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“Well, don’t you look cozy,” Lavee remarked, her and Jesh squeezing in behind Diora and Namir.
“We need to talk about Horvis,” Jesh said, bringing the conversation to a darker place.
I grimaced, slipping my hand down to rest on Espen’s leg. “We’d rather not.”
“Word is that Laith knows we’re together.” Namir changed the subject, gesturing between himself and his brother. “So we’ve got to get this figured out, and meet him out there.”
“Espen can’t fight your brotherandhold up the moon,” I said firmly. “You’ll either have to give him your magic, or take his. And something tells me it would be incredibly difficult for you to fight off the Dark King while trying to get a massive, distracting new magic under control.”
Namir’s eyes narrowed at me a bit, but Diora nodded. “You’re right.”
The table was silent for a moment.
She continued, “Namir and I already spoke about this, at length. He’s going to give Espen his portion of the throne’s magic; we’ll survive with his personal shadow magic stretched between us. There’s more than enough. What matters the most is getting Laith off the throne—and making sure that the the people who tortured us can’t do it to anyone else.”
My eyebrows lifted, and I looked at Namir. “You’re going to hand over your magic, just like that?”
“It belongs to the court, not to me.” He lifted a shoulder. “And I have requirement, first.”
I leaned a bit closer to him. Espen’s arm tightened around my waist as I asked, “What is it?”
“You have to be mated.” He gestured between Espen and I. “So that I have my assurance that Espen won’t go power-crazy like Laith has.”
“That’s not a problem.” I dipped my head in a nod. “Now, what about Horvis?” I looked at Jesh.
His expression darkened. “We found a connection between him and your attacker.”
Damn.
“I thought he would’ve been too young?” I looked at Espen, whose eyes were closed tightly, his jaw clenched and his expression tensed.
“Unless he’s been planning this since we were kids, he was.” Namir confirmed.
“Which means he became friends with you just because he wanted to take your throne, or stayed friends with you for it,” I said flatly, still looking at Espen.
He opened his eyes, and the silver orbs were full of fury. “We’ll fucking rip his throat out.”
“We’ll do much worse than that.” Namir’s voice was low. “When the moon rises, we’ll go hunting.”
“He’s ours to kill,” Diora countered. Her voice sounded far too calm to be considering murder, at least considering the way she had been the last time I saw her. She wasn’t a killer—and she had regretted every life she took.
“No,” I said simply. The word wasn’t harsh, or angry. “We have enough lives on our hands as it is, Diora. Revenge won’t bring us peace.”
Diora’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re the last person I expected to hear that from, Akari.”
“A lot about me has been changing lately.” I glanced over at Espen, whose eyes opened to stare at me. “And I’ve realized that killing someone won’t free me from the pain of the past. Time, and… well, love, are the only things that can do that.”
I wasn’t going to mention that the person I felt the most love from was Espen, when he and I hadn’t talked about anything related to that. I wasn’t sure I loved him, but… well, I felt attached to him already. And what was the difference between love and attachment?
“How long until the moon rises?” Diora checked, looking at Espen.
His eyes remained locked on mine as he murmured, “About an hour.”
“Alright, so we eat and then head out. We can all find him together; I might not want to kill him, but I do want to watch him die. I need closure,” Diora stated.
“Sounds good to me,” Namir agreed.
“It’s a plan,” Lavee declared.
