Sesca lifts her head, and he finally does too. The two of them regard each other for a thoughtful moment before he sighs and says, “But I’d like to think it’s only a temporary worsening. Like drawing poison out so you can treat the wound underneath. I…I’ve been told a divine dragon might be the only way to fully break this curse.”
My chest tightens. “Is that why you really brought us here?”
He doesn’t reply. The silence is answer enough—all the proof I need to tell me that I’ve gotten almost everything about this man and his motivations all wrong.
It was never about making a weapon out of me.
He wanted to make ahealerout of me.
But, at least in this moment, that role seems just as daunting as being the king’s blade. Maybe evenmoredaunting.
“Gareth used me,” he eventually continues, when I can’t find any words myself. “He convinced me that a divine dragon and their bonded one might be able to break this curse, and that he could find you if I made him a commander in my army—if I gave him the resources to track down your dragon and lure you in. But he was just using me so he could get to you. So he could be certain of your existence, of your bond, of your potential power. Power that he wanted to takeback to Dralsk, ultimately, once he’d gotten a secure enough grip on it.”
He preyed upon Reave’s desperation.
The revelation makes me so furious that I suddenly wish it had beenmewho put those arrows in Gareth’s neck.
I'm also furious at the man on his knees before me—because there's so,somuch more he could have shared with me before now—but it's a different kind of fury. The kind that begins to feel more like grief the longer I look at him, and the closer I study his bright but tired eyes; his strong shoulders bent from the weight of all he's carrying; his regal appearance marred by muddy water and…something that looks suspiciously like blood along his right side, where his coat and shirt are in tatters.
“You're injured,” I realize.
“Who fucking cares,” he growls, staggering to his feet.
“I do,” I say, before I can catch myself.
“You shouldn't.” He shakes his head as he walks away from me, bracing a hand against one of the few trees still standing in the wreckage around us. “I didn't want to bring you here. I didn't want to tangle you up in my battles, or in the politics and escalating tensions between my kingdom and others. Tensions that I knew would only get worse if you and I got closer. A Mouren king laying any sort of claim to a Flamebound? And the first Flamebound in what seems like an eternity, at that? I knew it was going to cause problems. But I just wanted…”
“To save him.”
He swallows hard. “Yes.”
I take a deep breath. “Why would you not tell me this sooner, if you wanted my help?”
Another cold, bitter laugh tumbles out of him. “Becausewhat if you refused? What if you took this information about our curse and used it against us? Mouren is on precarious ground these days, if you haven't noticed. And I'm supposed to be the keeper of this whole godsdamned kingdom, too. Not just my brother.”
“You didn't trust me.”
“No. And I'm still not sure I do. How could I?”
I can hardly argue with him about this, because it's not as though I truly trust him, either. I came to his palace to find whatever weakness I could exploit in order to tear him down. Hell, I spent most of today looking for incriminating evidence, trying to unravel him and his kingdom's power. But this…
This was not how I expected things to unravel.
Anger and sorrow and uncertainty churn through me in equal measure. I'm still trying to separate them, to find a way to speak coherently through the mess, when Sesca suddenly leaps to her feet, her entire body bristling with alarm.
A shrill, piercing cry rises in the distance, drawing our eyes upward.
Arlo is back, his dragon form careening wildly over the treetops. I can't fully make it out through the thick tangle of branches and rain and dark, but I can see—and hear—well enough to know when he plunges to the ground and doesn’t come up again.
A strange cold rushes through the air, raising the hair on my arms and the back of my neck. It feels vaguely like magic, like the feeling I get whenever Sesca gathers and forges elemental power, but something about it is…wrong.
Another high-pitched roar rattles the forest, and the magic sensation dissipates so quickly it unbalances me.
Reave stumbles away from the tree and races in the direction of the roar.
“Wait!”
He ignores me, already disappearing into the dark.
