Page 59 of Storm of Ink and Blood

He stepped closer, leaving only a small space between them, forcing her to tip her head back. “Is that what I did?”

She exhaled a sharp breath, remembering that moment he’d appeared in Dharati and her entire world had tilted on its axis. “You know it is.”

Another step had him towering over her, making it feel like she was being consumed. “Or did I help free you, Zarya? Would anyone else have been able to release your magic?”

“How did you do that?” she asked. “Not even Row understood it.”

The corner of his mouth crooked up. “Your father is powerful. You have no idea what things he’s capable of.”

That answer churned a sour line up the back of her throat.

“He helped you?”

“I couldn’t have done that on my own.”

“So you did know who I was?”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t know. I told him about the dreams, but he had no way of knowing who you were. I went to him for a favor, and he granted it.”

“Why?”

“Because he trusts me. Because I have been loyal to him.”

Zarya swallowed. “Why?”

Rabin’s fierce expression masked a hint of sadness. “He has never asked me to hide what I am. He has taught me to embrace my dragon and my magic. To discover things I never imagined myself capable of.”

Zarya narrowed her eyes at that somewhat cryptic statement.

“That’s it?” she asked.

He frowned, and she regretted the insensitive question. After everything he’d revealed about his father, she knew what that kind of acceptance must have meant to him.

“That’s it,” he said after a brief pause.

Zarya sighed. “So, where are we now?”

“In a forest at the northern border of Andhera. I thought you might be more comfortable here.”

“What about our old forest?” she asked. “At least it was warm.”

“I want you to see it. Its cold beauty and its magnificence. I want you to stop turning your back on the place that could be your home if you’d let it.”

Zarya shook her head. “I don’t want that.”

“Why? Because of the lies you were told? Aren’t you done believing Row? Why do you put so much stock into the things he says? He deceived you for your entire life.”

Zarya opened her mouth to reply and then closed it. Did he have a point?

“Why do you care what I think?”

“Because I want you here with me.” He said the words so matter-of-factly that she believed them with her whole self. There was no artifice in his expression or his words. She understood he believed his truth. But was that truth the best thing for her?

“You swear you didn’t know?” she asked, studying him carefully. She’d spent months determined not to believe him, but he was right, and she wasn’t always the best judge of what was real.

“I didn’t know,” he said, and for the first time, the seeds of doubt reluctantly filtered into the cracks of her resolve. “I saw the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen walking in my dreams, and I had to find her. When I realized who you were, I could only think this was destiny, Zarya. I never meant to lie to you. You have to see this was fated from the very start.”

“I don’t know,” she answered, and then he stepped closer so there was no space left between them. He placed a finger under her chin and tipped her face up so their mouths were only inches apart, yet it felt like an ocean tossing them onto separate shores.