“That’s a tomato,” Roiven says. He looks like he’s fighting not to laugh. More patiently he loads his own bowl with food.
“Tell me the truth about the bonds. Who do you kill? How do you do it?”
Roiven raises an eyebrow.
“You didn’t believe me the first time? I can’t lie.”
“When I asked about the child sacrifices, you said it was a lie, and when I asked about sacrificesagain, you just said it was nothing like enchantment. So there’s still some kind of sacrifice involved,” I tell him. I’d feel smug at catching him if it didn’t make me sick to my stomach.
Roiven’s nostrils flare slightly.
“I’m not talking in circles. Ithoughtmy meaning was obvious. We don’t sacrifice anybody.”
“Bloodletting, then.”
“By the gods, knight,” he snaps. “There is nothing unholy or cruel about it. There’s no death, no bloodletting, none of it. We justbond. It’s what witches do. The only timedeathgets involved is when someone without magic wants to find a way to use it, likeyour enchantment marks and your warships. Tyrants don’t want anyone to have power they can’t control themselves.”
I glare at him, fork squeezed tightly in one hand, and try to find a loophole in what he said. Some other terrible method for binding familiars to a witches’ soul.
“Torturenotinvolving blood,” I say.
“Enough,” Roiven growls. “There is nothing unsavory involved.”
Part of me still isn’t convinced. But I try another bite, eating slowly, testing the flavors and textures on my tongue.
The greens nearly make me cry. I don’t even want to think how long it’s been since I had something like it. I’m so sick of eating fish and algae that I’d be happy never to see it again.
For some reason that makes my throat tighten. The other exiles, the ones the Hellion sank. They’ll never taste food like this again, if they ever even had. I should have let Malkin eat all the apples we found.
“You're bound to the kraken. How could you not already know how we bond?” Roiven says suddenly, glaring at me like he’s been arguing in his head the whole time.
I stiffen, but I can avoid the pain if I don’t think about what the bond means.
“Did you kill people to try and make it happen?” he growls.
“Of course not. I was a child,” I tell him, as memories I don’t want to think about wash like waves around my feet. “But there was a lot of blood, and bodies. It would make sense if it summoned something like that.”
“What happened?” his voice sounds hollow and his brow furrows.
“It’s personal.”
There’s a long, awkward silence. Roiven keeps staring at me like I might talk, but I clench my jaw and refuse.
“Whatever it was, he didn’t choose you because of it,” Roiven tells me. “I promise you, that isn’t how it works.”
I nod, but in my mind I’m still seeing the blood and the fire. We eat in silence for all of five minutes before I can’t bear it anymore.
“Have you decided yet, about Barivum?”
Roiven doesn’t look up from his plate.
“I’m not your personal transport, knight.”
“What happened to ‘I’ll think about it?’” I set down my fork and fold my arms. Roiven glares at me.
“I thought about it,” he says flatly. “You promised to remove the enchantment. That’s more important right now than a gamble.”
“Don’t youwantto save your Tower?”
