Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Hidden Truths
A Kingdom Betrayed
Dravic’s arm tightened around Adira. “If you refer to Adira, you’re mistaken. She belongs to me.”
Tharne scowled. “She belongs to no man.”
Dravic delivered a scowl of his own. “You stand on Scotara soil, Tharne. I suggest you remember to whom you speak.”
“I know exactly to whom I speak.”
“Then you also know your presence here without my consent is an act I could consider a declaration of war.”
“You’ve considered us at war for months.”
“Impending war,” Dravic corrected. “You made it clear you were preparing for war, getting ready to strike.”
“A threat I had hoped would force you to give me what I wanted when the time came.”
“And that time is here?” Dravic asked, making certain that Tharne was threatening war if Dravic did not give him what he wanted.
“Aye,” Tharne confirmed and glanced at Adira.
He could not be serious, Dravic thought, seeing who he glanced at.
“You want Adira?”
“Aye,” Tharne said, confident he would get what he wanted.
Fury raced through Dravic, his eyes narrowing until an obvious explanation occurred to him.
“You believe Adira is the healer your men have been searching for. The one who can defy death.”
Tharne’s gaze remained on Adira.
“You’re wrong,” Dravic said. “She isn’t the healer.”
“That isn’t why I want her.”
Dravic’s patience was growing thin. “Then why?”
Rather than answer, Tharne asked, “How long has she been with you?”
Dravic’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t question the king. You answer to him.”
Tharne paid him no heed. “How long, Dravic?”
“Long enough for me to know you’re not taking her anywhere.”
Adira’s fingers curled more firmly around his.
Tharne noticed and asked, “Where did you find her?”
“Why does that matter?” Dravic snapped.
Tharne’s hands fisted at his sides. “Everything about her matters.”
Dravic studied him more carefully. This wasn’t simply about whatever connection Adira might have to the Morvane Clan. There was something personal in the way Tharne watched her, something Dravic had failed to notice at first because he’d been too concerned with keeping the man away from her.
“What do you know about Adira?”
Tharne responded with a question of his own. “Did she have the necklace when you found her?”
Dravic went still.
Adira gave no reaction beside him, but he felt the slight movement of her hand in his.
Dravic turned cautious, realizing more was going on here than he realized. “How do you know about the necklace?”
“Did she have it?”
Dravic took a step toward him, making sure Adira remained behind him. “You’re in my kingdom, imprisoned my warriors, and you’ve had me brought here against my will. You will stop asking questions and answer mine.”
The warriors lining the hall shifted, ready to step forward.
Dravic didn’t spare them a glance.
Tharne did. He raised one hand and the men stilled.
“Did Adira show you the necklace?” Tharne asked.
“Of course, she did,” Dravic said as if it was a foolish question to ask.
“The necklace bears the symbols of the Morvane Clan. It belonged to Adira’s mother, which tells me there is some connection between them.
Perhaps her mother fled the Morvane. Perhaps she had reason to hide her daughter from them. I don’t know.”
Tharne’s jaw tightened at the mention of Adira’s mother.
That reaction didn’t escape Dravic. “You knew her mother.”
It wasn’t a question.
Tharne’s gaze remained on him.
Dravic suddenly understood that he’d finally struck upon something the man hadn’t intended to reveal.
“You knew Adira’s mother?”
Tharne said nothing.
“What do you know of her?”
Still, Tharne said nothing.
Dravic’s temper snapped. “You threatened war against Scotara to get Adira. You crossed the Sea of Shadows before winter closed it. You brought armed men into my kingdom and somehow knew exactly where she would be. Now you stand there questioning me about a necklace that had belonged to her mother, while refusing to tell me why any of it matters.”
He took another step forward and this time Adira moved with him.
Dravic felt her beside him and stopped. He would not allow his anger to make him careless with her safety.
He moved close to her. “Who is Adira to you?”
Tharne looked at Adira, his hard expression softening. “Adira is my daughter.”
Dravic said nothing but felt Adira’s hand go slack in his. He turned immediately toward her. She was staring at Tharne.
Whatever Dravic had asked of her in that room—whatever advantage there might have been in concealing that she could hear—he knew there was no possible way she could pretend she hadn’t heard that.
Adira continued to stare at her… father.
The word felt strange even in her thoughts. She had a father. Not some nameless man who had abandoned her and her mother. Not someone who had gone on with his life without ever wondering what became of the daughter he’d left behind.
Tharne, the Warlord of Drogath, was her father, and he had been searching for her.
She didn’t know what to feel. For most of her life, no one had wanted her.
She had been the lass who could neither hear nor speak, easily ignored when she wasn’t being ridiculed.
People had spoken around her, dismissed her, treated her as though the inability to hear their words meant she had no thoughts of her own.
She had learned early not to expect kindness and never to expect love.
Then Feena had taken her in. Adira had never understood why. She had simply believed herself fortunate that someone had finally shown her kindness without demanding anything in return.
And then there was Dravic.
She looked at him. His attention remained fixed on Tharne, his body positioned slightly in front of hers as though even the revelation that the man was her father changed nothing.
He would protect her—always.
The king had frightened her when she first arrived at Caerith. He had been demanding, impatient, and impossible to understand at times. He had kept her near because her silence suited him, and she had wondered more than once why fate had placed her in the path of such a man.
Now she knew.
Dravic had taught her what it was to be wanted. Not tolerated but wanted.
He noticed her. He watched her. He learned her expressions and gestures when no one else had bothered. He touched her as though he couldn’t get enough of her and held her through the night as though there was nowhere else he wished to be.
And he had fallen in love with her. A woman who could not hear or speak. Her afflictions did not matter to him. He loved her as she was and she was happy to have heard the words spoken from his own lips.
Adira tightened her hand around his.
Dravic glanced down at her and the hard set of his features eased immediately.
She loved him with an intensity that frightened her, and she knew then and there she could not bear to lose such a powerful love.
A sudden turn of his head had her doing the same.
Someone was stepping out from behind the warriors along the wall.
Adira recognized him immediately… Ernach.
What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he imprisoned with the king’s men and the Hunters? Adira listened as Ernach spoke.
“This changes nothing,” he said as if he was in command.
Dravic watched the man’s every move. He did not walk amongst the warriors as a foe, not one of them lifting a hand to stop him. Nay, he walked as if he was one of them.
Adira watched Dravic’s eyes narrow and felt his body tense. He surmised what she did. He had trusted the wrong man.
Ernach stopped several paces away, his focus on Tharne. “Whether Dravic gives you your daughter or not, we still go to war with Scotara.”
Silence descended over the Great Hall.
Dravic waited to hear what Tharne would say, but the warlord said nothing, his silence speaking clearer than any explanation.
“You betray the kingdom once again,” Dravic accused, his anger palpable.
Ernach glared at Dravic. “Betray?” He puffed out his chest. “I am the rightful heir to Scotara. The crown belongs to me. My bloodline ruled Scotara before Halric’s family stole the crown.”
Shocked by his claim, it did not stop Dravic from correcting him. “You mean won it in battle from a brutal king whose own people wanted him gone.”
“My ancestors ruled with strength. Their titles stripped away and the survivors given a small patch of land to live on. Those who remained learned the value of patience.” Ernach’s mouth curved faintly. “Something my family became exceedingly good at.”
“I can see my ancestors made an error in allowing even one of you to live,” Dravic said, his voice cold as ice.
“Aye. I would have made sure to kill everyone in your family, including those who could possibly have been carrying an heir.” He gazed quickly to Adira.
Dravic had been too concerned with problems at hand to have given any thought to Adira carrying his child. But hearing Ernach’s threat, the thought became much too real. It stirred a rage so vicious in him that all he wanted to do was reach out and snap Ernach’s neck.
Ernach continued to fuel the flames. “I spent years subjecting myself to your grandfather, listening to him, advising him, and allowing him to believe there was no man more loyal to him than I.” A smug smile appeared on his face.
“I learned his weaknesses. Your grandfather feared losing his kingdom more than he loved anyone in it.”
Dravic’s fury grew as he realized what Ernach was leading to.
“Edric was his only son. His heir. Halric should have trusted him.” Ernach shrugged. “But trust is easily destroyed when enough doubt is planted.”
Dravic knew what was coming before Ernach said her name.
“Your mother made it easy. Ravina was from Northland. Her family possessed power Halric didn’t understand and, therefore, feared.
All I had to do was convince him that his son no longer made his own decisions.
That Ravina controlled him. A suggestion here.
A question there. Every decision Edric made that Halric disliked became another reason to wonder whose decision it truly was. ”