Chapter 15 #3
‘You’d have needed a whole lot less protection if you hadn’t for some reason believed yourself to be incapable of planning a journey.
’ The words were biting as poison. ‘Or of cutting an enemy to shreds yourself, for that matter. And then there’s one skill no one could ever convince you you’re lacking, because you are objectively brilliant with your runes …
yet coincidentally, that’s the very same skill you’re too frightened to use.
The one you won’t touch even to save your own neck from the gallows, unless darling Lark is around to tell you you’re allowed to. Isn’t that odd?’
I stared at him.
‘So very protective.’ He lifted his dark head to meet my gaze, corners of his lips quirking into that claws-and-brambles smile. ‘Persuading you to never use your most powerful weapon even when it might save your life.’
‘That— No!’ My limbs moved before I realised it, scrambling backwards across the bed, head shaking violently as if I might physically dislodge his words from my mind.
My thoughts didn’t feel as though they were crumbling.
Rather, they were the vines clinging to crumbling walls – thorny and desperate.
‘He loved me! He loves me! He would never— You don’t understand—’
Durlain’s lip curled. ‘What I understand is what utter shits men can be, Thraga.’
A ringing silence fell.
Not too far away, a voice was bellowing at others to leave him the hell alone and what was this uproar all about?
‘But … but you …’ Hell have mercy, I was losing my mind. ‘But you are a man.’
‘Well, yes.’ There was a glint of mirthless amusement in his eye as he rose with brusque grace and stalked to the other side of the room – just a glint, then it was gone again. ‘And you seem to forget how much you hate me for killing my wife-to-be, first of all.’
Oh.
Pol.
‘So that’s why you believe you have a right to speak?’ I sputtered, hands tightening in the downy fabric beneath me. ‘Because you assume your rotten heart is the standard of—’
‘No.’ It was almost a snap. ‘Because I’ve spent a good dozen years of my life keeping a young, vulnerable, highborn, and therefore coveted girl alive at the Averre court, and there’s nothing quite so enlightening about power plays as watching one’s loved ones be on the wrong side of them.
There’s little I haven’t seen, and hell knows there’s been a lot to see – so … ’
I gaped at him.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Thraga?’
His sister.
Little Muri Averre, who he’d protected at the cost of everything else. Whose hair he’d braided, whose life he’d tried to save when he finally surrendered his archive of the dead to his murderers – and on the other hand …
She was in my way.
Suddenly it made sense.
Suddenly it all made sense.
‘That’s why you killed Pol?’ I breathed. ‘To protect your sister?’
He stiffened.
Actually stiffened, as if I’d settled a blade against his throat again – his eye widening a fraction, a flicker of alarm breaking through his abrasive composure.
Just a heartbeat, and then the mask settled back in place …
but his breath had hitched, and even as an excruciating silence stretched longer and longer between us, he didn’t speak.
Hell, and why would he?
He was not my ally. He was not my friend.
‘Never mind,’ I muttered, tearing my gaze away and climbing off the bed, suddenly self-conscious even though he was the wife-killer in this room.
I had no desire to understand him. None at all, and if my thoughtless impulses got the best of me at times, he certainly didn’t need to know about it.
‘Forget it. None of my business if you—’
‘Aranc wanted her,’ he said.
Three words.
They slipped into the space between us like hammer blows – dull, heavy, levelling everything in their path.
I jerked back around to him so sharply I lost my balance, my shin slamming into the bedframe as I stumbled to catch myself.
Durlain didn’t move. Leaning against the same spot on the wall – his arms crossed, his gaze aimed at some distant spot behind my right shoulder – he looked as though he was trying his hardest to be somewhere else, anywhere but in this very room.
As if he’d betrayed some secret his life depended on.
‘He …’ My lips felt numb. ‘Aranc?’
Something twitched at his jaw. ‘Yes.’
‘Wanted Cimmura?’
‘Yes.’
‘But he’s nearing fifty!’ I let out a breathless laugh, grasping for words. ‘And she was a child, yes? She—'
‘Fourteen, at the time.’ His lips didn’t move.
His voice had descended into that horrifying flatness again – cold and barren, like the earth of a freshly closed grave.
‘It was a simple, dirty trade. Ages didn’t matter.
Aranc’s favourite niece in exchange for my father’s favourite daughter – favourite for lack of competition, mind you, because it’s not as if he’s ever seen her as anything but a pretty little bargaining chip. ’
I gaped at him.
‘I asked the old bastard to reconsider.’ He jerked into motion, strode to the table, began sorting travel supplies with quick, restless fingers.
‘Then begged him to reconsider. Then tried to bargain with him. He didn’t cave, and then it was the night before that cursed wedding and I’d run out of options. So I killed Pollara to spoil the deal.’
Painless poison.
And he’d kept her blood. He’d planned to bring her back.
I dropped back onto the edge of the bed, the world spinning beneath my feet. ‘But then – your father – he must have known. That you killed her to ruin his plans.’
Durlain’s hands faltered. ‘Oh, yes. He very much knew.’
‘And yet he didn’t punish you?’
‘King Varraulis doesn’t punish.’ His tone was hollow and brittle at once. ‘He merely … encourages consequences.’
The scars on his hands glittered, warm ice in the candlelight, as if to underscore the point.
‘Oh,’ I said weakly.
‘So.’ He finally met my gaze, his smile a bitter knife-slash across his face. ‘The prince of broken hearts, at your service. Don’t mistake me for a repentant sinner. I’d make the same choice again without a second thought, if forced to.’
It almost sounded like a warning.
‘Noted,’ I said hoarsely. ‘I’ll try not to threaten any fireborn princesses.’
For a single moment, it seemed he would say something else – a flicker of uncertainty crossing his features, like the shadow of a passing thought.
Then it was gone, and he was entirely himself again: glacial and relentless as he turned, yanked his spelled eyepatch from his pocket, and made for the door.
I jolted. ‘Where are you—’
‘Off to make a stink about dinner not magically showing up in my rooms yet.’ He unlocked the door without looking at me. ‘If anyone asks, I’ve been writing a lengthy epistle to my father and swearing about gambling debts for the last hour and a half.’
The door slammed shut behind his back before I could gather the wits for a coherent answer.