The thought carved through me.
I had to leave her. It was the only option. The Golden Warrior of Elohios rose within me, cold and measured, pressing logic against my rage, forcing strategy into the fire.
Still, I couldn’t leave her.
“They have to obey her,” I reminded him. My voice sounded foreign, scraped raw. She was the Dragon’s Heart. They had no choice—or so he said.
“She didn’t give them a clear command,” Ronan groaned. The sound dragged from his chest. “Gyrak is trying to keep Tsunami grounded. Storming eels, the others can hear it! They’ll come.”
“What is she saying?” My grip tightened on his tunic. I needed to know. Was she cursing me for being too late? Was she commanding the Velli king’s death? Gods, was she begging?
“She’s just–” He broke off and slammed his head back against the wall. The lantern flame flickered. “Justscreaming.”
The words gutted me.
Fury swelled, a tide clawing up my spine. They were hurting her. She was suffering because of me. And I was hiding in a stairwell.
Elohios, give me strength. Guide my path. Give me wisdom. Control.
We needed time. There had to be a way to get her away from the others. If I could get her alone, just for a moment, I would leap from a window if I had to. I would break my own body to get her to her dragons.
But we had no time. Her screams echoed through the minds of six dragons this side of the Craggs. They would tear the palace apart. The Velli would kill her for it.
“Go. Calm them as best you can.” I clapped his shoulder, feeling the tremor beneath my palm. I prayed he would make it out alive. He had magic at his fingertips, a better chance than me, but he didn’t know the Velli the way I did.
He staggered upright, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where are you going?”
“To find my wife.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Nienna
Egath pulled the blankets off my marred skin, tugging them to my hips. The linen rasped over torn flesh, catching on ridges that still throbbed. My feverish wounds drank in the cool air, each draft a thin ribbon of relief. He shifted on the mattress behind me, then bent close and blew against the small of my back.
A whimper slipped out before I could stop it. Gratitude tangled with fury, bitter as ash on my tongue. The minor mercies carved deeper than cruelty. Each kindness scraped raw against the truth that he was a monster. This was his fault. If he had never come to Radaan, I would not be here. I wouldn’t have felt a king’s hands claim and bruise and break.
“I will ask Tallon to send for a healer,” he murmured.
The words brushed my ear. I tasted them and swallowed them down. Numbness answered. My body lay slack against the sheets, bones heavy, limbs hollowed. Thoughts fractured and drifted like smoke. There was nothing left to barter with. I wassplintered wood and shattered spirit, a shell that remembered what it had been.
“Nienna, I know you.” His voice softened, coaxing, patient in a way that made my stomach knot. “You have fight in you yet.”
Cool hands slid along my arm, tracing gooseflesh in their wake. His palm crossed my shoulder, then stilled above the newest scab. The pads of his fingers grazed torn skin, circling the crusted ridge. Nerves sparked. Pain pulsed outward in bright waves.
“I was jealous of him, you know?” he said, low and thoughtful. “I was sent to see if he had the magic of our people. To test him. He was never going to marry you. Tallon wanted nothing to do with you or your dragons. He thought he would take the throne and trade with us because of his parentage.”
His thumb pressed, slow and deliberate. I bit the inside of my cheek.
“And he was a Fortune. A bleedingFortune. Of course he was. But a spiteful thing, bent on tearing down Kallias. And if that sent you away, so be it. Then he needed us. Needed Vellos to hold his reign. For all his schemes, he is ruled by appetite. That’s the Velli in him. Greed without a leash.”
The mattress dipped. His body braced over mine, heat hovering above my spine. His breath fanned my neck, warm and steady. “When Deimos realized what you were, he demanded a child. That was his price for his support. By the time he realized he needed you, Kallias had already claimed you. The king saw the same fire I did and took it for himself.” His lips brushed the scab. Teeth tested the dried blood, scraping at the crust. “Yet here you are.”
“Tallon will kill you.” I choked, voice raw. Fear felt distant, dulled by exhaustion. If Egath fed, he would be careful, maybe even gentle. He would savor rather than tear.
“Will you tell him?” His chest grazed my back, a measured weight that teased pain from tender flesh. “I’m the one who tends to you. I see to your needs.” His tongue swept over the wound, loosening a brittle edge.
The touch was smooth, nothing like Tallon’s rough hunger. It soothed instead of scorched.
