Tears spilled from my eyes as I pushed. Noam was so close. I could see him, see his weakened body and sallow face. Nohr, too. I glanced between them, resolve forming in my bones as we finally came to a stop.
Rowena’s hatred for Orin was already my own, but I needed him. I needed him in a way she could never have understood, because there’d been no one he’d used as collateral. She’d had no family to protect. I looked at Vora, tears lining my eyes, and her own gaze was thick with sadness.
“Thank you.” I squeezed her arm once and then took off, heading back into the wreckage where Orin and Rorik still raged. Orin had thrown Rorik into a tree, and the splintering crack reverberated over the lawns. His chest heaved as he glared at his brother, and I took that moment to come to his side.
“Orin, I can fix this. Fix all of it,” I begged. Rage and fear mingled in his eyes as I placed my hands on his chest. I couldn’t give up on the small hope that he would still let me cure my brothers.He could have my power, do whatever he wanted, so long as they were safe. “Please. We can do the ceremony now. Call me your heartbond, grant me your power, and—”
“You can’t seriously still want that,” Rorik hissed, and I turned to see him staring daggers at me.
“Do not talk to my heartbond that way,” Orin seethed. His hand found mine and gripped it tight. “You will rot. I might not be able to kill you, but I will never heal you—and neither will she. And I’ll celebrate the day blight finally rids us of your stain.”
The rest of the family waited on the fringes of Orin and Rorik’s war. Even Seville had returned, her body racked with anguish but her gaze full of malice. Not one of them seemed surprised that it’d come to this. They only watched and waited. The attendants had long since fled. The glamour had protected them from the affliction, but now? In a land riddled with disease? One cut and they’d be gone, and it was obvious Orin didn’t care.
The only one who remained was Vora. She’d risked her life to save my brothers. She hadn’t even thought twice when I asked for her help. But why? Her gaze was pinned on Rorik, and she clasped her hands tight before her as fear gathered in her eyes.
I’ve worked for my lord for years.
Every interaction I had with her blended together and spread out before my eyes. All the times she’d gently warned me without going against Orin’s commands. Her hesitation surrounding my decision to become his heartbond. The way she said “my lord” with reverence but spat Orin’s name with vehemence. The way she kept me sleeping to keep him at bay, to keep him from pushing in when my body, my mind, needed rest.
Rorik. He was the reason she worked at Fernglove. She’d been tasked to watch over me at his behest, not Orin’s.
“Don’t let Rorik get under your skin.” Orin’s hold on me tightened. “The deal was Mavis for them, and look.” He gestured to where Vora sat with my brothers by her side, as if he’d been theone to orchestrate their safe escape from the manor. “They’re still safe. I could’ve let them die the moment she did.”
I marveled at his nonanswer, draped in a threat, when he could’ve set everything right with just a simple phrase.
“Tell me, were you ever going to let me cure them?” All the pent-up rage fractured through me and seeped into my words. “Or were you going to command me to mend only those you deemed fit?”
“You think I’m the bad one here?” He rounded on Rorik with venom in his glare. “You trust him?”
Rorik stilled.
“Trust?” It was my turn to laugh. It was strange and maniacal and on the verge of breaking, but I couldn’t stop it. “I don’t trust any of you. How can I? At least Rorik didn’t lie to me.”
Orin’s answering smile was ice straight to the veins. “Ask him about your brothers. Ask him how he knew about everything. Ask. Don’t worry. He’ll respond. The evervow commands he follow my will.”
“Edira.” My name on his lips was a breathy plea. “Don’t.”
The world began to shift beneath my feet. “What does he mean, Rorik?”
“I’ll tell you what I mean.” Orin released me and strode forward to grab Rorik by the neck. Slowly, Orin lifted him, so Rorik’s toes just barely skated over the grass. “His affinity for insects. His control over them. It really is handy, because no one gives a damn about them.” Orin’s grip tightened, and Rorik wheezed. “Funny how one golden beetle can keep tabs on everything. The best part, though? Insects aren’t bothered by blight. The spores can cling to their legs and transfer with ease to other people. Like Noam and Nohr.”
My heart hammered in my throat. Sounds faded in a howl of nothingness. Noam. Nohr. Tears flooded my eyes as I stared at Rorik. He never once brought his hands up to try to wrench freeof Orin’s hold. Instead, he only looked at me. He couldn’t speak, but it didn’t matter. His empty eyes told me everything I needed to know.
Everything had been planned from the start.
“Why?” I barely found my voice. “They didn’t do anything to you.”
“You wouldn’t have come otherwise,” Orin said with a shrug. “Mavis was on her way out. The rest of us aren’t far behind. We needed a cure.”
I get what I want.
“You planned this from the beginning,” I said in a whisper. Tears spilled over as I looked at Orin. “I thought...”
“You thought wrong.”
I’d thought I’d known anger and heartache before. The moment I’d read Rowena’s warning, I’d been consumed with a heated ire that threatened to spill over at every moment. But this.This.A numbness took hold of my limbs as an endless roaring churned in my ears. My heart slammed against my rib cage like a beating war drum, and my ratcheting breath carried the acrid taste of bile. Time slowed. My vision blurred as tears threatened to take over, and then every breath, every sound, every thought, sharpened on Orin.
This was fury. And I wanted to see him, all of them, burn.
