Dae never could resist a good dressing-down. “That monster is free again, Elianne. Set loose on Fjordlandi. All because you couldn’t control your anger for a few blazing minutes.”
She only meant to curl her fingers toward her palm, but even that small movement sent her muscles into spasms, and the digits contracted, went so tight she had to bite back a groan and wonder if they’d ever loosen again. “He. Took. My. Son.” Every word felt like it had to be pulled from her mouth with pliers.
Dae jerked to standing, though he didn’t tower over her, just strode toward the others gathered at the back of her chamber. Those familiar faces of her family, all set in grim lines that she could just make out through the blur of her vision. Then a face she’d never have expected to see down here. How had Perla even made her way into the mountain? Not through the mouth of Helviti, obviously.
Lava tubes. Probably the one where the ice wall had been, through which Isidor had always come. They were cool enough, especially since Dae could have pulled any streams of magma away to give her safe passage.
“He took you from your son. Twenty-six years ago.” Dae’s words came as a growl, right before he spun back to face her, condemnation in his gaze. “No one is saying Isidor isn’t a monster. He sold his own daughter into the hands of the Ellesian king. But he is not responsible for Nik’s leaving this time. The agreement Isidor made was forKyrja. We all know if Nik is gone too, it’s because he insisted on going with her. Stefanos may be his own kind of monster, but he wouldn’t start a war by taking Nik against his will.”
Her gaze fell to the ground. She’d already known, of course, that Nik would choose Kyrja over her. That had been the whole point of her decision. Even so, it sliced to hear he’d done it.
Even so, it was Isidor’s fault, all of it. “But—”
“Stefanos was right to refuse you.” Now he barked the words, not quite a shout but far louder than before, slashing a hand through the air. “If you cannot control the flames within you, how do you ever expect to control the ones without? You are weak, Elianne, weak by choice, a liability.”
“Daemon. Stop.”
It wasn’t Logi or Ember who chastised him, nor Eldrid. Of course not—he was their leader. It was Perla who stepped away from the wall, hands on her brown-leather-clad hips. “You’re not helping.”
He spun on her, and the room warmed. “Stay out of this, Princess.”
Perla lifted her chin. “And let you bully a grieving mother while she’s still in pain from a shock that could have stopped her heart? I think not.”
“I am not bullying—”
“What else do you call it? Leading?” The princess scoffed. “A leader who has to resort to insults and derision is no leader.”
“Stating the facts, making someone own up to them, is neither insult nor derision. And how I lead my family is none of your business.”
Elianne blinked, wishing the blazing clouds would leave her eyes so she could better see the expression on Perla’s face as she went toe to toe with him.
“You think facts alone are enough to build someone up? Then here are some for you.” Perla lifted a hand and poked a finger into his shoulder. “When my mother was Awakened, new magic surging, my father and all the people recognized at once what she was—a queen. A queen in her own right, not because of the magic in her veins but because of the heart that would sacrifice anything to help others. But you? You’ve had a century and a half to learn who you are, and you still aren’t worthy to do anything but bend the knee to one more deserving to lead Fjordlandi. It’sElianne’s son who will stand beside Kyrja and usher your people into the future, not you, because you can’t look at people and see potential, Daemon. You still look at them and see where they’re weak.”
“I see the cracks that need strengthened.”
“You see your own weaknesses, reflected in them.” This time the poke was more shove. “You’re still just a hurt little boy, upset because no one has ever chosen you.”
Flames leapt. Wind and water fought them back. Eldrid and Logi chuckled, of all things, and edged Ember out into the corridor that connected Elianne’s room to the shared living space.
Elianne almost wished she could stand up and go with them. Almost. “Stop it, both of you.”
Dae didn’t even glance over his shoulder at her. “You think you can fly into Fjordlandi and tell us what we need? Who we are? You think you understand me just because I was made like your mother was? That it gives you some great insight?”
“I think while you’ve been hiding under this mountain forging your little family into a group of resentful slaves focused only on deposing one tyrant, I’ve been learning how the world works and where I fit in it. Geysers, Daemon! You’ve had centuries, decades at the least with these people, and you never even told them about your Awakening! They didn’t know they were your family. What have you talked about all this time?” She gestured broadly, and water sizzled as it turned to steam somewhere in the room.
“You don’t know me—”
“Who cares if I don’t know you?Theydon’t know you!” Perla motioned toward the door, empty now. “Shedoesn’t know you, even though you clearly think she’s your only shot of ever finding someone who could learn to love you.”
Elianne focused on relaxing her fingers from the claws they were still locked into. That pain was easier than the other. Thanthinking too hard about what Dae wanted from her, what she could never give him. Of wondering why he wanted it, when she could never do anything right in his eyes.
And he wasn’t wrong, she knew that. Not just about her weakness, but about the blame she’d earned with that foolish step into Isidor’s cell.
She’d known he could kill her, once she put herself in arm’s reach. Part of her had wanted him to. Especially if, somehow, she could have taken him out with her. Set him ablaze and turned him to cinders while he stilled the blood in her veins and froze it or filled her lungs with water.
“…if she hadn’t gone into that cell.” Daemon had clearly been following the same path that she had in her thoughts.
“No, he wouldn’t have gotten out if you hadn’t followed her in.” Perla brought water bursting from the spring Kyrja had sent them, right at Dae’s face. It turned to steam before it could hit him, of course, but a few drops made it past his wall of heat and landed on Elianne. “You’re the one he used to short out the prison bars. Your magic, not hers, that he touched his to and made that lightning.”
