Chapter 44
Ryder
Insufferable.
How is she going to lecture me about pushing people away?
And who is she to say what is better? She didn’t grow up with a father who would kill everyone who got close to her as a way of controlling her.
But I did. And even now he still has his talons in me.
Reminding me that Reign will never be safe as long as I’m close to her.
She may think that pushing people away isn’t the answer, but I don’t have that luxury.
Not when it’s her life at risk. Even if she can’t die, the ones she loves can.
And when he finds out what she is, that is who my father will come for.
Amaya. Emeric. Damien. They’re all targets as long as she’s by my side.
“Come to visit the shish kebab?” Artemus shifts in the makeshift bed.
“I should kill you for scaring me like that.”
“I just thought you could use a little distraction from all of your brooding.”
I huff out a laugh. “That’s my natural state. I can’t help it.”
“Don’t I know it,” he snickers.
“Enough about me. How’re you feeling?”
“Oh, just dandy. Nothing like being impaled by a blade to get a guy going.”
“You wore it well, my friend.” I pat him on the shoulder, and he grins up at me like a child.
“What’s the update?” he asks, his smile fading.
“Forty-two dead. Fifty-six injured. I was headed to go see about Zane but wanted to stop by and check on you first.”
“What happens if he’s been turned into a bomb, too?”
“Let’s not talk about what-ifs. We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” I take his hand in mine. “Get some rest. I need my second back.”
“Yes, sir,” he answers with a squeeze.
I take one last look around the Center filled with injured soldiers. We need more allies if we’re going to stand a chance against my father. Otherwise, this war is over before it’s begun.
“He’s all yours,” Slader hisses when I enter the room. “I’ve searched every bit of Zane’s mind and there’s no sign it’s been tampered with.”
“Why would the king only use Nexus and not me?” Zane questions. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled about it, but two bombs seem better than one.”
“It wasn’t about bombing our army.”
“Then what was it about?” Amaya demands, holding onto Zane’s still shackled hand.
I walk over and begin unlocking the restraints. “It’s my father’s way of taunting me. Reminding me that he decides who lives and who dies. It’s just a game to him.”
“What a monster,” Amaya mumbles under her breath and I couldn’t agree more.
“Sorry.” I motion to the shackles and Zane shrugs. “About all this.”
“Don’t be. I get it. Better to be safe than sorry.”
“Right.”
“What can we do to help?” Amaya calls out as I’m making my way to the door. I pause and turn around.
“Akari is doing research to create a sort of study guide over the beasts that currently reside in the Dread Woods. I bet she could use some assistance.”
Amaya nods. “Perfect! We’ll get right on that.”
I gotta give it to Reign. She may not let too many people into her life, but the ones she does are good people. I suppose that’s just a reflection of who she is, though.
“Hey, I was just coming to find you,” Elias says, nearly running over my foot when I step out of the war room I had spent the last several hours in. “There’s something you need to see.”
I follow him, impressed with how well he maneuvers up and down the stairs. Even with the chair’s magical assistance, it doesn’t look easy. I refrain from offering to transport us. Something about it seems rude and to be honest, I could use the walk to clear my head.
When we get to the Hall and the Center doors open, I’m taken aback. 75% of the beds are gone and there’s a slew of injured walking around with the assistance of others. I was just here this morning, and the place was filled with bedridden patients.
“You did this.” Elias passes by and motions for me to follow.
“You championed people to discover their individual strengths. You inspired people to carry on when times got tough. You created community and a home where there wasn’t one.
” Elias points to a healer supplying medicine.
“That guy right there… he failed out of the Sector his second year and now he’s one of our best healers.
And that woman over there… she couldn’t wield a sword to save her life, but she’s one of the most skilled earth witches I’ve ever seen.
Her ability to grow and mix herbs created the medicines that have half of the people in this room able to walk right now. ”
As we stroll through the middle of the room, people smile and bow just slightly.
Some are stretching. Others are exercising cautiously.
The sight of it all makes me proud. This is what I wanted to build here.
This is what I want to build back in the realms. The only thing standing in the way of that dream now is my father.
“Come in, Reign.”
“How did you—”
“What do you want?” I don’t bother turning around to look at her. It only makes wearing this cold demeanor harder. Instead, I stay focused on the small tornados blowing around outside.
“Yeah… okay… so…”
“Spit it out.”
“I have a bad idea that I know you’re going to hate.” She says it fast as if it’s all one word.
“So why are you here then?” I demand dismissively.
“Well, if you would turn around and look at me, I might actually tell you.”
Mother, I hate that I find her annoyance with me charming.
“Not seeing the appeal here.”
I’m just about to take a step closer to the window when I spin around to catch a dagger an inch from my head.
Her arms are crossed, and she’s leaning on her hip as if to tell me I had it coming.
When I reappear in front of her, she doesn’t move a muscle.
I can see she’s fighting back the smirk at my predictability.
Fine. If a reaction is what she wants, then a reaction is what she’ll get.
In less than a breath, I have her pinned against the wall, held down by my shadows.
Using the dagger, she so viciously threw with my back turned, I press the sharp tip just beneath her chin, forcing her to lift her head and look at me.
Her heartbeat races, pulsating through my shadows as if it were my own.
My eyes can’t help but fall to her chest that rises with each breath.
That’s when I see it.
Removing the dagger from her chin, I loop it through the silver chain hanging from her neck. I lift it, dragging the star-filled, round pendant from beneath her low-cut shirt that is making it hard to concentrate.
“What’s this?” I ask in a cocky tone I know she’ll loathe. She snatches the necklace, nearly cutting herself on the dagger.
“What? Am I not allowed to wear it now?” she sasses back with an adorable, forced scowl.
“By all means, wear it. That is, after all, what it was meant for.” She rolls her eyes and tries to push off the wall with no success. “Thought you tried to get rid of it?”
She sighs, clearly growing impatient with my games. “I did. But as I’m sure you know, it was an impossible task.”
“And yet you wear it now?”
“Zane brought it back with him. He found it in my drawer back at the Sector and thought I was missing it.”
“And were you? Missing it?”
Her brows furrow like she’s disgusted with the idea that she would miss anything associated with me.
“No!” she says forcefully as if she’s trying to convince herself of that fact. “But it is beautiful and now that I know it won’t strangle me, I don’t see why I wouldn’t wear it.”
“And what does your boyfriend think of you wearing my birthday present around your neck?” I let the silver chain slide off the dagger’s tip and watch the pendant fall back into that sweet spot I shouldn’t even be eyeing.
“We’re not officially back together yet and he doesn’t know.” She looks down and then back up. Something similar to guilt paints her face. “I just mean it hasn’t come up. It’s not like I’m hiding it from him.”
“Mhm. Of course, you’re not,” I say into her ear before releasing my shadow’s hold on her.
I expect her to push me away or at least slip off to the side, but instead she stands there, unmoving.
“You dropped this.” I flip the dagger in my hand, offering her the hilt.
She takes it and I step back, returning to the window before I do or say something I can’t take back.
“So?”
“So, what?” I repeat over my shoulder.
“Do you want to hear my plan or not?”
I turn around and take a seat, propping my feet up on the desk.
This is going to be good.
“Alright, so you know how your father made a deal with the Dread Wood creatures?” She begins, taking a seat across from me. “Well, I want to offer them another deal.”
I nearly fall out of my chair laughing and she’s not the slightest bit humored by it. “I’m sorry. Carry on.” I’m still grinning at her ridiculousness, expecting the dagger to come for my head again at any given moment.
“I’m being serious!” She bites back.
“Oh, I know. That’s why it’s so funny.” She shoots up out of the chair, stabbing the dagger into the desk. I stop her at the door, suddenly realizing I took it too far. “Wait.”
“No!” She tries to push me to the side but ends up moving herself more than me. “You don’t take me seriously!”
Okay, now I feel like an asshole.
I pull her away from the door and a second later, I’m towering over her with both of my arms on the chair, keeping her seated.
“You’re wrong.” It comes out as more of a growl than I intend.
“I do take you seriously. In fact, your opinion is the one that means the most to me. Above Jace or even Artemus. So, you’re going to sit here and tell me this plan of yours.
” I spin the chair around and push it towards the desk before slipping back into my own seat.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I know deep in my soul that the creature made of intertwined branches didn’t want to hurt me that day in the Dread Woods.
Call it woman’s intuition or whatever, but I know it.
” I know better than to discourage her now, so I remain quiet and motion for her to continue.
“Now, I’m not stupid. I don’t think we should be making any kind of deals with beasts like the Lybrates who were far too eager to rip us to shreds.
However, I do think it’s worth going back and seeing about making some kind of deal with that tree monster and any others who seem to not look at us like we’re the enemy. ”
Long silence fills the air between us as I think it over, playing out all of the different scenarios in my head. It’s a risky and dangerous move. But we’re also not exactly in a position to be playing it safe after losing forty-two of our soldiers and already being outnumbered 3-1.
“Okay,” I finally say. Her head snaps up and her eyes are wide.
“When do we leave?”
“There is no ‘we.’ I’ll be going alone.”
She shoots up from the table again, her fiery wings flaring behind her this time.
“No! You don’t get to leave me behind.”
I stay seated but allow my shadows to crawl onto the desk and floor around her.
“That’s my call, not yours.”
“I don’t accept it!” Her fists ignite beside her and it’s the first time I’ve seen her react like this towards me. Good. I need her to get mad. I need to her hate me. It will be easier to push her away if she does.
“I don’t care.”
“What happened to not controlling me? What happened to letting me make my own decisions? What happened to being better than your father?”
I rise slowly from the other side of the desk, flaring my own wings, but she doesn’t back down. Anyone else would cower and accept my authority. But not her. Instead, it’s me who backs down because I can’t stand to see the hurt in her eyes, knowing I’m the cause of it.
I hang my head and release a heavy sigh. “Give me until the end of the week. I can’t leave this soon after the bombing.”
“Perfect.” Her sinister grin tells me she’s not surprised by my surrender. It’s like she’s figured out just what buttons to push. Like she knows I’m a prisoner to her demands. The same demands I promised myself I would no longer agree to. Yet here I am, doing just that.
Her ability to manipulate me is infuriating just as much as it is impressive. But she doesn’t get to win this one. Not without a price.
“Under one condition…” She cocks her head to the side and glares at me through her thick lashes. “You don’t take that necklace off.”
“Fine!” she fires back before rushing out the room, dropping her fiery exterior as she goes.
It may not seem like much of a price to pay but it is.
Because I know her. I know that there’s a reason she hasn’t mentioned to Damien where she got it from.
What that reason is, I’m not sure, but I saw it written on her face.
It’s not like her to lie and that’s what she’s doing.
Because omission is the equivalent of lying.
She herself has reminded me of that fact far too many times for me to buy the innocent act.
It’s a dangerously twisted game the two of us seem to be playing. I know I should stop. I know that I should remove her from my life completely, at least while my father is still alive.
But I can’t.
Her pull is too strong. Her hold is too powerful.
And I am too weak.