Chapter 36
Ever
I STARE INTENTLY AT THE male, strapped to an interrogation bed on the other side of the stark room. I was worried seeing anyone like this might trigger me, but it seems the demand for vengeance roaring endlessly in my head enjoys the view.
I study the general’s features—fair skin, fair hair, smattering of age spots across his temples. It’s disarming how well he hides the monster lurking in his depths. I can’t see the faintest sliver, even now when he’s nothing more than a drooling mess, but it’s there, I know it is.
General Fairwyn is hopped up on more magic-fueled truth serums than I knew existed, and he’s spent days confessing to every minuscule sin, as though he could avoid focusing on the only ones I care about.
For sixty-two years, I’ve thought long and hard about vengeance.
I’ve imagined all the ways I’d hunt the dragons that killed my people.
How I’d make them scream and beg in turn before killing each one the very way they killed my kindred.
I wanted each guilty dragon to leave this world seeing the same hate in my eyes that shone in theirs while they ruthlessly tore my loved ones apart.
I’ve envisioned this reckoning for so long it feels like a familiar bedtime story.
And yet in all that time, I never imagined the sterile cells or the viewing galleries above.
I failed to consider magical serums, or even confessions.
I spent forever planning for vigilante , and somehow I ended up with law-abiding and systematic .
Yuck.
My scale armor looks darker under the bright lights of the cell, and I try not to think about how many cams and audio devices are capturing every blink, every breath.
“We will wake the Denounced in thirty seconds. Are you ready, Scioness?” the Arbiter asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
I give her a tight nod.
Aeson watches me from the gallery above, his Wing spread out behind him.
I’ve barely seen him the past few days. He’s restlessly chasing the Tainted, and whoever else is responsible for the hack, but there are still no leads or answers.
I’ve debated calling Enslee and telling her it’s no longer safe here, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s not safe anywhere for us in Drameric.
At least here we’ll be together, and they’ll be protected instead of vulnerable while they reveal.
“Ten?.?.?. nine?.?.?. eight,” the Arbiter counts down, and I press my back into the seat and wait.
The general comes to with a scream. He thrashes against his bindings and threatens everyone and anyone his drugged mind can come up with.
I wait for him to settle, and I start to wonder how many times we’ll do this before we get anywhere.
I’d rather just rip his head off at this point, but apparently without a legal confession, that’s a big no-no.
I square my shoulders and fill my lungs, and then I resume trying to get something, anything from General Fairwyn.
“Do you remember the way the queen screamed when your friends dragged my brothers into the room?” I ask the drake like I’m bored, even though I’m anything but. “How about the way my little brother screamed when your friend lit him on fire. Do you remember how they laughed?”
Fairwyn pulls against the straps and tries to shift his weight.
“Ah, you do remember that,” I observe, and as much as I know I’m going to pay for it later, I dive deeper. “Do you remember watching while they made Ronin lick up his own vomit? Or do you only recall the moment your Thrasher friend dug their claws into his stomach and disemboweled him?”
Silence fills the room.
“I counted the seconds it took for my brother to die, did you? It was three hundred seventy-two seconds, in case you were wondering.”
“You were not there,” he croaks, and I fight the urge to scream. This is all I got out of him yesterday, and I don’t think I can sit through another day of this shit.
“No,” I correct. “You wish I wasn’t there, then you might have gotten away with it, but I was.”
He struggles against his restraints again, “You were not there!” he snarls so loudly the barriers on the observations bays rattle.
My pulse batters me the way I wish I could batter this fucker, and I shoot out of my seat and zero in on the General. “I was there, you evil fuck, now do us all a favor and tell the truth so you can die like you deserve.”
He laughs, but it quickly turns into a hacking cough, and I back off, allowing the Healers to move in and adjust the general’s position from flat to an elevated head and torso.
I wait for the Arbiter to order me back to my seat, like she has every other time I’ve abandoned it, but she must be getting tired of Fairwyn’s shit too, because the drake just calmly looks on.
“You think I deserve to die, youngling?” he asks, his casuistic gaze finding mine as spittle sprays all over his lips and chin.
The hate in his eyes has my pulse picking up, and something about this exchange feels different from yesterday. He looks more?.?.?. resigned.
A surge of excitement bolsters my ire and I home in on my prey, baiting him with a flippant little laugh.
His glower darkens. “And if I tell you your father deserved to die, what then?” Fairwyn snaps, his caramel-colored eyes watching me intently.
I just stare at him like the pathetic pile of dragon shit he is.
“He was betraying us,” he hisses. “King Tenebrae was betraying the dragons, and he got everything he deserved in the end because of it.”
I go still, every muscle I possess drawing tight, at his accusation. He notices, and a satisfied glimmer alights in his hateful gaze. A smirk slips across his face, and I want to rip it off.
“Got your attention now, don’t I,” he mumbles, his bloodshot eyes wandering around the room, like he suddenly doesn’t remember where he is.
“And what was this great betrayal my father was guilty of?” I taunt, shooing away my unease.
The general’s attention shoots back to me. He tries to get out of the bed, forgetting that he’s been strapped down. The second he realizes as much, he absolutely loses it.
“You have to die; all Tenebraes must die! Listen to me,” he bellows up at the ceiling as though the clouds and the blue sky might help him.
“King Tenebrae was betraying The Horde. He made an agreement to open the Fae Gate. I have proof. I have proof,” he wails as the nurses move in to try and calm him.
“We all would have died. He wouldn’t listen—he was going to kill us all! ”
“You fucking liar,” I snarl, bypassing a nurse to get in his face. “My father would never betray his people. Tell the fucking truth, you coward!” I bellow.
“Zariell, he was working with Zariell,” he screams, and all at once it feels as though the floor has been ripped out from under me.
Fairwyn’s grin is triumphant and he writhes and snarls as the healers try to settle him. “She knows. She knows!” he screeches, and everything inside of me goes numb.
How the fuck does he know that name?
A healer squeezes between me and Fairwyn, pushing me back so she can inject him with something as he howls like a mad man.
“Check my files! It’s all in there. The password is justice ,” he roars and then starts to laugh hysterically.
I shake off my shock, and round on the general, ready to bash his face in so no more lies can leave his lips. Someone wraps their arms around me from behind, and I’m pulled away before I can so much as make him bleed even a little.
The general laughs and laughs and then he glares at me. “You should have died with the others. Your father was a traitor and I would help rip him limb from limb again. Death to all Tenebraes! Don’t let her open the Fae Gate! They’ll kill us all!”
I’m torn out of the cell, despite my efforts to get to Fairwyn. All I can see is red. All I can taste is the vengeance I deserve. I scream and fight to get back into the cell, to wring the lying bastard’s neck until he tells the truth. But Aeson refuses to let me go.
Cool air suddenly assaults me, and I look around to find a grassy clearing that looks oddly familiar, but I can’t place it. The red walls of Thrasher Keep dwarf the crisp lawn, and I shove away from my mate and look out over Paragon City as I try to collect myself.
My mind is a chaotic mess I don’t even know where to begin to unravel. How does that monster know my mother’s name? Why would he accuse my father of trying to open the Fae Gate? It makes no fucking sense.
I spin and find Aeson and both our Wings watching me. His face is filled with worry, and it makes me want to scream and shake the look off his face.
“Don’t you do that,” I snap, shoving my hands into my hair and tugging my roots, hard.
“Do what?” he asks innocently, but the apprehension radiating off of him feels like spiders crawling across my skin.
I need to fly, I need to get as far away from here as I can, because it can’t be true. My father would never. It makes no sense. And yet, how does Fairwyn know my mother’s name?
“What?” I snap at everyone. “He’s lying. You know that,” I yell, my gaze hopping from Karis to Farrow, to Vesper and then Bryndol. “He’s lying!” I defend, when none of the Thrashers agree with me.
Silence stretches between us, and the resigned look on each of their faces feels like a blow I’ll never come back from.
“You can smell it,” I remind them as though each one has forgotten how their affinity works.
“I didn’t pick up on any deception,” Farrow hesitantly volunteers, and I growl at him, seething.
“He was lying,” I shout, because how?.?.?. how could this be the truth?
Farrow’s eyes fill with sympathy, but he doesn’t say anything more. I look to Karis, then Vesper, my eyes pleading for one of them to agree with me. But they don’t.
Bryndol steps forward, her blonde hair blowing in the breeze, and her dark-gray scale armor reminding me of my father’s. “He wasn’t lying,” she tells me softly, and those three words bring the world down on top of me.
Devastation stalls my lungs. Horror overcomes my denial. My knees hit the frost-covered ground hard, and once again the world shifts on its axis and I can no longer tell up from down.
“This doesn’t make sense,” I whisper to Aeson as he kneels in front of me.
“We’ll make it make sense,” he assures, like it’s that simple. “There has to be more to this. We’ll find it. We’ll figure out what’s going on.”
Pain rends my soul as everything I thought I knew unravels.
“How are we going to be safe?” I plead. “The other Syphons are hours away from arriving. That madman just accused all of us of treachery. He thinks my entire line is evil. How many others think like him? What do we do? Where can we go?”
Aeson lowers his face until it’s even with mine. The bond sings in my chest, and his eyes are filled with so much love and patience, and with a sinking feeling, I know, after tonight, he may never look at me like this again.
Two words hammer through my mind in time with my racing heart.
Zariell Calyra.
My mother…and the key to finding the truth.
I open my mouth to say something, to tell Aeson about Enslee, and my mother. I’m done playing with secrets I don’t think I fully understand any more.
“Incoming,” Ogden warns, and Aeson reaches for my hand and quickly helps me up.
“It’s my father,” he tells me, but I recognize the two members of the King’s Wing. “I need to brief him and Lorn, but it shouldn’t take long.”
I hold on to Aeson tighter, refusing to let him go until I’ve purged every secret I’ve ever had, but movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention. I look over and see our Wings, the king’s envoy, other drakes milling about in the distance, and I realize I’m being careless.
There are too many unknowns all around us, and if I’m wrong, if I misjudge this, it won’t just hurt me—it’ll risk everyone I love and everything we’ve worked for.
I release my hold, and drop my gaze, shame and frustration blooming in my chest.
I once told Aeson that we were destined to be enemies. He told me he liked a challenge. I really hope he meant it.
Aeson watches me for a second and then pulls me in for a hug. “This is your home—don’t let anyone chase you out of it again. We’ll figure this out, okay? We have a starting point now—we’ll use it to get to the truth.”
Aeson kisses the top of my head with a tenderness I don’t deserve, and then he leaves. I stand silently and watch him go, because I’m a coward, and a liar, and now maybe even the daughter of a traitor king.