Chapter 52
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Knox
The gray sky was lightening as I stood before the windows overlooking the cliffs in the dining room. Behind me, the decadent breakfast Merribell had created filled the table. My stomach grumbled at the scent of it, but I didn’t take my seat.
Footsteps sounded in the hall before Dromon and Pierce entered the room. Their chairs scraped the floor when they pulled them out and took their seats. A minute later, Lyra followed them.
“How did it go?” Lyra asked.
“Not as I’d anticipated,” I told them.
“She didn’t spill her secrets?” Dromon asked as he heaped eggs onto his plate.
I turned away from the window as Bertie flew into the room.
“I’m not sure she has any secrets to spill,” I admitted.
Bertie stopped in midflight, and the others halted what they were doing to look at me.
“What does that mean?” Pierce asked around a mouthful of sausage.
I spent most of last night asking myself that question. “Briar never changed her story. She still claims to know nothing about the curse and swears she never told her mother anything about me.”
Lyra set down her fork and knife as she leaned back in her chair. “And you believe her?”
That was the other question that kept me up all night. Do I believe her?
I still didn’t have an answer for that, but… “There’s more.”
“What’s that?” Dromon asked.
“She got through her Needing without any release. She asked me to unchain her, and after a while, I did. She lay on the floor, unmoving, determined not to be like her kind.”
“What?” Lyra gasped.
“She withstood the drive of her Needing.”
“She didn’t fuck anything?” Pierce demanded. “She didn’t find any release.”
“No, and I unchained her for most of it.”
“Is that possible?”
“If you’d asked me that yesterday morning, I wouldn’t have hesitated to say no, but now, I know it is possible.”
They stared at me in disbelief before anger settled over their features. Lyra lifted her knife and held it like a weapon on the table. “You mean to tell me those fuckers can control themselves and choose not to?”
“They might not know they can control themselves,” Bertie said. “This is the way it’s always been for them.”
“Or maybe they know and never tried!” Pierce spat.
“Until now,” I said.
“If she can withstand the call of her Needing, then she could withstand what you planned for her and lie,” Lyra said.
“I’ve considered that.”
“If she can withstand the call, then she’s not like them,” Bertie insisted. “She fell in love with Knox when she was a child; she didn’t grow up the same way as the others of her kind… including the day casters. She knew there was something more… someone more for her out there.”
“She didn’t fall in love with me when she was a child,” I told her.
“You were both children when you met and became friends. You loved her then.”
“I didn’t recognize it at the time, I was too young, but I believe my draw to her was because she was my mate.”
“Probably,” Bertie agreed. “But in the beginning, you loved her in the way that children can love others… sweetly, innocently, perfectly. And I’m sure, because her heart was still so innocent and pure, she loved you in the same way.
“Love is the most powerful force in the universe. It can destroy lives or complete them. It can be your greatest strength and biggest downfall, and it will compel you to do things you never thought possible. She loved you then, and she loves you now. I don’t think her mother would have told her anything; Marina sees her as weak. ”
“And why is that?” I asked.
“Marina’s a woman who sees love as the greatest weakness of all; she won’t see the power in it. She thinks Briar is a disgrace because of you and what she considers her daughter’s downfall. What she doesn’t realize is that her daughter is far stronger than she’ll ever be.”
“So, you think because Briar fell in love with Knox as a child, she was able to withstand the call of her Needing?” Dromon asked.
“Briar knows what her kind does isn’t right. Whereas the other casters see the harem as their way of being, she sees it as wrong.”
Bertie might be on to something with that, but… “That doesn’t explain how her mother knew our plans to run away,” I bit out through my teeth.
“Marina is one of the most powerful sorceresses to exist. Did you ever stop to think maybe she used some of her magic to find out what her daughter was doing? She must have, at some point, realized Briar was sneaking off. Yes, Briar must have made a mistake for this to happen, but I don’t think it was intentional.
For all we know, Marina might have put a spell on her, and Briar was the one who told her mother.
Marina might have ensured she doesn’t remember it. ”
I stared at Bertie as I processed her words. Something like that had never occurred to me. Is that because I want to believe the worst in Briar?
No, that wasn’t true. At first, I refused to consider it, but as time passed and Marina whispered more to me, I began to believe her. It was easy to become warped and twisted in that place.
And I was definitely warped and twisted.
“Look at what she did to this kingdom,” Bertie continued. “Look at the power that woman possesses.”
“But it took all the night casters to create this curse,” Lyra said. “Marina couldn’t do it alone.”
“True,” Bertie agreed. “But there’s nothing she won’t do to punish everyone she deems worthy of it.”
“No one else in this kingdom had anything to do with me and Briar,” I said.
“Do you think that matters to Marina?”
“Not at all,” Dromon muttered.
“Do you think Briar’s telling the truth?” Lyra asked. “About the curse and Knox.”
“I do,” Bertie said.
“If she is, then we have no hope of breaking this curse,” Pierce said.
“We’ll find a way,” I vowed.
Maybe Briar wasn’t the key to undoing this as I’d hoped, but I would free my kingdom, even if it meant destroying Nightshade to do so.
“What about Briar?” Dromon asked.
His question snapped me out of my ruminations. “What do you mean?”
“If she didn’t choose a night or day caster side, and she isn’t going to bind herself to one of their gods, what will she become? Is she still a caster? Is she something else? Or is she something more?”
I didn’t have the answer to those first two questions, but something inside me whispered, More. She’s something more.
But what exactly was she turning into… or had she already become it?