8. Downfall
Downfall
A thousand questions raced through my mind as I stared Corbyn down. Where to even start? I couldn’t allow my anger to run away with me, but it was difficult to ignore the burning desire to wring all the answers out of him by force.
He stared back, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. There was nothing he could do to avoid this moment, and he certainly knew it. His little jibe in the portrait gallery rose unbidden to my mind.
Wouldn’t dream of patronizing me, my ass. He’d shown nothing but defiance since my mother’s death. Every heated look and snide remark we’d thrown at each other over the last week had been building up to this. There would be no going back from here.
“Talon Arlbright,” I said, voice quivering, “you will give us a detailed account of the night my mother died.” The tension in the room could be cut with a knife. Freyr Reynar shot me a pointed look, a reminder of our plan. “Please,” I added.
“Yes, my lady,” he replied stoically, inclining his head. “Earlier that day, Grantis and I accompanied Queen Petra to the Sacred Forest. She had some business with the High Priestess. We returned before nightfall, but the queen appeared… troubled.”
“Troubled how?” A scowl pulled at my brow. I knew she left the city that day, but the visit to the Temple was news. What was she doing there?
The Shadow bristled in anger, unable to offer any explanation on account of the gaps in her memory. She was as much in the dark about this whole ordeal as the rest of us. I breathed in deeply to slow my pulse, hoping it would help calm her as well.
Corbyn continued, “I am unsure, my lady. She only said that she needed to speak with you upon our return. However, I don’t believe that ever happened. As I recall, you were occupied elsewhere at the time.” He raised a dark eyebrow knowingly, and my face suddenly burned.
Did he know what?—?
Don’t get distracted, the Shadow chided.
The edge of his mouth pulled slightly upward.
Bastard.
Willing the thought away, I said, “No, we did not speak.”
Admitting that truth brought on a fresh wave of pain. The last time I’d seen her was at breakfast that morning. Well, aside from when I’d held her lifeless body in my arms. I’d been preoccupied with Lukas the rest of the day. The memory caused me to shudder, but Corbyn continued, unfazed.
“The queen was tired from the excursion and returned to her rooms for an early dinner,” he said, maintaining his strict, informative tone.
“Grantis and I ate in shifts, as we normally did, and then took up our posts for the night. He was in the hall, and I was in the antechamber. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“And when did you notice something out of the ordinary?” My teeth ground together in a futile effort to keep the venom from my voice.
He exhaled sharply through his nose, narrowing his gaze at me. I hated that I was hanging on the edge of his every word, silently begging for him to just tell me. I wasn’t paying attention to anyone else in the room anymore. It was only him and me and the truth.
“Grantis woke me by an alert through the skipta ,” he said, his tone softer.
I’d always been fascinated by the Shifters’ ability to communicate using only their minds. I had to wonder now if the skipta created a kind of bond, like me and the Shadow. The sadness in his voice made me think it did.
Corbyn continued, “He said the assassin simply… appeared. There was no warning. It was there when it had not been a moment before.”
Lenn grumbled quietly again. That had been the sorest point for him.
No one had any idea how the killer even managed to enter the Citadel, let alone my mother’s bedchamber.
The dragons had sharp enough senses that they could detect and even see energy signatures.
If nothing else, it made them effective guards.
How had this assassin managed to avoid their detection entirely until it was too late?
It didn’t seem possible, yet here we all sat.
“Did you feel anything… significant about him?” I asked, unsure how exactly their sensing worked.
“Truthfully, I was dazed by Grantis’s panic. I sensed the assassin there—his malicious intent. ” His eyes fell, staring blankly into a distant spot.
“What happened next?” I prompted. Though the information he was sharing was all new to us, I could see he was reliving that night in his own head, the way I’d relived my own misery every night since.
“I entered the queen’s bedchamber and saw the assassin standing at the foot of the bed.
His energy core… It was so dark. Darker than I’ve ever seen.
He had her held in front of him and Grantis’s heart skewered on his blade.
” Corbyn lifted his gaze to mine, voice swelling with ire.
“And I had to watch—had to feel —my friend crumble to a pile of soot and coals before my eyes.”
My heart sank.
The blue-winged twins bowed their bald heads somberly, raising their hands in the shape of a circle before their chests. Lightwing, too, muttered something, glancing over at the box in front of Yara Vendreth. The Skymaster placed a dark hand upon it.
“He died doing his duty,” the prince said, a resolute look on his chiseled face. “There is no greater honor for a dragon.” A noble sentiment, one which I shared.
Corbyn turned his head, staring at him vacantly. “Small comforts.”
“And then?” I asked, though my heart ached to hear the account.
The Talon’s dark eyes slid back to me, a palpable intensity shining from them. He breathed in deeply and shifted his wings. “He placed his dagger at the base of her throat. I moved to confront him and…” He paused, pressing his mouth into a thin line.
I found myself leaning forward and noticed Lightwing doing the same in my periphery.
“And?” she prompted urgently. “Go on, Talon.”
He looked between the two of us. “And I… I was stopped.”
“What do you mean, ‘ stopped ?’” I said in a low voice.
He cocked his head. “I mean just that, my lady,” he replied, utterly calm. “I was stopped by an unseen force. The assassin simply spoke a word and I was unable to move.”
Lightwing was suddenly on her feet, hands braced on the table. “That’s impossible.” Her voice reached a deeper pitch than before. My resolve wavered slightly at seeing her so unnerved.
“I assure you, Honored Lightwing,” Corbyn said, tone threatening, “it is not. Whatever enchantment the assassin used robbed me of movement and my ability to Shift.”
This proclamation rocked the rest of the dragons.
Skymaster Vendreth jumped from her stool, clenched fists pounding into the table.
The twins stared nervously at Lightwing, the leader of their sect, who seemingly found herself without a shred of explanation to offer.
But if her claim about the Ancients’ power against falsehood was to be believed, there was only one conclusion.
Corbyn spoke the truth.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” the Skymaster snapped. “Did you even attempt to Shift, wingman?”
Corbyn growled darkly, brows furrowing. “Of course I tried . I could not even manage a quarter-Shift. I was a mere puppet in his hands.”
Slowly, I stood, silencing them. Lenn shuffled forward a bit, his presence a steadying rock. The prince’s eyes were on me, but my gaze stayed trained on Corbyn.
“You tried to save her?” My voice was a weak, cracking wreck, and unbidden tears sprang to my eyes. A few of them snaked down my cheeks, leaving salty kisses on my lips.
Corbyn’s expression tightened painfully. “With every ounce of my power,” he breathed.
Sudden exhaustion washed over me. I slumped back into my chair, my shoulders slamming roughly against the back.
I didn’t need any more details. The scream she’d released before the killer's blade slashed her throat had woken me and alerted Lenn and the Hersir further down the hall. We were all there within moments.
I’d held her in my arms as her life ebbed away, the mortal wound stealing her voice. I couldn’t even remember if I said anything to her. One moment, her breath stilled in her chest, and the next, I was enveloped in white-hot pain. My mother was gone, and the Shadow was mine.
But now that I thought about it, I did see Corbyn that night.
He’d still been there, seemingly as shocked as the rest of us.
What he’d described—the horrors he’d endured—was unimaginable.
How he must have lived Grantis’s panic as his own, and felt his agony when he died and flames consumed his body.
Not even my darkest nightmares could have conjured such a scene.
And yet he’d lived it. And I… Gods, how I had misjudged him.
Lenn’s hand was suddenly resting on my shoulder. I looked up at him, noting his stern expression and questioning gaze. With my remaining strength sapped, I nodded, giving him my leave.
He looked back at Corbyn with a slight huff. “This assassin, what did he look like?”
Corbyn shook his head. “He was of middling height, with broad shoulders and a stocky waist. His face was shrouded. Some kind of glamour. But he… he had golden bird wings.”
There were only three things found in my mother’s room that night. The killer’s bone-hilt dagger, fashioned like a serrated feather and still wet with her blood. A scrap of black fabric, which told us nothing. And a golden bird feather that shone with otherworldly light.
A winged assassin with the ability to control a dragon. This wasn’t making any sense.
“A griffin?” the prince questioned.
“No, it was nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
“And besides,” Yara Vendreth growled, “another Shifter couldn’t stop a dragon from moving. This was not one of us.”
A fair point. Dragons were the most powerful of any of the Shifters. What kind of creature was stronger than them?
“Did he say anything? Give any indication at all why he’d do this?” I asked breathlessly, fighting back more tears. My hands trembled in my lap.