Page 67 of Blade of the Nightking

“Lady Levinica.” My pulse began to quicken. “We saw her in⁠—”

He sucked in a breath. “Did she touch you?”

“No.” The question took me aback. “We saw her in the library.”

Something in me braced for a reaction. Anything to suggest the mention of the library troubled him, that the devastation he’d wrought there weighed on him in some way. Some sign that he was ashamed of what he’d done—ashamed that I now knew about it.

But he only nodded again, his features smoothing back into place. “So?” he said calmly.

I stared at him in disbelief. Was he really going to make me drag this out of him?

“Aedric—” My voice shook. My chest constricted as the question rose inside me, swelling until it finally spilled over. “Did you kill him? Did you kill Levinica's son?”

He went utterly still, so completely motionless that for a moment it felt as though the world itself had paused around us. Something dark passed through his eyes, shadowing them in a way that made my stomach clench. The silence stretched, long and unbearable.

“No,” he said at last, so quietly I almost had to read the word from his lips.

I thought my knees would buckle. “No?”

“No.” This time he spoke firmly. The mask slipped, and for the briefest moment I saw it. Grief.

“What happened to him?”

His expression immediately closed off again, the brief flicker of emotion shuttered away. “It’s none of your concern.”

Before I could react, he turned away, dismissing me as though the conversation were already over. No. He wasn't walking away from this. I needed to know. I needed the truth.

My magic flared to life, rising too fast to contain as it pulled taut beneath my skin, stretched to the brink of snapping.

“Aedric—” I reached for him without thinking, my hand closing around his wrist⁠—

My magic slipped free.

I didn’t mean to. I never did. But it was too late.

Darkness crashed over me. The world dropped away, images flashing through my mind like pages in a book until they finally stopped on what I was looking for—what I needed to see.

The boy, screaming, blood spilling from the ragged edge where his ear had been, his hand reaching⁠—

“Stop!”

A distant pain struck, and the vision collapsed. Darkness tore away as I was hurled violently back into my body. Light returned in a blinding rush as I hit the sand, the impact driving the breath from my lungs. Heat flared across my cheek, my eyes watering at a sudden burn.

Aedric loomed over me, his chest rising and falling raggedly, fury burning in his eyes.

“How many times?” he demanded, low, dangerous, every word edged with restrained anger. “How many times have you been in my mind without me knowing?”

I’d never seen him like this, never felt this kind of anger directed at me, and for a moment I could only stare up at him, stricken.

“Aedric—” I managed weakly, pushing myself up slightly, wincing at the pain in my face. “I didn’t mean to…”

It was the truth. I hadn’t meant to invade his mind. My magic moved on its own, acting without my permission, without restraint, and he knew that. It wanted to dreamwalk—I couldn’t control it.

His stare roved over me before settling on my face. His expression fractured suddenly, something else breaking through beneath it. Shame.

He dropped into a crouch at once, reaching toward me with the hesitation of someone approaching a wounded animal. His fingers brushed lightly over my cheek, achingly gentle now, trembling with something that felt like regret. I tried not to flinch, but the contact stung.

“Elowen…” My name sounded raw on his tongue, pleading.