Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
“That’s enough.”
My voice cracked through the tension like lightning across the dry sky. Both men froze mid-glare, their shoulders taut, chests rising and falling like beasts ready to charge.
“I am not some scrap of meat for you two to tear at,” I snapped, stepping between them. My body still ached from the trial, but I didn’t care. “I’m not yours to fight over. I’m not a possession. And gods, I sure as hell am not some prize for whoever wins this argument.”
Zander’s jaw clenched. “It’s not like that—”
“Isn’t it?” Remy cut in, voice rough with restrained fury. “You knew I was involved with her.”
Zander’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I read the report. I know you left her.”
That one cut deep. I saw it land in Remy’s chest like a dagger, and the sharp twist that followed was mine.
There was silence. Thick. Unforgiving.
Zander’s gaze flicked to me. Something unreadable in it. “There was nothing in that report that indicated you wanted her back.”
Remy didn’t speak right away. But his face… gods, his face.
He looked at me then, really looked, and I felt that silence turn to fire beneath my skin.
He’d had time. Time to tell me the truth.
Time to find me. To try.
But he hadn’t.
Not until I showed up in his domain. In the guild with a dragon’s mark that hadn’t finished bonding.
Remy’s voice was quiet now. “I made a mistake.”
“You made a choice,” Zander countered.
“And so did you,” I said, stepping back from both of them, voice trembling but firm. “Neither of you gets to act like I’m the only one who’s been left in the dark.”
Neither argued.
Because I was right.
The storm hadn’t passed, but the battlefield had gone silent. And maybe that was worse.
“I decide,” I said, my voice low but firm. “Who I’m with. Not either of you.”
That silenced them more effectively than a blade drawn between ribs.
Remy’s lips parted, but I raised a hand, already knowing what was coming.
“I need space. Both of you, please, just leave.”
“You shouldn’t be alone right now,” Remy said, softer now, a trace of the tenderness from earlier in his voice.
Zander’s gaze darkened as he stepped forward. “If anyone stays, it should be me.”
And just like that, the argument sparked again, this time quieter, but no less tense.
“You think she needs you after what just happened?” Remy asked, stepping closer.
“I’ve always been there for her,” Zander snapped. “Where were you when she was thrown into the trials? When her bond nearly killed her?”
“Where were you when she was screaming on the Ascension Grounds, begging her dragon to save her?”
My pulse thundered in my ears.
“I said no,” I repeated, firmer now, and they both turned to look at me, like they’d forgotten I was still standing here between them.
“Let me rest.”
Remy’s jaw twitched, but he nodded, retreating first with a glance over his shoulder. Zander lingered for a second longer, his stare searing.
But he didn’t fight me on it.
He left in silence, closing the door softly behind him.
Only then did I exhale.
And in the quiet that followed, the ache settled in like an old friend.
I made my way to the washroom and closed the door.
The basin water was blessedly cold.
I cupped it in my trembling hands and splashed it over my face, the sting of it grounding me more than I wanted to admit. The coolness dripped down my cheeks, clung to my lashes, and soaked into the collar of my shirt, but I didn’t care. I welcomed the chill.
Finally, I could breathe.
The fire in my ribs had dulled to an ache, and no longer devoured me with every inhale. I braced both hands on the edge of the basin, staring into the warped reflection in the rippling water.
My eyes were ringed with fatigue. My skin blotched with magic-sick bruising. And my heart?
A battlefield. Still smoldering.
I let out a shaky breath, one that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with the men in my life.
One who wanted me back now that I was broken in places he hadn’t seen before. Who held me like I was still his, and whispered the kind of things I used to ache to hear, only now, it felt too late.
And the other?
The one I wanted… who still had a damned fiancée, even if he claimed he didn’t want her. Even if his eyes only ever seemed to find me in a room full of nobles and obligations. He hadn’t chosen Inderia. I knew that. But he hadn’t cast her aside either. Not officially. Not publicly.
So where did that leave me?
Not a lover. Not a soldier. Not yet a rider in full. Just a girl with a dragon that would eventually let her die.
I wiped the water from my face with the edge of a towel and stared hard at my reflection.
“I don’t belong to either of you,” I whispered to the girl in the glass.
She blinked back at me like she was trying to believe it.
The door creaked softly as I stepped out of the washroom, still toweling the water from my face.
I barely heard it, just the faint shuffle of boots against stone. Too light for a guard. Too precise to be casual.
Instinct surged. I ducked.
A blade screamed past my cheek, slicing the air where my throat had been a breath ago.
I dropped the towel and spun, already reaching for the dagger hidden in the seam of my boot. My fingers closed around the hilt just as the would-be assassin lunged from the shadowed corner of my room.
He wasn’t in armor. He wore a faded travel cloak, dark and tight against his lean frame. His face was hidden beneath a half-mask, but I saw the glint of hunger in his eyes. Cold. Unapologetic. Trained.
He came at me with another strike, a short sword flashing in the dim light. I parried with my dagger. The clash of steel sparking so close it lit the lines of his face.
Not a soldier. Too fast.
A killer.
He didn’t speak, didn’t grunt. He fought in silence. The kind born of purpose, not desperation. The tip of his sword caught my cheek when he swung again. I blocked out the sting as I evaded the death blow, but I was a little too slow. Too exhausted from my duel with Perin.
I couldn’t hold this pace long. He knew it too.
I backed toward the bed, trying to angle him, trying to—
BANG.
Someone slammed against the outer door.
Another thud, louder this time. Desperate.
Zander.
It had to be.
The assassin glanced that way, and that moment of hesitation was mine.
I kicked the chair beside me into his legs and rolled away.
The door burst open with a crack that shook the walls.
Zander was first through, his eyes ablaze with Dark Fire, Remy a half-step behind him with his blade already drawn. The assassin whirled toward the noise, the glint of his sword catching the light as he prepared for another strike.
Remy lunged.
But he wasn’t faster than Zander.
Not even close.
Dark Fire surged from Zander’s outstretched hand like black lightning, wild and alive, an unholy roar that shattered the space between them.
It struck the assassin mid-turn, searing through fabric and flesh with a sickening hiss.
The force of it threw him back like a ragdoll, slamming him into the stone wall.
A heartbeat passed.
Then he crumpled.
A hole smoked in the center of his chest, right where his heart should have been.
Remy lowered his blade slowly, eyes locked on the smoldering corpse. “I know him,” he muttered, voice tight with disbelief.
I pressed a shaking hand to my side and sank onto Riven’s bed. It was the closest to me, and the only solid thing that didn’t seem like it might collapse.
“Who is he?” Zander asked, already scanning the room, making sure no others waited in the shadows.
Remy crouched beside the body, fingers deft as he searched the man’s cloak. “An Order assassin.”
“That doesn’t tell us who sent him.” Zander’s voice was quiet now. Deadly.
“I’ll search him. He may still have his orders.” He knelt beside the man, searching the tunic and pants.
Remy pulled a folded parchment from inside the man’s inner vest. It bore the seal of a thorny rose pressed in crimson wax. He broke it open, scanned the contents, then froze.
“There’s no name. But…” His throat worked. “It’s from the Order of Thorn.”
My blood iced.
I blinked. “That’s my father’s mark.”
Zander turned to me slowly.
Remy didn’t speak, but the look on his face confirmed what I’d already realized.
“My father ordered my death, again.”