Chapter 34 #3
He advanced on me, and though I was tempted to back away, I held my ground. “You sold yourself to Void House, and you didn’t have the fucking decency to tell me your mind was already made up.”
I raised my chin, glaring at him. “I told you, I haven’t made my mind up.”
His laugh was disbelieving. “Oh, please. You had a private meeting with Hector.”
Gweneira’s bird again, presumably. Shards, I’d seen it, hadn’t I?
It had been perched on a candelabrum shaped like a tree.
At least Hector’s shadows had disguised our path, so it hadn’t followed to eavesdrop.
“And I’m meeting with you now. That’s what allies do.
What they don’t do is send spies after each other. ”
“You lecture me about spies when you’re spending your nights with Kallen?
” His lip curled in a sneer. “How do you even stomach it? Do you scrub your skin raw afterwards, telling yourself it’ll all be worth it in the end?
That if you lift your skirts for him often enough, even a monster can be convinced to eat out of your hand? ”
The blast of rage I felt was so powerful the edges of my vision darkened. I let go of the chair and slapped him.
His head snapped to the side. He stared at the far wall, cheek reddening. The lines of my fingers were imprinted over his cheekbone.
My hand stung from the force of that blow. I was so angry that if I opened my mouth to speak, I might scream.
Drustan swallowed. “I deserved that.”
“Yes, you did,” I bit out. “Shaming me, when you’ve whored yourself for your cause for centuries? That’s not why I’m with him, anyway.”
“With him,” he echoed. When he looked at me again, his irises were wholly overtaken by flame. “He’s evil, Kenna.”
“He’s not evil.”
“He was Osric’s right hand!”
“Not by choice.”
He laughed again, even wilder. “What nonsense has he filled your head with? He betrayed countless people to Osric, including Lara’s own brother. Is it acceptable when he does it, but not me?”
I blinked rapidly. “What are you talking about?”
“How do you think Osric found out about Leo and Mildritha? Kallen spoke with her mere minutes before she was arrested.” Grief joined the fury on his face. “He found out who fathered her child, and she’s dead because of it.”
My breath caught. This was why Drustan hated Kallen so virulently, even more than he seemed to hate Hector.
Not just because of the years with Osric—because he thought Kallen was responsible for the death of his closest friend, the lady he’d grown up loving with hopeless dedication even knowing she didn’t return his feelings.
Looking at that expression of furious sorrow, I knew with even more certainty that his passion for me only went so deep. Despite the countless lovers he’d taken, despite the years of charming and seducing to build his power, Drustan’s heart was locked away. It belonged to a pile of ashes.
“That’s not what happened,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. Kallen would have tried to save that child. Someone else had betrayed them to Osric.
He paced away, jamming his hands into his copper hair. “How would you know what happened?”
“Because I know Kallen. Have you ever actually asked him about it? Maybe you should speak to both him and Hector like the allies you claim they are.” I wasn’t going to betray the secret of Void House’s changelings, but something needed to change soon, because our alliance couldn’t survive with a poison like this eating away at its core.
He shook his head. “First her, now you. He’s going to destroy you.” He stormed back to me. “When are you going to declare Hector king? Since you know so much about Void House now.”
We were back to this. Back to the anger and demands, because as I knew, it was easier to hold hate than pain. “I told you—”
“That crown is mine, Kenna. Mine by right. I will have it.”
Drustan’s fervent eyes flickered orange and then a pale, scorching blue I’d never seen before. The air wavered around him, warped by the heat coming off his body. It was painful to stand this close—sweat poured down my face, and my skin felt so tight it might split.
Fear pulsed through me. That was the face of a fanatic.
There were moments when everything came clear at once. Weeks of indecision, hours spent reading measured words and promises about a better future, and it came down to a single, shattering realization. The crown was Drustan’s faith, and I was the obstacle in his path.
“You told me you valued a tempering voice,” I said, trembling.
I reached for my magic, readying to use it.
He could burn me alive if he wanted to, and though I’d never believed Drustan capable of doing something like that, I’d never seen him in a state like this, either.
“I am telling you right now that I have not declared for Hector yet, and Kallen doesn’t decide my politics for me.
” I swallowed, knowing my next words were dangerous but unwilling to soften them to appease him.
That wasn’t the deal I’d made with the Shards or with myself.
“But if you think the crown is your right , not a privilege or an honor or a responsibility, then you don’t deserve it. ”
Flames shimmered at the corners of his eyes. They were tears, I was shocked to realize. Burning tears that he wiped away, flinging aside in drops that singed holes in the upholstery of the couch.
I’d never seen Drustan cry before.
My Blood magic was woven through his chest now. I held his heart in an invisible grip, waiting for his response. It pulsed beneath the cage of my power, the paired beats counting out the fragments of a moment that felt infinite. Such a fragile thing, that heart.
My magic followed the expanding of his lungs as he took a deep breath, then another. The flames in his stare extinguished, and his irises turned gray as ash. His hands dropped to his sides, loose and open.
“You’re right,” he said, sounding distant, and I got the sense he was wrestling with himself, shoving the fire and rage back down into whatever dark hole he usually hid them in. “This is not the ruler I want to be. I’m sorry, Kenna.”
My knees went weak with the relief of a confrontation averted, and I braced myself against the back of the chair. “You mean that?”
He closed his eyes, taking more deep breaths.
One, then three, then ten. When he finally looked at me again, his expression was full of remorse.
“You’ve seen a different side of me today.
One I do not particularly like and try hard to keep under control.
” He grimaced, rubbing his temples. His fingers were trembling. “I hope you will forgive me.”
What was forgiveness? Was it an action? A feeling? A dream that the future could be different if only we knew how to let go of the past? I wasn’t sure any of us knew.
“It’s all tangled up,” he whispered when I didn’t respond. “Her and you and all of it. Centuries of pain, and I’ve been fighting so hard to fix it, but I don’t—I don’t always know where the lines are anymore. Or if I’ve become exactly what she would have hated.”
I gently released his heart, feeling a swell of bitter pity.
I thought of Hector shattering a line of glass bottles over his lost love.
Kallen telling himself—and me—that he didn’t deserve anything bright or beautiful.
We were all eaten up by fury and regret, and those feelings festered when none of us were allowed to show them openly.
Every demon broke free eventually. Even Drustan’s.
“I think asking yourself that question is a good start,” I said.
His hand was still shielding his eyes. I watched the ripple of his swallow. “You should go.”
This confrontation felt incomplete. Everything between us felt incomplete, but maybe it always would. We’d crossed a line today, one that couldn’t be uncrossed.
Of all the feelings I’d thought I’d experience when my decision became clear, I hadn’t realized grief would be the greatest part.
“Kenna,” Drustan said quietly. “Please. Let me have my dignity.”
There was moisture on his cheeks. Real tears this time, not flaming ones. For Mildritha? For me, lost to the arms of his enemy? Or for his aspirations, which he must surely know he’d damned?
The reasons were impossible to separate, probably.
I slipped out of the study, leaving him alone with his regrets.