Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Fear
Ireluctantly let Cara go to spar with Kiegan and Sera. I’d prefer to keep her under my watch. But she needed to burn of some of her rage.
The meeting with Corbyn haunted me. I’d seen his face shift as he went from moral certainty and his expectation of a meaningful reunion to faltering in the face of Cara’s fear as he desperately tried to hang onto the version of events where he was the heroic father who had launched her to safety, like a boat on the sea.
He had seen sending her and Maris away as his own sacrifice. He saw nothing wrong in the way he created her to serve the kingdom.
Cara’s gaze had flickered to mine, hot and angry, and I had known some of that fury was for me, not for Corbyn.
“You should not deceive your mate,” Shadowbane growled.
“You should not force your mate back into a world she’s chosen to avoid for centuries, either,” I told him aloud. “But here we are. We’ve made sacrifices for our cause, and so have they.”
“They have not sacrificed when they have not consented. They have been used.” Shadowbane was so irritatingly committed to accuracy. “We did what we must, but do not soften it, clever thing.”
Shadowbane never meant it when he called me clever.
There were two things I had not told her: that I had caused her nightmares to keep her here in the Trials and that the bond between us could not be broken.
I could not reveal either right now. Unless…
“Do you think she and Lightbringer might bond over their rage?”
Shadowbane scoffed. “You do not wish to be on the receiving end of Lightbringer’s rage.”
“Too late,” I told him. “Does she realize how much trouble we are in if she doesn’t fly? If we don’t escape the Trials?”
“You gambled she would not let Cara die by the flames. Now I imagine she is reluctant to be manipulated for the sake of your safety.”
“It was not a gamble. I would not gamble her life.” I felt irritated by the accusation, especially when Shadowbane had plotted with me. He was just as guilty.
The queen had played into my hands deliciously with her attempt to kill Cara; by blocking any other Amber dragon from claiming Cara, she had guaranteed Lightbringer would choose Cara.
After all I had heard of Lightbringer from Shadowbane, I knew she would never have let my plucky little half-mortal perish.
“I am asking how we stop your mate from being so damned stubborn,” I told Shadowbane.
I crossed to the chest and opened it, pushing apart the cloak in which Cara had wrapped the knife.
She had held it to her chest so tenderly, as if it were the embodiment of her love for her family, of how far she would go for them.
The thought made something tear at my chest. I wondered if she would ever love me so fully. “If I take Tay from the queen now, she will know we have the knife. We have to escape the Trials first.”
“Break the rules,” he said flippantly.
“The other clans would turn on us, and the queen would justify sending the Nightwalkers or simply send us into some mad situation to die without the other clans’ support. I have not secured enough alliances for us yet.”
Some of the clans would go with us. Garnet, certainly.
Flint. I was certain of some of my alliances.
Malachite would go to the queen. Selenite had long been loyal to the queen and yet had not been well repaid.
Obsidian, if they knew what I’d done, would want to turn us over to the queen—or rather, they’d want to offer her our lifeless bodies.
Before Shadowbane could offer his usual suggestions of violence, I added, “The goal is to keep the other clans alive and on our side. We are not fighting for ourselves alone, and we must not fight alone.”
I stared down at the knife. I’d told Cara that the queen would not use Tay against her, not yet.
The queen could only use her family as a threat.
If she could force Cara to betray me with them, she would.
Once she played that hand, it was over. She wouldn’t raise him to be Fae because then Cara would come after her with all her fury.
Cara and Lightbringer would be one in all their rage. “Lightbringer will act to save Cara if she needs her.”
I had come to love Cara, with her quick mind and her irritated kindness. Lightbringer would love her too.
“If you gamble with the girl’s family, you will lose her,” Shadowbane warned.
“I will not. I promised her.”
“She doesn’t trust your promises. You tricked her and deceived her.”
There was little argument against that. “I know, but I want her to trust me. I want to make her happy, Bane.”
That was the worst confession. Worse than the trickery and the deceit, because it was making me weak when I needed most to be strong.
We were so close to the opportunity to remake the world.
I was beginning to better understand Ander, to even empathize with the asshole, and that was unbearable.
“I can’t hold onto the knife. I have to get it out of Cara’s reach. ”
She was impulsive when it came to protecting others. She had stepped in front of that wyrm’s snapping jaws without a thought for her own life. I feared she would save Tay at unimaginable cost if she thought I wouldn’t act quickly enough.
“Are you saying she isn’t trustworthy?” Shadowbane asked. “Or finally admitting that you aren’t, thanks to her?”
“You are a very tiresome voice in my head.”
“You are a very tiresome series of choices to watch.”
Perhaps the solution arrived so neatly because Ander was already on my mind. It even made sense that Ander would want to be the one to hold the knife, and it was less likely the queen would ever discover that I was the one who had stolen it if it was with my least-favorite shifter.
I wrapped the knife and carried it to the door before I could think better of it, though Shadowbane groused at me the entire way.
Clan Amber was packing up to leave, though we still had tomorrow’s Hunt before they were free. I paused at the arched doorway, watching the bustle of packs and weapons being prepared. For most shifters, this had become their home, but they were all eager to escape.
It seemed as if dread was everywhere in the air at the end of these Trials.
“I’d speak to your clan leader,” I told the first Clan Amber shifter who looked up from the chest they’d just set on the ground. His eyes widened with unnecessary fear before he managed to feign Clan Amber’s characteristic disinterest.
He went to fetch Ander, and Ander, predictably, ordered me to be escorted back into his territory. He would leave me standing while he sat behind his desk if he could. He was tiresomely predictable.
“I’m surprised it takes you any time at all to pack up,” I told him when I walked into his room.
There was a fire blazing in the fireplace, clearly fed by correspondence; there were a few white corners rising from ashes.
I couldn’t imagine Ander’s correspondence being very interesting, but I could not resist my recreational curiosity.
“Let’s not pretend to be friendly.” He strapped his extra swords to his pack; the sword rack was empty. “What do you want?”
“I want you to hold this.” I tossed the bundled blade onto his desk.
The clink of metal within was still audible through the fabric, and he froze. I still had a childish enjoyment in surprising him.
“What is this?” He moved toward it and nudged the fabric aside before giving me a skeptical look.
“You wanted me to consult you before I used the knife.”
“And I assumed you were going to be a tiresome prick about it.” He picked up the blade and pulled it out of the sheath an inch, examining the dark metal. “Why are you asking me to hold it?”
“No one will expect you stole it from Obsidian undetected. You are the safest clan with which to conceal the knife.”
As usual, he ignored the barb. His imperturbability was designed to annoy me; it was far worse than when he answered me back. “No, this isn’t about the queen.”
His gaze narrowed as he looked up. “You want to keep the knife from Cara. She had a purpose in retrieving the knife, and yet Tay is still standing at the queen’s side.”
“You know as well as I what would unravel if we took Tay from the queen while Cara was still trapped in the Trials.”
“Yes. But why are you asking me to hold this now?” He sheathed the knife again but did not lay it down, already possessive even though he would make me beg him for this favor.
I leaned one shoulder against the doorframe as if this were nothing. As if the air in the room hadn’t tightened. “Because I’m busy. And you’re not entirely useless.”
His eyes flicked up to mine. “Try again.”
Of course he would not let me have the lie.
I let the silence stretch just long enough to acknowledge it. Then I straightened, pushing off the frame. At least there would be some fun in surprising him even if I hated to acknowledge the truth. “She might use it too soon.”
“Too soon in your opinion. You’re taking the control from her. Keeping her from saving those she loves.” There was a bitter edge in his voice that complicated this transaction.
“I am asking you to take the control from me,” I said, and the words jolted him, just as I had intended. “We both know that for her sake, Tay has to linger a little longer at the queen’s side. But she cannot bear it, and I struggle to bear her…” I didn’t want to name it, but I did anyway. “Pain.”
Pain that I caused her for the sake of a cause.
Ander frowned as he studied me, and then certainty came over his face. He believed me well enough that his face relaxed into his natural state of condescension. “I never thought I would see the day that you loved someone well enough to question your devotion to your strategy.”
“You’ll do it?” I forged on. “You’ll hold the knife, and if I fall, you’ll make sure it is used to serve her family?”
“I would do that for her. And I will use it as I see fit.”
“I’m sure you will decide wisely.” The words stung my tongue. The things I would say to serve my cause.
He looked amused, as if he could read my displeasure. “Is it very miserable for you, Fear? Being in love?”
“It’s dreadful,” I told him, and a smile spread across his face. That confession really should have been all the cost I had to pay.