Chapter 12 Aderyn
ADERYN
Again, I found myself in Tristram’s office.
It was beginning to feel like a habit.
I also didn’t much care for the look Tristram was giving me, all soft and sympathetic, like something horrible had happened and he was the one who had to tell me.
Except that right as I was about to stand up and insist on knowing what terrible fate had befallen Roland . . . he walked in, Bet trailing behind.
There he was, just . . . Roland. Tall and strong and sturdy as ever. He smelled slightly of blood, but I didn’t even see any wounds on him. He didn’t look injured at all.
He did look . . .
Well, I didn’t know what that expression was on his face.
The only time I’d ever seen him do anything like it was that moment, when we’d been children, and he’d escaped his cage next to mine and realized he couldn’t get me out with him.
After he knew he couldn’t help me, but before he’d donned his kingly aura once again, in that moment when he’d found something awful he couldn’t fix.
Tris put a hand on my shoulder, pulling a chair up next to me and squeezing lightly. He tried to give me a bolstering look, but it only made things worse. What was going on?
Had the monster injured Roland so badly he couldn’t be healed? Was he dying?
Only Tristram’s hand kept me from flying out of my chair and throwing myself at him.
There were tears in his eyes when he looked up at me, and I almost did it anyway.
“Wait,” Tris told me. “Let him speak. Then you’ll want some time to think about it.”
Time to think? What in the name of Penrose did I want with time to think? I wanted to sit in Roland’s lap and tell him that whatever was wrong, I could fix it. I would fix it, no matter what.
Whatever it took from me, I would give it to him.
I would give him any piece of myself.
Roland took a moment, silent and pale, and when he started to speak, he wouldn’t look at me. “I’m one of them,” he said.
Bet sighed and shook his head, looking to Tris. “You explain. You’re not so determined to make him look like a monster.”
“But I am a—”
“It happened before Nicolas kidnapped Roland,” Tris interrupted.
His voice was strong and confident, the way Roland’s usually was.
It was a skill Roland had learned from Tris, I supposed, speaking confidently.
“Laurence had poisoned Roland with the same thing he’d used on King Reynold. He was dying.”
My breath caught in my chest, and I stared at Tristram, eyes wide. I knew how the story ended, knew that Roland was fine, but I’d had no idea about any of this. Roland had nearly died?
Tristram had killed Nicolas in Windy Pass, and I’d never thought much about that before, but suddenly, I was grateful for it.
“There was nothing we could do,” Tris said, his voice going soft, almost like Roland’s had been. Like . . . like he was ashamed of something.
Finally, Bet sighed. “He was going to die. I was on my way back with the cure, but they didn’t know that.
And frankly, even if they had, he’d have died before I arrived if they hadn’t done something.
Rhys knew that feeding a human dragon’s blood can sometimes help in situations like that.
So they did it. And Roland survived long enough to get the cure.
But . . . well, you know what comes next. The dragon’s blood is a problem.”
I gasped and rushed to Roland, horrified and remembering the monsters from the battle. Every man who’d consumed so much as a drop of blood had turned into a mindless beast. They had all died in—
But wait. This story had begun before Roland and I had ever met, and the men had turned to monsters after.
So how was that possible?
“It’s something about the Cavendish line,” Tris said, seeming to read my mind. More likely, just understanding that the story didn’t entirely make sense. “Nicolas retained his mind even after turning gray and scaly.”
The monster, I realized.
The monster I’d thought had killed Roland . . . had been Roland.
“The shift still comes with phases of the moon. He doesn’t become a mindless monster, just .
. . it’s a little like when you shift. Instincts come to the fore a bit more than usual, but you’re still you.
” Tris leaned in, laying a hand on my shoulder, and when I didn’t shrug it off, squeezing. “He’s still Roland.”
Still—of course he was still Roland. What a silly thing to—oh.
I stared up at the miserable Roland and realized what the problem was. Roland himself thought he was a monster.
It wasn’t hard to imagine why. The creatures the other men had turned into had been the stuff of nightmares. To imagine Roland as one was too awful to contemplate.
But still, it was . . . he was . . .
Still drinking blood.
My time in the cage came rushing back to me with a vengeance. Vidar bleeding me to feed his monstermen. Being too weak some days to get off the bottom of my cage, because they’d bled me more than they had fed me.
A prized pet, I’d been, but not a pampered one by any stretch of the imagination.
It was impossible to imagine Roland treating me—or anyone—that way. He’d ended up in a cage right next to me. He knew as well as anyone what freedom meant.
He just . . . he just needed blood. My blood.
Or Tris’s, or someone else’s, I supposed.
But that wasn’t right. Roland was mine. I would simply have to . . . to . . . bleed. For . . .
Tris’s arms came fully around me, and my body refused to respond. To move. To lean in or away. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.
Bleed.
Bleed for . . . for Roland.
Suddenly, it all made sense. Why Roland had always kept me just that tiny bit distant from him. It hadn’t been because he’d wanted to, but because he’d had to.
For me.
Because I was weak, and couldn’t ever be what he needed me to be.
He forgave me for it, of course. Worried about me. Even now, he was looking at me, his bright blue eyes swimming with wetness. No accusation in him, only misery, because he knew I wasn’t strong enough to deal with this. To give him what he needed.
I squeezed my eyes closed and turned into Tristram’s strong chest for a moment. “I . . . I have to go,” I whispered when I pulled away.
No one said a word as I rushed out of the room.