The crown has been Arkyn’s target this entire time. Since I first fell into his clutches, he’s been using me, scavenging resources, all with thegoal of usurping the big-hearted king who brought The Burn back to life after the ruthless rule of his pah.
Now Kaan’s here. Chained. His life threatened.
And it’s all my fault.
I rot amongst the realization, too ashamed to meet Kaan’s blazing gaze as Arkyn pierces a slice of bread and brings it close, flopping it beside my plate. “As the great prophet Geisé Líarth-atan once etched on a scroll I scavenged from his sealed tomb, ‘Before we can harvest our rewards, the world mustburn.’” He slaps the dragonscale dagger on the table, snatches the weald, flicks the lid, and hisses a scalding word.“Vaghth.”
I freeze.
My Other shifts, rising near the surface of my skin when a shred of flame rips from the weald and settles in Arkyn’s clawed hand.
“Only then can new liferise from the ashes.” He peers over the roil of fire, eyes all but burning a hole in Kaan’s face as he brings the flame so close to my cheek I can feel its hot hunger flicking at my skin, trying to taste me. “With Raeve at my side, bearing me strong heirs the likes Pah onlydreamtof.”
Kaan bucks and roars, savagery contorting his face while I sit with a stiff spine and bile surging up my throat. While I choke on my shock and putrid repugnance for what Arkyn has in mind, all while trying to prepare for the first melting stroke.
For him to dish me the same pain he once felt.
Arkyn snaps the lid back down on the weald, opens it, closes it again … strumming my already-roaring pulse. When he slaps the instrument on the table, it’s a teeth-gnashing effort not to flinch.
Bringing the roil of fire a little closer, Arkyn swallows, likely salivating over the thought of mutilating me to the tune of Kaan’s desperate, muffled screams. Leaving me confused when he clicks his tongue, then mutters a seething command and crushes his hand around the dying flame.
Little relief comes, his hand still smoking as he sweeps some of my loose hair back behind my ear. “Not yet,” he murmurs—too fucking close—his breath a hot shudder that batters the side of my face.
He peels away, snatches my cutlery, and begins hacking up my meal into bite-sized chunks, relieving me of just enough space to pull a breath. My gaze flicks between the weald and his hands while he shovels meat and gravy on a fork, then brings it to my lips.
My stomach knots with such revulsion I almost garnish the bite with a spray of spew.
“Open your mouth.” His command booms, drenched in a demoralizing tone. “I suspect it’s been daes since you last ate, and you’ll need your strength.”
He might as well be asking me to kneel.
My gaze lifts on instinct, finding Kaan’s. Falling into the too-vulnerable craving to seek shelter within the eyes of the male I love.
Though his features are rippling—like a beast is just beneath his skin, threatening to burst free—his gaze is a soft landing that reaches acrossthe table and gently lifts my chin. Such intentional tenderness despite his obvious pain, worry, and rage.
Arkyn grabs my jaw, jerks my face in his direction. Flattens his nose against mine and roars a single bludgeoning word.“EAT!”
“I’m not hungry!”
He stills. So does the air, like Clode just poised to listen. All the while, I silently chastise myself for being so fucking stupid. Forbiting.
The repercussions are instant.
With trembling, untethered ferocity, Arkyn pries my jaw open and pushes the fork past my lips, stuffing my mouth with the warm meat and stodgy sauce that dribbles down my chin. He drops the utensil, slams my head back against the headrest, clamps my teeth together, and pinches my nose—the point clear.
Choke the food down or suffocate.
Kaan jerks against his chains, roaring as I chew. Swallow. Gag it all back up, then force myself to swallow again.
Arkyn’s grotesque smile is saccharine.
“Your words have grown clearer since you left me,” he murmurs well after the mouthful is finally gone. Well after my breath is spent, my chest bucking for air. “I’d been told such things. Hearing it is something else.”
He releases me, uses a napkin to dab the gravy from my chin while I gulp breath so fast my head goes light and airy. While Kaan’s ember eyes cradle me from across the table, pulling me close despite the chasm between us.
Arkyn pushes up, tosses the napkin at Kaan’s face, and stalks to the table’s shadowed far end, his billowy cloak making the candle flames flicker and flare. Over a hundred tiny fires that dance for him. “I wonder,” he calls from the dark, “how good is yourreading?”
His tone needles.
