CHAPTER 27 TYCHO #2
That makes me grin. I run a hand over the back of my neck. “Ah, Jax.”
I can’t tell if he blushes or if it’s just the heat from the forge, but I highly suspect it’s both. “Keep smiling like that and I’ll make you a whole armory.”
That nearly puts me over the edge, because I suddenly want to forget the queen exists so I can drag him into the house where we can share the bed.
“Go,” he says firmly. “I’m not the only one who needs to be useful.” He scowls. “And Mal and Seph probably do need a break.”
“Not yet,” I say, and his eyebrows go up. I reach out and run a finger across his jaw, then tuck a piece of hair behind his ear. Just as his eyes begin to soften, I let go. “I don’t mean that,” I say, and he laughs under his breath. “But there’s something else I need to do first.”
The rain is keeping the worst of the heat away, but I’m soaked by the time I reach the barn, so I’m not a fan of the trade- off. Noah’s herbs seem to be wearing off, too, because my shoulder is on fire again. I ease through the heavy wooden doors.
Nakiis is exactly where we left him before, curled in a heap in the shadowed corner, but Igaa is nowhere to be seen. I sweep my eyes along the rafters, wondering if she took a higher spot, but she’s gone.
When I look back at Nakiis, his dark eyes have opened, watching me. A cool breeze comes from nowhere to make me shiver. As I watch, ice forms on some of the posts near him.
He doesn’t move, but his shoulder muscles have gone taut, his clawed fingers flexed against the ground.
I wonder if he’s afraid.
After everything we’ve been through, that makes me a bit sad. But I suppose I can’t blame him.
I grab one of the milking stools and drag it close to him, though I stop about ten feet away because it’s clear he’s anxious. “Where’s Igaa?”
“Keeping watch,” he says.
“Is she going to come rip my throat out?” I say, and I’m only half kidding.
“No,” he says. “She expects that I will share my power with you.”
“Everyone expects that,” I say, and it’s true. It’s the basis for their entire plan to stop Xovaar. I think it’s the only reason the queen was willing to fall asleep. This plan has given her some vague sense of hope that we can protect her husband.
His eyes don’t leave mine. Outside, the rain pours down, trapping us in this cocoon of sound.
“But not you,” he finally says. “You do not expect this.”
It’s not a question. It’s a statement. As if he already knows.
Because I don’t expect this. He’s had many opportunities to share his power with me.
Every time, he’s withdrawn. I don’t know what’s worse, whether it’s his fear of Xovaar or his fear of being trapped by a magesmith, but it doesn’t matter.
Either way, his fear is an obstacle he can’t overcome.
Fear might control him, but I can’t let it control me anymore.
“No,” I say to him. “I don’t.”
“Yet you allow the others to have false hope?”
“It’s not false hope,” I say.
He bares his fangs at me, his claws digging into the straw. “You cannot force me to do this.”
“I’m not forcing you to do anything,” I say— and despite everything, my voice is soft, because I mean every word. “I intend to ask Igaa.”
For one silent, piercing moment, his sudden rage is like the moment between a lightning strike and a clap of thunder. He doesn’t move, but the temperature in the barn drops twenty degrees. Thirty. Forty.
I shiver and tuck my good arm against my abdomen.
Finally, he speaks through the air, and as usual, it’s not a sound, but somehow it’s so loud that it hurts.
— She. Will. Not. Do. This.
I cringe, but I keep my seat on the stool. “She will,” I say. “I think she will.”
No. —
“Yes. Because she loves you, Nakiis. She loves you, and she wants to stop Xovaar. And so do we.”
— You cannot stop him. Her magic is not strong enough. You will call them here, and they will destroy you.
“Is that what you’re afraid of, or are you afraid that binding my magic to hers will allow me to control her?”
He makes a sound full of rage and tries to surge off the ground, but it’s clear he’s really hurt, because his arms and legs give out, his wings flickering limply against the straw. He collapses there, panting. The ice that’s formed on the posts and the walls begins to melt in the summer heat.
“So this is how you will trap me,” he says, and his spoken voice is ragged. “This is how you will trick me.”
“I’m not trapping you,” I say, and a spark of anger colors my voice. “I’m doing whatever I can to protect as many people as I can.”
He says nothing. He just breathes against the ground like he hates me, his claws flexed like he really would tear out my throat if he could.
In a flash, I remember the moment I lay in the dirt at Grey’s feet, right after I went after him for keeping me in Syhl Shallow.
I was furious at him for all the same reasons: trapping me there, forcing my hand, keeping me away from Jax. It felt spiteful. It felt deliberate.
When he said he was just trying to protect me, I didn’t believe him.
But I suddenly understand why he did it. It’s the same reason we’re all doing this. Protection. Loyalty. Love.
“I’m doing the best I can,” I say quietly. “Please, Nakiis. You once made me swear to help you—”
“Not like this,” he growls.
“Fine,” I say, because Mal and Sephran truly do need to be relieved, and we only have a matter of hours before we need to act. “Stay here. I’ll ask Igaa, and she can decide.”
From outside the barn, her magical voice carries on the air.
— I already have.
Nakiis turns his face to the straw, looking away from me. His eyes clench closed.
I rise from the stool and head for the doors.
He doesn’t say a word, and I don’t look back.