Chapter Thirty-Three #3
“Someone has to tell them,” Mortimer says, his voice wavering. “Someone has to tell them what happened. Someone has to lead them.”
“We can vouch for you, Vera,” Moss says gently. “We can let the people know what we saw. You could be their legend reborn—something for them to believe in again.”
But Vera shakes her head vehemently, her blue-black hair swaying with the motion.
“No. Despite Abella’s honor and legacy, even her bloodline was corrupted.
I won’t do that to Moros again. Our people deserve to choose who rules them, now and forever.
” Her face crumbles as she peers down into the pit once more. “It’s what he would have wanted.”
The ranger-princess turns to Moss. “Will you stay with me? For now, for this?”
The druid nods and gently laces their fingers together.
It falls to Sindra to deal with Vadrien.
She strides into the small room where they’ve imprisoned him and carefully locks the door behind her.
He’s backed himself into a corner, and his warm brown eyes are wide and panicked as his gaze darts around the room.
On instinct, he bares his fangs at the sound of Sindra’s clattering armor, but he stills once he realizes it’s her.
“I can feel it. Nosferoth is gone, isn’t he?
You’ve killed him?” He blinks, and Sindra wonders at the shift in his eyes—and whether he’s returned to himself.
Vadrien’s expression turns grave. “Is it time?”
Sindra rests her hands atop the swords hanging at her hips. “Yes. You must choose.”
“Choose what?”
“The people of Moros demand your blood for all you’ve taken from them.
And they’re right to.” Sindra sets her jaw and lowers her voice.
“But perhaps you were slain already, in the battle that was fought here. Perhaps you didn’t survive the shattering of your pact.
There would be no one who could say otherwise. ”
His dark gaze, empty of its red-tinged hate, is steady on her yellow eyes. “You’d let me go free.”
Sindra’s grip tightens on her swords’ hilts as a thrill of danger runs down her spine.
She knows she’s taking a risk. “Moros was not the only realm plagued by devils. I’ve a mind to explore the mountains you spoke about, where the sun does not touch.
If I can find more rifts like these, I want to seal them, so poor fools aren’t tricked out of their souls by monsters in caves.
” Her eyes flash. “And there is no one who knows more about the dangers of devils than you.”
A beat of quiet passes between them.
“And the others approve of this?” he asks.
Sindra is silent. As far as she’s concerned, they’ve both broken pacts now. Long ago, when she swore her oath for knighthood, she thought nothing could break it—until her queen asked her to conquer the land where the druids lived. She’d broken her oath then and there, and she’d never turned back.
For so long after, she’d felt empty of purpose, unsure of how to lead her life without the edict to serve and protect. Even at the druids’ enclave, she continued to follow an echo of that broken oath, but to the druids. To Moss.
Now, truly free for the first time, she’s of a mind to find her own path.
“No,” she says quietly. “We would be gone before they knew what transpired.”
“You’d leave them? Even the druid?”
She swallows. “For now, our paths lead us in different directions. She wants to stay and fix what you broke.” And in my own way, she thinks, I want to see if I can help you do that, too.
“You are too clever for this, Sindra,” he says tiredly. “How could you trust me?”
“I don’t.” Not yet. “But I trust myself.” The corner of her lips twitches toward a sharp smile. “And I think I’ve shown you enough times now that I’m more than capable of besting you, should you give me no other choice.”
Vadrien looks at her for a long time—and then his mouth curves up, too.
“You have helped me achieve the only wish I ever had,” he says quietly.
“To see this kingdom free. Nosferoth may be gone, and his power over me is broken, but…the curse remains. The hunger, the power—now that I’ve had a taste, I don’t know that I can let it go.
” Fear tightens his eyes, and his voice grows hoarse.
“I don’t know if it’s something I can overcome. It might destroy me.”
“It might,” she agrees. “So. You can choose to die—or you can choose to fight. The choice is yours.”
You don’t quit.
She has always wondered what might have happened if her parents had been given a second chance to remedy the mistake that killed them. She muses, too, on what might have happened to her if the druids had not shown her mercy and grace when she confessed her quest.
What Vadrien decides now, she thinks, will prove just how much humanity remains in him after all.
For a long time, Vadrien regards her with a new spark in his warm brown eyes, and not a small amount of respect. “I was not lying when I said you’d make a most formidable companion,” he murmurs. He lifts his bound hands for her to cut his bonds. “Very well, my lady. Let us go on the hunt.”