10
A Dracu never hesitates to deal a killing blow.
—G AXIX, D RACU PHILOSOPHER
T HE NEXT MORNING, IT TOOK C ASSIA A SECOND TO remember where she was. She yawned and stretched, groaning at the discomfort of having slept fully clothed, and sat up to run her fingers through her hair. She was cold and hungry. The apple had not been enough to sustain her. She would kill for a comb.
Maybe she could speak to the kobold alone, asking about food and water without Zeru’s grim presence darkening the atmosphere. She could show him that Sylvans weren’t so bad.
The idea of searching the castle brought a pulse of anticipation, not only because she was certain the answers to the ring’s power lay here. She couldn’t help an unwilling fascination with Welkincaster, even though she had an instinctive fear of this forest. If what Gutel said was true, it hadn’t always been so somber and neglected. A sanctuary of the Ancients? Spirits of heroes being given new life as guardians? It was beyond her wildest imaginings. Sylvans were drawn to curiosities, and this one beckoned to her with promises of rich secrets and untold wonders. She remembered the nursery tales of a cloud realm. Her mother had read her those stories every night when she was little. That was before the ring, before her mother retreated to her tree somewhere in Thirstwood. To heal, they’d said.
But then her mother had never come home.
At first, she’d asked her father when her mother would be back. He’d treated her to a cold silence that told her clearly not to ask again. So she’d asked Tibald. He’d said things like, “When she is well,” and “Be patient, Sproutling.” Over time, Cassia had stopped asking.
The answer, perhaps, was never.
Her breathing hitched, and her eyes misted dangerously, so she shut those thoughts out and forced herself to her feet and to her door. A massive tome written in Ancient Sylvan would eradicate thoughts of anything else.
As she reached the top of the tower steps to the library, she stopped short.
Zeru was slumped in the red chair, asleep.
She stilled, her breath suspended. He must have read through the night and finally succumbed to fatigue. His soft, even breathing was all she could hear. His head lolled back, leaving his throat exposed. Her eyes widened as they fell on his dagger on a nearby table. Could he be that careless?
She’d wasted her opportunity when she’d pulled him to safety rather than letting him fall off the edge of the welkin. He’d mocked her for it. Her own conscience had tortured her all night. Maybe the Ancients were giving her another opportunity to be free of her enemy.
Her heart thudding violently, she stepped with excruciating care toward the dagger. The floorboards remained silent, giving credence to her idea that the Ancients were on her side in this. Perhaps they blamed Zeru for this invasion of their sacred realm. Cassia could rectify that injustice.
Her hand reached out for the dagger, closing over the hilt. The blade slipped from its sheath with no sound. She took a step toward Zeru. Another.
She stared down at him. His mussed hair fell in feathery spikes over his brow, his lashes dark fans against his pale cheeks. He looked younger asleep. It was easier to see him as the boy she had once known.
No—she had to do this. The ring must remain hers. She had to learn to master it before the Dracu found a way to take it. The only way to guarantee her own safety and success was to kill him now. End the threat.
A quick swipe across his throat and it’s done! Do it! Now!
Her hand gripped the blade harder as she looked down at him. He was helpless.
Maybe it shouldn’t matter. If she were truly as bloodthirsty as he supposed her to be, she wouldn’t care.
But she wasn’t. And there was something dishonest about it. A Sylvan didn’t sneak around stabbing enemies while they were asleep. Which meant… She squeezed her eyes shut, her face twisting. Was she really going to let her enemy live? Again? Her arm went slack before the thought was even clear in her mind.
She couldn’t kill a defenseless opponent. She just… couldn’t.
Her throat tight with self-directed rage, she went to the window seat, placing the dagger next to her. She opened the Sylvan history and tried to read. But the words kept swimming before her eyes. What was wrong with her? What would her father say about her aversion to killing? She’d never had any trouble playing her part with the ring. But… that was different. She’d never had to look her enemy in the eye. Regardless, her father would say she was weak, craven. She put her forehead against the cool window as shame heated her cheeks.
Zeru’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Why?”
She startled upright. The book fell from her lap and thudded to the floor.
In the sunlight, his eyes looked like green glass. He was staring at her with such a serious expression. There was anger and something else, a kind of furious inquisitiveness.
She found herself saying, mostly to get him to blink, “Anyone could have slit your throat while you were snoring.”
It wasn’t a lie because she hadn’t actually said he was snoring.
He did blink, finally. “I wasn’t snoring.”
She retrieved the book and set it back on her lap. “How do you know?”
“Because I wasn’t asleep.”
It was her turn to stare intently. “I don’t believe you.”
“You’re not that quiet, you know.” Back in the safe territory of insulting her, he seemed to relax. “You came in, saw my dagger, padded over to it like a child trying to steal a honey cake from under the cook’s nose, and stood in front of me. Then you sighed, went to your seat, and started reading. And I say again, Sylvan, why?”
“I don’t think I sighed,” she said, a new shake in her limbs. It had been a test. Nasty, awful Dracu. “What if I had decided to slit your throat?”
He glanced at her from under heavy lids as if she’d said something truly ridiculous. “I’d have had time to eat my morning meal before catching your wrist.”
“Then what were you going to do? Use my failed attempt to kill you as an excuse to kill me?”
“I can’t.” He tapped his fingers against the chair arm in an agitated rhythm. His lean face caught shadows under his cheekbones and chin, his eyes resentful, suspicious gleams half-hidden by the hair falling over his forehead. “Not to mention your death could destroy my ring.”
“ My ring,” she corrected, fury roiling in her gut. “Why test me like that?”
He stood, his mouth a hard line. “Because you let me live.” He glared at her as if she’d committed an unpardonable offense. “Worse. You saved my life.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Do you want an apology? I think I can manage it. I’m starting to feel genuinely sorry for that decision.”
“At first I thought it was this.” He lifted the amulet around his neck and let it fall against his collarbone. “That you were afraid you wouldn’t be able to leave this place if I fell. But I wanted to know for sure. I still want to know.”
How she wished she could lie. She wanted to say, Yes, that’s exactly why I saved you. For the amulet. But she hadn’t even thought about it. How embarrassing. She hadn’t even considered what would happen to her if that vital artifact had fallen out of reach.
Instead, she answered coolly, “I’m glad you’ve sorted out my motivations.”
“Except I haven’t.” He slashed a hand in the direction of the dagger. “Because you could have tried to kill me and taken the amulet. Why would you waste a chance like that?”
She stiffened as his interrogation began to remind her of her father’s lectures. “Maybe I realized you were awake.”
“Did you?”
She bent her knees, making a show of getting comfortable. “I don’t have to answer.”
He came a step closer, his hands fisted. “Did you help me to save the amulet? Yes or no?”
To hide her unease at being cornered, she turned her head to look out the window. Was that a bird flying above the treetops? If so, it was the first she’d seen here. She heard the Dracu’s frustrated exhalation but did not turn back to face him. He couldn’t goad her, no matter how his nearness set her nerves jangling. There was no answer she could give that wasn’t potentially disadvantageous. If she implied she had saved him because of the amulet, that might reduce his sense of obligation—what she hoped was a growing idea that he owed her his life. However, if she told him she hadn’t even thought about the amulet, he would ridicule her. She wanted him to underestimate her, but that didn’t mean she relished the idea of inviting open contempt.
The Dracu’s earthy scents filled her nostrils as he moved right up into her face and asked, “Did you save me because of the amulet?”
Swallowing, she met his eyes. How strange to see her enemy so close. She wanted to put her hands out and push him away but knew he wouldn’t be moved easily. For some reason, he seemed to need this answer. She hedged with a different truth. “The amulet has more value to me than you do.”
But he clearly knew that for the nonanswer it was. “Did. You.” He forced out each word. “Save. Me. For. The. Amulet?”
He looked as agitated as she felt, his chest rising and falling, his eyes snapping. A battle of wills. But Cassia had already lost to him too many times to give in on this.
“What do you think?” she asked, her eyes burning with the need to blink.
Anger flared in his eyes, but he turned away, pacing to the bookshelves and staring at them.
Cassia waited, her senses on alert. She prepared herself for the verbal assault that was sure to follow.
But when he spoke, his voice was quiet. “I don’t understand you.”
And that was all.
I don’t understand you. It was something her father had said to her. She waited for that familiar feeling of contraction, of getting smaller and smaller. But it didn’t come. When her father said it, any attempt to explain herself would make him angrier. But with the Dracu, she could say what she liked.
She realized how true that was. He couldn’t kill her. He’d promised not to harm her. She didn’t care what he thought of her. She could say whatever she wanted to him.
But all that she could find was a question. “Why does it matter to you?”
His hand rose as if to pluck a book from a shelf, then dropped to his side. “It doesn’t.”
Without another word, he left, his feet somehow silent on the normally creaky stairs.
Cassia stared after him. “I don’t understand you, either.” Nor do I wish to. She opened her mouth, but a tightness in her neck prevented her from saying the words. Almost as if they might stick in her throat.