I crowned and men I loved, and in the end by my own blood.” His golden eyes settle on mine.
“Do not lecture me about who deserves my mercy.”
“I’m not asking for your mercy. I’m telling you how this goes.
” I don’t blink. “You gave me three days. I’ve got the power to keep those people alive, and I’m going to use it to bring that realm back.
When they turn on you again—you’re so sure they will—I’ll be standing right there to see it. They’ll just be alive to do it.”
He studies me, then turns to leave.
“You’re not the king I used to know,” I say to his back. “The Amir I first met wouldn’t have needed to play a man like a board piece. He’d have just asked.”
He stops and turns back. His face is shut as ever.
“You are young,” he says at last, “and you carry more power than one your age was ever meant to. The two together make a dangerous thing.” He lifts his gaze to the dark sky, and whatever he finds there gentles him a fraction.
“Mother Fate shaped you for something larger than I can yet see. I will not stand in the way of her work. But do not lecture me about change, Aaron Blackwood. You have only begun to give things up. I will be curious to see what remains of you when the giving is done.”
“Leaving without a goodbye, Majesty? And here I thought we’d grown so close.”
Amir’s whole face curdles. Josiah strolls out of the dark in a black suit, hands already moving, red eyes bright.
“Where is your beautiful Layla?” Amir asks, flat. “Why are you here and not with her, where someone might enjoy your company?”
“Only I get to call her beautiful Layla.” Josiah’s smile sharpens, then he smooths it away.
He folds his hands behind his back, mimicking Amir to the inch, and circles us.
“Word on the wind says you’re in the market for a king, Majesty.
It’d be a shame to leave a perfectly good throne sitting empty. ”
“Not in you.” Amir doesn’t even look at him.
“And why ever not?” Josiah spreads his hands, wounded. “I’ve saved Wintermoon more times than its king has bothered to thank me for. I love every soul in it. All of them—not only the ones I’ve judged worth the trouble.” He leaves it there.
Amir crosses to him in a blink and stops with his face an inch from Josiah’s. “I would rot on the throne of Wintermoon for eternity,” he says, soft and venomous, “before I would let your hands anywhere near it.”
Josiah only grins back at him.
Amir steps away, his face hard and furious. “I must be on my way.” He looks back at me. “Good luck, Aaron Blackwood. I hope to Mother Fate you know what you’re doing.”
He doesn’t turn to leave—he’s just gone, and there’s only dark where a king stood.
I look at Josiah. “You get under his skin like it’s a hobby.”
“He pretends to despise me.” Josiah stares after him.
“He doesn’t.” He turns his hands over and studies them.
Magic flickers up at his fingertips, red and blue tangled together, like nothing I’ve seen on another soul.
“I don’t know the whole of that man’s story.
But I’d wager he and I are the same kind of creature underneath. ”
“I’ve got to go, Jo.”
“Another visit to the Glen?” He falls into step beside me, easy. “My Layla’s in her slumber again. I’d be happy to join you, if you’ll—“
“No.” I stop and turn to him. “Not this time, Jo.”
He stops beside me. Every bit of the performance drops off his face. “You aren’t coming back.”
I don’t answer. I close the distance and throw my arms around him.
He stiffens, but he doesn’t lift his hands or push me off—just stands there in my arms like he’s never once been held. Then his arms come up around my back.
“Thank you for everything, Uncle Jo,” I tell him into his shoulder. “I’d never have made it through any of this without you. You know that, right?”
“You owe me nothing, Blackwood.” His arms tighten on me when he says it.
“I owe you everything.” I pull back enough to look at him, and his eyes are shining. “All of Wintermoon owes you, whether a single one of them ever says it out loud.”
“I love Wintermoon,” he says.
“And I love you.”
The words reach a place in him nobody’s touched. Everything theatrical about him falls away. He just looks at me, like a man hearing a word he’d long stopped believing was meant for him. His red eyes hold mine, open all the way down.
“Can I ask you for a favor, Jo?”
“Anything.” He doesn’t dress it up. “Anything, brother.”