“Fair enough,” I mutter. “But it’s not like you have anything to be ashamed of.”
“That’s not the point,” Roiven growls. “Would you want to be this vulnerable, if I could commandyouto do anything I wanted?”
My eyes catch on a piece of the enchantment, and my eyebrows furrow.
“…That’s strange,” I exhale softly.
“What?” Roiven twists over his shoulder and stares at me. I bend forward, inspecting his lower back more closely.
I know my own name, in the enchantment symbols. It was drawn into Rampage, to make the Hellion mine. But I don’t see it on him. And here, the spot where all the enchantments tie to? He’s keyed to the order of the imperial knights. Toanyknight.
Roiven starts to turn around, his feet shifting in obvious discomfort.
“Hold still,” I order absent-mindedly, and the Witch King freezes. I reach a hand forward to trace over the lines, but I don’t touch him. My fingerpad hovers in the air just over the marks while I frown. Roiven’s skin goosebumps like he can feel my touch all the same. His whole body clenches tighter.
Harfor said he’d obey me. Did she mean I’m still a knight, even with my titles revoked? How did she know he’d have to obey me? Iknowthe witch hasn’t been faking it. I can’t imagine how much it hurt to have to listen to me kill his people, powerless to stop it, or even to try.
Harfor watched me command him at the docks. Watched me make him kneel.
I don’t know what this means, but my veins run cold and I feel lightheaded. What if the real test wasn’t whether I could keep him alive, but whether I had powers I wasn't supposed… a warning pain starts in my head.
“What is it?” he asks sharply, when I still haven’t answered.
“Nothing.” I take one step back, then another. My left hand snags as I run it through my tangled hair.
“Knight. Tell me. What did you see?” His face is paler than normal, and he still hasn’t moved from his exact pose when I told him to stop. He probably thinks I’ve discovered something that bodes poorly forhim.
I don’t want to tell him that I’m not a knight, I shouldn’t be able to command this enchantment at all. That Harfor shouldn’t have expected me to. I can already guess what he’d say, and I’m not willing to hear it.
“It’s a lot of marks,” I say instead.
“Yes,” he answers. A shiver runs visibly over his body. He’s hating this. Every second of it. I close my eyes and rub my forehead so he can at least have a moment of privacy.
“It’ll hurt, you know. Having the ink pulled from your skin,” I say, still without looking.
“I don’t care. Do we have a deal? You get thisthingoff me, and Savasaeirn takes you back alive.” He says the words quickly.
I walk back around to face him properly. If I’m actually considering this, I need to know the look in his eyes; need to be able to read him. Right now the enchantment is the only thing standing between me and Sava’s vengeance.
“How am I supposed to trust you?” I peer into his eyes, glass-gold in the light of day. He stares back just as hard. His jaw is so tense I’m surprised his teeth haven’t cracked.
“A bold question, considering only one of us is betraying our kind.”
“I’m not a witch.” I whisper the words. They don’t sound quite as firm as I mean them to.
His eyes narrow and the anger in his face slackens into something like exasperation.
“Denying it changes nothing.”
“Stop lying,” I say, from impulse, but as he pinches his lips together I already know the truth.
The enchantment doesn’tlethim lie.
Well, maybe he justthinkshe’s telling the truth. I can choose not to believe it. The tension in my head eases.
The enchantment works because I’m still a knight. Not because I have powers the other knights don’t; a natural affinity for magic. The council stripped my titles, but the God-Emperor was the one who granted them, so the enchantment still sees me for who I truly am: a knight.
There. I can believe that.
