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“Yes.” I don’t know what he’s getting at.
“Don’t let their deaths haunt you. You did what you had to do. And if they were bloodpuppets, they were already too far gone for any help.”
“I killed only one.” It’s true that I can still see his accusatory stare. “I should have killed the other faster, but?—”
“You can never know what magic is controlling them.” Marlak’s looking away, thoughtful. “I can’t imagine who would have sent them. And to attack you?” He closes his eyes, as if in pain.
“What exactly are bloodpuppets? I’ve heard the term, but never studied it.”
Marlak taps his fingers on the table, a crease forming in his forehead. “A type of dark magic that hasn’t been seen in over a century. Their life force is sucked, and then they become instruments serving a powerful magic wielder.”
“How come they aren’t common?”
“The magic’s too difficult, I assume.” He looks up, takes a deep breath, and shakes his head. “I still can’t imagine who would create them, send them. It’s so strange.”
“Your brother?”
“No. Not Renel, no.” He sounds certain, and I wonder if he’s defending his brother. “Someone else in the Crystal Court… They’d need to be too powerful. Someone in another court? Why?” He rubs his eyes, then looks at me. “The only right thing Nelsin did was identify them quickly for what they were, but he should be the one fighting, protecting you, never the other way around. I’m truly sorry for my poor judgment, for placing my trust in the wrong person.”
“He couldn’t have known we’d be attacked.”
“He shouldn’t have taken you off the island on his own!” His voice is higher pitched than usual, then goes back to normal. “At least if it had been him and Ferer, it wouldn’t have been as bad. Even then.” He clenches his fists over the table and stares at me with those deep, black eyes. “You could have died, Astra.”
And yet I look back and all I remember is that light. It’s as if I shut my eyes and refused to stare at death right in front of me. “I’m glad you came.”
His chuckle is bitter and wrong. “So am I.”
A warm feeling settles in my stomach. He cares, a strange voice tells me. He cares about you. As if the fact that he doesn’t want me to die was something to be giddy about. As if I never imagined things to mean more than they do.
He continues, “And you should be safe here. How can I even do anything if I can’t trust my knights to keep you safe? And what foolishness was that about testing you? I never asked anyone to test you.”
“You trust me that much?”
“I do not trust you at all, wife. I know that if you have the chance, you’ll turn around and tell all my secrets to your king, who in turn will sell them to my brother. There’s nothing to test you about. We both know who we are and where we stand.” He runs a finger through his black curls, as if to remind me of what I cannot touch.
Nelsin comes to my mind then, believing he was living the last moments of his life, pleading for me to run. He would be someone who would trust me.
“Nelsin almost died. He was willing to stay behind.”
Marlak fists the table and my plate shakes. “How would that help? Just try to think how many things could have gone wrong if you had run.”
“We survived.”
He huffs. “I know what you want. You want me to forgive him, right?”
Indeed. That’s true. “Yes. People learn from their mistakes, and become better.”
“People who disobey once might disobey twice. I’m fair, but when trust is lost, it’s lost. There’s no gaining it back.”
“I trust him.”
Marlak leans forward on the table. “Astra, the day you become my wife in earnest, you might tell me what to do. Right now, I don’t care about your opinion.”
The day… what? Become his wife in earnest? My mouth hangs open, and I’m almost stunned into silence, except that I need to ask a question. “Since when is that an option?”
He blinks, confused. “What option?”
Is he pretending or testing me? I don’t want to repeat his words, but I’ll have to. “Becoming your wife in earnest. Since when is that an option?”
