I sit up straighter, subtly testing the strength of my chains.
“Well, I hope it was good for you. That it was worth it.”
“You don't have any right to be jealous.”
“I'm not jealous.”
“I thought you weredead.”
He rolls the tension from his neck and shoulders before turning toward me once more. “If only, right?”
I run my fingers over the chains, gaging their thickness, wondering if I could manipulate what remains of the campfire's energy into a spell strong enough to melt my way to freedom.
But then what?
Even if I escape, I can't outrun these revelations.
“This isn't about me,” he says, slowly making his way back to me, still clutching his knife. “Or us. Or jealousy. Even if I was dead and buried, even if there was never anything of any consequence between you and me, he's still the godsdamnKing of Mouren, Owyn. Did you forget that, somehow? Did you forget what he did to our world? How could you willingly lie with such a disgusting creature?”
“You don't understand. It's more complicated than we realized, it’s?—”
“Complicated.” He crouches down in front of me, a savage little smile playing at the corners of his lips. “Do you want to know more about the complications I've endured since that last night we had together? What I went through while being held prisoner?”
“Reave didn't do any of that to you.”
“No. But Meira was able to rise to power because of the chaos Mouren's rule sowed across our empire. Because Dralsk was left in ruins, its royal family ripped apart by the dragons and magic that corrupted realm wielded.”
“He's not responsible for what his ancestors did!”
“Well,someonehas to be held responsible.”
“And you'll start a war over that?”
“That, and the fact that I know he's not as innocent as he's led you to believe. Even if we set the crimes of his bloodline aside, there's also the way he's personally taken you in and clearly corrupted you—oh, and the small matter of himmurderingmy brother.”
My breathing turns shallow at this confirmation of another terrible theory. “Gareth really was your sibling, then.”
“A bastard half-sibling, but yes. The only family member I had left. One who was willing to do anything to see me restored to the throne that was rightfully mine.”
I try to pick through the wreckage of my thoughts, trying to remember everything I knew about that man, and I land on something Reave told me—how Gareth was allegedly ableto sense the ebbs and flows of divine power in the world. “Was he truly a Flameseer?”
Mal regards me silently for a moment, as if deciding whether he owes me any more information.
My expectant glare eventually convinces him.
“That's how I ended up in Halvgate to begin with. Because he sensed something about you, even before your dragon was fully born and bonded with you.”
The knowledge sinks like a blade into my heart.
It wasn't fate that brought us together. He didn't stay in my city because he fell in love with me, as he once swore. It was a calculated move made by two desperate, exiled royals. They hunted me. They knew what I was. What I would become. And Malachi branded me before I even became it, while I was still too weak, too stubborn and foolish and naïve to realize what was happening.
“He was furious about the attack on Halvgate, and everything that came after,” Malachi continues. “When he finally managed to free me from the depths of Meira's dungeons, he wanted to abandon our dealings with you altogether. He was convinced he'd gotten things wrong—that you would never be useful to us and our plans. Because you certainly took your time embracing your divine bond, didn't you?”
I avert my gaze, staring at the brand he left on my wrist. At the Ashwalker symbol I carved on the opposite arm. These two marks that I clung to while I was so determined to survive, trudging along every dangerous path I came across…except any path that would bring me toward my dragon. Toward my true, frightening, complicated power that I didn’t want to face.
“I convinced him to continue trying to bring you and your dragon together,” Mal says. “And then, when you finallystarted to bond with Gareth's guidance, the fucking depraved King of Mouren decided to ruin our plans.”
“Your brother was a spy,” I say quietly. “He had to be stopped.”
