I pulled it away. “I’ve shown you more kindness than you deserve,” I said, then corked the waterskin and handed it back to the Harvester.
“Nienna,” she croaked, voice cracked, rolling her head toward me. “You can’t believe that. Please—of all people,youshould know!”
“Somehow I feel I know your parents better than I ever knew you.”
“I am their daughter!” She bit out the words as if they soured her tongue. “Do you think their love wouldn’t pass to me? I never wanted to hurt Mother—but what could I do? What would you have done?”
“Kill the man hurting my father?” I spat. “Maybe I would confront the bastard who cheated on me with my best friend, and make him answer for the crimes he committed against innocent children.” My sneer deepened. “I never would’ve let him near my mother in the first place.”
“Cheated on?” She barked a pain-filled laugh. “When you had eyes for his father? Don’t condemn me for acting on my feelings while you indulged yours! What makes you so much better than me? I loved someone I couldn’t have—just like you!”
“I never slept with him,” I choked, throat swelling with hate. My fingers itched with the urge to rip off her face. Baring my teeth, I rose.
“Wait!” She lurched, and Seliora’s dagger was ready in an instant, body poised to intervene.
Fyrn cast a desperate glance at her before licking her lips and shifting her feet beneath her. “Nienna, you have to listen. I loved him from the day I arrived at court. Father wanted me to find a husband, and I did—but he wasn’t mine, he was yours. I was content to be your friend, to be close to him through you. I never would’ve moved against you—you meant too much to me. But when Tallon found out… he—” Her voice strangled off. “He used me. And I was blind! So blind! I can never make up for what happened, never atone for what I’ve done. But don’t youdarethink I was willing!”
My teeth ground together. Nostrils flared. Part of me longed to see truth in her eyes, to know for certain. I couldn’t blame her heart for falling for someone—I did, too. I fell for a man Iwas never permitted to love. Still, anyone who saw an inkling of anything desirable in Tallon should be questioned.
Ronan glared at her, eyes narrowed, mouth pinched in a frown. When he caught my gaze, he shook his head. “There are lines I won’t cross without Father’s blessing,” he said. “I wouldn’t step inside that head—even to locate Tallon.”
Curse my brother and his rider principles.
“They’re myparents, Nienna!” Fyrn cried. “He made me watch! I let him into my home, and he made me watch as those monsters tore Mother and bit Father like wild animals. We’re told they survive off us—but they don’t need our blood. They do it for gluttonous greed. They get sick off their power, all to show off. You cannot think for a moment that I would wish that on anyone!”
“Then why did your king bind you?” Kallias would not have restrained her if he suspected she was innocent. He was a warrior, but he wasn’t cruel.
“She falsified a Velli mark.” Seliora shoved Fyrn aside, rolling up her sleeve to reveal two half-circles. “A true bite is dotted with teeth. She cut herself.”
“You thought to trick a king who spent twenty years fighting these monsters?” I scoffed. How foolish could she be?
“I thought to save myself from being some Velli’s escape plan!” She lashed out, struggling against Seliora. “I thought if they believed Tallon had bitten me, it would mark his claim and protect me from the others!”
Doubt crept through me, inching its way into my heart. I wanted to believe her—but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t release her. Not without Kallias.
“It didn’t spare your father,” I said, tone flat.
She slumped in defeat. “No. It didn’t.”
She curled in on herself. Her body trembled with her sobs. It was horrible to watch. The woman I once considered a friendwrithed on the floor, hiding from me, knowing I might be her end.
“When your parents wake, they can verify your story,” I dismissed her, turning to face the Harvester. “For now, Seliora, tend to her wounds. If she goes to trial, Radaan will see that we care for our prisoners.”
Ronan grunted his disapproval, but I disapproved of his reluctance to probe my potential enemy’s mind.
We all had our lines.
Chapter Forty-Two
Kallias
Ronan stayed with me that night. I curled back to back with him, as I had countless times in childhood, though now his dragon soared somewhere above, cutting through the star-drenched sky, not tucked around us, shielding Draconis children from the harsh realities of war.
With his steady presence, I drifted in and out of a fitful sleep—too heavy with exhaustion to stay awake—but incapable of true rest with my mind tethered to Kallias, knowing he was out there somewhere, fighting while I lay here.
I bolted upright in the middle of the night, a sudden jolt tearing me from dreams into a waking vision of Velli piling on my husband, shark teeth sinking into his flesh. The sight drifted across my vision like smoke, and my brother’s hands caught me.
“Easy, sister.” His grip on my shoulders anchored me, easing the tremor in my chest as frantic breaths heaved and rattled. “His light shines in the night. Gyrak is keeping the dragons away, tracking his progress.”
