20. CHAPTER 20
Sorin
Aveline reeled back, drawing in a sharp breath. “Your what?”
“My betrothed,” I answered simply.
Was she…jealous? No, it couldn’t be.
“Sorin?” Rensford’s impatient voice sounded from the doorway behind me.
I nodded without turning toward him, my gaze still fixed on Aveline. “You’ll stay here. Voirel and Rensford will keep you company.”
“Sorin, I—” Ren started but was cut off when my head snapped in his direction, gaze dark.
I turned back to Aveline once more, expression softening.
“You are allowed to leave these chambers, but you are not allowed to leave Stormgaard. I will be disposing of that skiff, so don’t get any ideas about taking it.
The current from the Whispering Tides in these waters is too strong for even the most practiced Vireth to row out.
If you take to the sea, all you will find is death. Have I made myself understood?”
Aveline didn’t respond; her gaze fell as she shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. After a moment of silence, her gaze drew back up to meet mine with a single nod.
She turned, throwing herself down onto the bed with an aggravated huff.
She was certainly audacious to be upset with these conditions under the current circumstances.
While I now understood why she had done what she did, it didn’t change the fact that she had tried to poison me.
If anyone else but those at Stormgaard knew—it would be punished as treason.
“When will you be back?” Ren asked as I made for the door, and he stepped aside to allow me to pass.
“I’m not sure,” I replied honestly.
His voice drew to a hush so that Aveline wouldn’t be able to hear us from the doorway. “I am the commander of the king’s army; in case you have forgotten. I cannot remain here and play babysitter to your sister and your plaything.”
My responding gaze had him immediately shaking his head in apology.
“Rensford.” My voice was a warning.
“I simply mean that I cannot remain here indefinitely.”
“And you won’t,” I assured him. “I will be back as soon as I am able. I do not relish leaving you alone with the two of them. But be careful with this one.” I nodded my head, indicating Aveline.
“And what do we do with her, exactly?” He crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned toward me, speaking low. “Is the punishment for treason—no—for trying to assassinate the crown prince…is it not death?”
“Be serious, Ren.”
“I am deadly serious, Sorin. I am concerned about your judgment where she is concerned. You have already underestimated her once. If it weren’t for your tolerance to the poison, you would be dead at this very moment. We cannot underestimate her a second time.”
“I know.” And I did, now that I truly understood her situation.
Her goal was not to hurt me, but to gain favor with Queen Dyata so that she might finally be accepted as Kallias’s chosen.
She wanted it more than anything, and that made her dangerous.
She had everything to gain and nothing to lose. “I will deal with her when I return.”
I started down the corridor and the narrow spiral staircase beyond. I could hear Ren close the door and follow.
“And what do you expect me to do while you are gone?” he asked. “Why not take me back with you?”
“I can’t leave her here alone.”
“Because you think she will escape? If you remove the skiff, there is no way she could. She is but a human after all,” he replied.
“And who is underestimating her now?” I asked, a raised brow thrown over my shoulder as he trailed behind me down the steps. “It is not because I fear her escape. But rather, I fear for her safety.”
Ren scoffed at my back, as if it were the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.
A feeling stirred deep within me that I couldn’t quite explain—but it was telling me to protect her.
I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she was human, or that she was alone in a foreign kingdom.
Or the fact that she was still our bargaining chip against Kallias and the kingdom of Myros—though after our last conversation, I would need to revisit this with Rensford.
Maybe it was some misplaced savior complex. But I couldn’t let anything happen to her under my watch. She was my indenture, and during her time in my kingdom I would protect her. Until the time came to release her from her contract and send her back home.
The thought sent a pang through me, my chest tightening.
I reached the main hall of the castle and stormed toward the courtyard, anxious to have this meeting with Princess Morwenna over with so I could return.
Once the alliance with Ravenscar was secured, the chances of Myros marching against us would diminish.
There was no way King Faris would risk it and risk his people in such a foolish way.
But after seeing what they had done to Aveline—the way she had been raised in their kingdom—I wasn’t certain I could count on their sanity or ability to see reason any longer. We couldn’t rule out that they would make unwise decisions. Not when the stakes were so high.
Aveline was taught that she was less than. She endured cruel torture at their hands simply for loving a man they deemed above her station. She bore the scars of that love on her back, and the thought made me sick to my stomach.
That Kallias could even stomach the fact that his own mother had put them there.
Her beautiful pale skin, freckles dotting her flesh mixed with the violent purple scars from her lashing. She was a brave, courageous woman. Raised among the Veytari, who hated her. She didn’t even know that things could—and should—be different.
I reached the breakwater and my wings spread out behind me, allowing me to easily glide to stand atop the waist-high sea wall. I turned back to find Rensford standing in the center of the courtyard, his arms crossed over his chest in annoyance. Nostrils flaring.
“Promise me you will see Azhar while you are home, at the very least,” he called over the crashing ocean tides below the cliffs.
I shook my head, a knowing smile painting my lips. “I’m not going home.”
This was my home. Stormgaard was my home.
The salt spray from the ocean below misted across my skin, dotting my cheeks with brackish water. A storm was on the horizon; the ocean unreasonably agitated beneath the incoming dark clouds and powerful gusts of wind.
“Did you hear what I said?” Ren’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.
Azhar. Right.
I frowned, brows knitting together in confusion. I pulled at my tunic, untucking it from my belt and wrenching it up. There it was, the wound that would never heal.
But…it hadn’t hurt today. Not at all.
Or had I simply been so distracted by Aveline that I had effectively forgotten about the lingering pain? I hadn’t been able to forget that pain in decades. I focused on it now, pressing my eyes closed and searching my mind for that persistent anguish.
But it was nowhere to be found.
I pulled my shirt back down, stuffing it back into my trousers. “I will visit Azhar,” I promised him, “but I am not telling him about our little poisoner.”
Ren raised a single brow. “Don’t you think it wise he knows what we are dealing with? To better equip you, or at the very least, stock you full of antidotes?”
I shook my head. “She won’t try to poison me again.”
“We don’t know her,” Ren insisted.
But that wasn’t the truth, not any longer.
Ren rubbed an aggravated hand against the short curl of his hair, watching as I beat my wings, preparing to take flight.
“The skiff?” he asked, wind stirring the tail of his cape as I beat my wings harder.
“I will take care of it.”
Ren nodded, turning back toward the castle and disappearing from sight.
I watched him go, my eyes traveling from the arch he had vanished beneath up the sheer rock face to the tower where Aveline resided.
I could see candles flickering at the base of the arched glass windows.
In their reflection stood Aveline, her arms crossed over her chest.
Watching me.
A smirk lifted the corner of my mouth. I jumped into the air, beating my wings to hold me in place as I ascended skyward slowly. One moment I was Vireth, suspended in the air with my wings furious at my back. In the next, I was a great black dragon.
It didn’t happen in pieces—but rather—all at once. Blink and you could miss the transformation entirely. My magic felt strong.
My dragon form was a second skin. After decades of training, transforming into it was as effortless as breathing. But that hadn’t been the case recently as the curse had intensified.
For the first time in a long time, it was effortless. Like I had expended no magic at all. It was exhilarating.
I opened my mouth and a screech wrenched free from my throat as I took to the sky. My black scales shimmered against the reflection of lightning from the oncoming storm. I circled high before diving back down, forming a ball of flame deep in my breast.
I soared toward the shoreline where the cliff face and the water met. Where the skiff was stored, pulled up against the rocks among the crashing waves. Once the flame was hot in my belly, I let it roar through me. It blazed out of my open maw to obliterate the wood before me.
The skiff was aflame in a matter of seconds.
It would be reduced to ashes in a matter of minutes.
I soared back upward, following the cliff face with only inches between my hulking body and the jagged rocks. I was careful to avoid the sea wall that held the waves back from flooding the courtyard—only grazing it with my chest as I tucked my legs against my sides.
Aveline still stood at the window, a hand now pressed against her chest where her heart beat. If a dragon could smile, I would. I shook my head, another screech tearing free from my throat as I took off toward Gothryn, into the heart of the storm.