“Why?” Tezya challenged. His chest was puffed, and he looked ready to set the entire camp on fire.
“You’re too important to risk.”
He fumed. “It’s my fucking life, Drave. I get to decide when to risk it—”
“No, you don’t. Because if you die trying to rescue her—which is nearly impossible with a group of people, nonetheless, you alone—it’ll ruin everything we’ve been doing here. This war is bigger than one girl. You are bigger than one girl. We need you. You have a camp full of people that you brought here in the hopes of one day leading into battle, and now the time has come to do just that, and you want to throw it all away foroneperson? If we believe this prophecy,youare the only one who can stop the King, so like it or not, you’re needed alive more than her.”
Tezya closed and opened his fist, staring at his scar. I could tell he was weighing everything over, trying to decide between duty and what he actually wanted to do.Welcome to my world, I wanted to say to him. That same duty was what caused me to lose Scotlind in the first place.
“We’ll figure out a way to get her back. We need to plan an attack on Lux soon. We’ll work her rescue into it,” Dovelyn said.
“That’s bullshit,” Tezya spat. “We both know we can’t attack Lux until I figure out how to harness Pylemo’s fire, and who fucking knows how long that’ll take. I’m not waiting—”
Dravenburg cut him off. “We can agree to evacuate and move everyone first,” he said. “We can’t stay here, and Brighta is our top priority at the moment.”
Tezya met my gaze for a moment with a pleading look, but I knew what he wanted was futile. The King wouldn’t let Scottie leave his side now that he had her again. Rescuing her would be damn near impossible.
Tezya foundme after the meeting.
“Sie,” he yelled my name as spit flew out of his mouth. “I want a word,alone.”
Peter halted by my side, ready for anything. We were halfway back to our tent, and surprisingly, no one else was around us. “It’s okay,” I told Peter. “I’ll meet up with you later.”
He looked between Tezya and me before finally shrugging and walking off. I turned to face the prince, knowing this interaction was inevitable the moment I compelled him.
But what surprised the hell out of me was that his enraged, feral expression turned to anguish. “Please,” he begged. “Please, remove the compulsion.”
I shook my head. “You heard Dravenburg in there. I can’t—”
“Fuck that,” he spat as he ran his fingers through his white locks. The motion of it reminded me so much of…me. “Do you know what it’s like to want to save her, but you physically can’t?” He took a step closer to me, closing the distance between us until we were nose to nose. “With every fucking fiber of my being, I want to walk out of this camp and go to her.I don’t give two fucking shits if no one will help me or if that means I’d have to walk on foot across the whole damn continent and swim across the ocean to get to her, I’d fucking do it. But I can’t.” He ran his fingers through his hair again, then exhaled. “He has her because of me.” He started pacing. “It was my decision to go to Lux. I agreed to her being a distraction. I agreed to split up. I should have done more. I should have—”
“You aren’t solely to blame, Tezya. You aren’t the reason she’s captured right now.” I don’t know why I decided to remind him of that because I didn’t have a death wish, but the guilt was eating away at me, and it was strange to see him falling apart.Trust me.I was supposed to protect her. Tezya even went as far to meet with me before we left and threatened my life if I failed to put her first. He warned me Dovelyn wouldn’t and with him being across the city, he couldn’t be the one to do it. I was supposed to, and I failed again. I let her walk right into Athler’s arms. I let her go.
Trust me.
“Then help me, please,” he begged as he turned toward me. I’d never seen him look so distraught before. The Fire Prince never begged. I shook my head, hating myself for it, but Dravenburg was right. We needed him. Tezya had to understand that too.
“Please… you don’t know the King. He’s a ruthless and cruel ruler, but that is nothing—nothing—compared to how he is behind closed doors. He’s a sadist, and he’s going to break her, Sie. He’s going to fucking savor in it too. Please, just help me, if not for me, then for her. Just let me save her before it’s too late.”
“Tezya, I can’t…”
“You don’t have to take any part in it,” he half screamed, frustration written all over him. “I’ll go alone. JUST. BREAK. THE. COMPULSION.”
“I will help you, Tezya, but not like this. Not when your rageis going to get you killed first.”
“Then when? When will you help me? Because the more time that passes, the longer he’s fucking torturing her. She’s going to die.”
“Your sister made it pretty clear before we went to Lux that the King wanted her alive. He wants her powers.”
“There are worse things he can do to her than kill her.” He started pacing again. His face was stone cold like he lived through it and seeing the jagged cut across his face, I started to wonder if I was wrong about him. I assumed his scars were a result of being in the army, but the way he spoke about the King with such emotion, such hatred… It made me wonder if I got the better end of the stick being raised by my—our—father.
“The compulsion I put on you doesn’t stop you from saving her.”
Tezya stopped in his tracks and halted his pacing to face me. “What do you mean? I’ve tried numerous times to leave the camp, but every time I get close to the shield, it fucking stops me. It’s like a barrier forms out of nothing that prevents me from passing. I physically can’t leave.”
“The compulsion I put on you doesn’t prevent you from saving her. It just prevents you from saving her alone without a solid plan, like you want to do right now, which is only going to get you killed.”
I stumbled backward, landing flat on my ass. My mouth throbbed, and my teeth ached from where he just threw a punch. Tezya was panting over me, not bothering to hold back his rage. I pulled myself up until I was resting on my elbows.
