Chapter 13 Roland
ROLAND
He left.
And all I did was stand there and watch him go.
Hells, in some ways, it was a relief to see him turn his back on me.
I’d imagined this moment hundreds of times.
Each time I took a sip from the goblet Rhys offered me with the gentlest smile, each time the buzzing need pulsed in my skull too much for me to think clearly, each time I knew I couldn’t manage my hunger without another taste, the image of Aderyn’s beautiful face, twisted in the agony of betrayal, sneaked up on me.
Every possibility had rolled around in my mind—that he would spit in my face, denounce me for the monster I was, and abandon me; that I would watch the pain pierce through him only for him to shove it away and promise to stay by my side.
His claw would slice his delicate skin, and he’d offer his blood up to me, and I would—
Moons above, I’d take it if he did.
It’d mark me as every bit the Cavendish king I’d always feared becoming—a man who would drain the life and joy out of those around me and leave the world so much worse than how I’d found it.
At least this, him leaving, spared me that.
I watched him go, unable to tear my eyes away from the swing of his soft gold hair.
“I’ll talk to him,” Tristram offered quietly, “once he’s had a chance to calm down.”
I shook my head. “Leave him be.”
“He’ll come around,” Bet promised.
I couldn’t say aloud that I hoped he wouldn’t, for his sake if not my own, because it wasn’t even true.
Selfishly, I did want him to come around.
Yes, I’d crawl into my oversized, ridiculously luxurious bed and sulk, but sometime that night he’d slip beneath the covers beside me, just like always.
He’d put his hand in mine, and maybe he wouldn’t say anything at all, but everything would be all right again.
Only, he didn’t.
Aderyn didn’t come to my room. When the moons were high in the sky, and I still couldn’t sleep, I tiptoed to the door to his hoard room and pressed my ear against it.
There was no sound inside. When I opened it—no, he wasn’t there.
He was upset, my every heartbeat throbbed with it, and even my presence was keeping him from his hoard.
I needed to get it to him. These feathers that might give him comfort—he needed them, at the very least.
It was probably ill-advised, that early the next morning, I knocked on the door to Hafgan and Bowen’s quarters.
The sound was soft, and the way the door banged open a moment later was not. The sneer on Hafgan’s face was downright serpentine. I flinched back, and he stalked out into the corridor, all but snarling.
Bowen followed in his footsteps, closing the door gently behind them.
I backed up, step by step, until my shoulders hit the wall.
“This fucking place,” Hafgan snarled as he stalked toward me.
I’d never heard him so angry, I’d hardly ever heard him curse, but right then, there was no doubting he was a dragon with an inferno trapped behind his ribcage.
“I can’t tell if it’s the walls that are cursed,” he spat, “or just the people within them.”
I wanted to laugh, but that was too likely to get me roasted, so I swallowed down the morose impulse.
“What the fuck do you want?” he demanded, bearing his sharp teeth.
“Aderyn’s—”
“Don’t say his name!”
I grimaced.
That was—
That was fair. I’d betrayed Aderyn in every way that mattered. Hafgan had trusted me with his safety, and I’d jeopardized it.
“His hoard,” I whispered. “I wasn’t sure how you wanted to—”
“Take it back?”
My teeth dug into my bottom lip and I nodded. “If you’re leaving—”
“We are most certainly leaving.”
“I’ll have the feathers prepared for transport then, but I can’t exactly send you off with a flock of birds.”
Hafgan snorted.
“Unless you want—” I stammered. “I’m sure we could arrange it.”
His glare returned to me, sharp and hot. “Is that what you do? Arrange your traps and lie in wait to spring them? Your cage may not have bars, but it’s all the more insidious for it.”
The blood in my veins turned to ice. “What?”
Hafgan growled, low and surprisingly deep. He looked much like Aderyn—a bit more hale, a little stockier, but he’d been taken care of his whole life. Still, he was slight, for a dragon. He looked even more delicate than Rhiannon, and his usual disposition was so much softer than hers.
“I never meant to trap him,” I whispered.
“Oh? Then why is his hoard here? Why is this—” He looked at the walls around us, formed by Athelstan’s magic, once so uninviting to all dragons.
At my request, Aunt Gillian had shaved off the sharp peaks to create space for dragons to land here.
They lived in our court. I wasn’t Athelstan, or my father.
I’d tried so hard not to be.
“—the place where his smile comes easiest?” Hafgan hissed.
He hadn’t meant for me to answer, but I must’ve made some sound, because next thing I knew, Hafgan shoved against me. “Shut up!”
His hand clenched around my throat hard enough that after a few strangled gasps, the world tilted and blurred, but I didn’t try and shove him back.
“I trusted you,” he snarled, teeth bared as he pressed into me. “I trusted you with him because he loved you, and all the while—”
“I know,” I rasped.
“Did you ever hurt him?”
I grimaced, not because of the pressure on my throat but because I couldn’t deny that I had. I’d left him in that cage once, and I’d let him close every day since I’d found him again, knowing all the while that one day, we’d be here.
As if he could see the thoughts warring in my eyes, Hafgan hissed. “Did you cut him? Drink from him?”
“No,” I insisted. “Never.”
Hafgan adjusted his hand. The pressure lessened, and I rushed to fill the space with useless explanations. “He never knew, I swear. I wanted him to—”
“To what?” Hafgan snapped.
My thick whisper had nothing to do with my sore throat. “To be happy.”
At the same time, Hafgan shoved me back and let me go. He narrowed his eyes, turning half away. I disgusted him. “And now you’ve broken his heart.”
The disappointment in his tone, the heaviness of the words themselves, crashed into me. I slumped against the wall Hafgan had pressed me into.
Then, a clear, strident voice echoed in the hallway. “What’s going on here?” Tristram asked, a long gait carrying him down the hall.
Hafgan didn’t answer him, and I saw his jaw tick as he turned away from Tris too.
“Nothing,” I said, staring at Tris, willing him to let this one thing go.
“We’re leaving,” Hafgan snapped at Bowen.
Bowen was as ancient as the Mawrcraig Mountains, and his expression then was every bit as stony. I dropped my gaze to the floor and wrapped my arms around myself.
Hafgan paused, but did not turn to look at either me or Tristram.
Even if his ire wasn’t directed only my way, I had no doubt who he addressed next. “If you ever touch my family again, I’ll end you, and I swear by Penrose and Nye both that you’ll wish it were Rhiannon here to swallow you whole.”
As they left, Bowen’s arm came around Hafgan’s shoulders. I stared at their backs, wondering if I’d ever see them again. Was it a self-destructive impulse, or foolish hope, that I wished I would?
As Tristram squeezed my shoulder, I came back to myself. He touched my chin and tilted my head to inspect my neck. “Are you all right?”
When I nodded, he dropped his hand. His brow remained furrowed, his frown soft and pitying.
I couldn’t stand looking at him.
“Would you see to Aderyn’s—his—”
“His hoard?” Tris asked.
Swallowing roughly, I nodded.
“Of course,” he said.
“Whatever they need,” I whispered. “Just . . . give them whatever they need.”
I pulled away, rubbing my neck as soon as I turned. It hurt, a little. It was bruised. But mostly, that ache was easier to bear than the one in my heart.