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They were a family. Part of me longed to be like them. To be one of them.
But after everything I'd done... I was a monster, after all. There was no changing that.
As Honor led Talisyn to the fire and the two of them settled in side by side, I didn’t want to feel her jubilant bond with him. But as I tried to break the connection that had brought me to her, I realized…
She looked at him with love, but it was tinged with pain. Memories that had once been bright and beautiful—Talisyn’s teasing smile, the way he knew her even when she was pretending to be Lucien, the first time their lips brushed—were now stained by the fact she was the only one who remembered. She’d found new love, and so had he, but it didn’t take away the pain. Not completely.
I rubbed my thumb over the stone. I had one last bit of magic.
Fuck Teris.
Through Honor’s bond with Talisyn, I could catch a glimpse of what he had seen—the way Teris had used Gorion’s stone to steal his memories, the feeling of having Honor rush out of his mind. Teris had broken both their hearts.
I hesitated, but even as I was talking my way out of giving up any of my power, my intent must have suffused the magic. Because the next thing I knew, the stone glowed between my fingertips. It was lit from within with my magical power, and I felt the last of my magic leave me even as I cursed, wishing I could pull it back.
But still...
I nudged open the door that Honor had shut between us, feeling my heart leap at the thought that she might be happy, that some of the darkness in her life might be undone.
It stole the last of my magic, and I crumpled to my knees.
From the shadows, I watched her with Talisyn, who suddenly looked stricken, then grinned like a fool.
I tried to get to my feet, but instead, I passed out in the forest.
CHAPTER49
Talisyn
When I leanedover to Honor and whispered to her, she looked up at me with wide eyes. She smiled at me, and it was a quick confident smile. It didn’t have the hopefulness of the half dozen times she looked at me hoping I’d regained my memories.
But… I had to be regaining my memories. When she’d shown me things, they had all been from her point of view, colored by her feelings. But I just had a memory rise: Lucian Finn diving off the roof of the academy. All right, it hadn’t been a dive; I’d pushed him. But I wasprettysure I was trying to be helpful.
The two of us slipped away from the bright circle of our friends. She paused in the forest just beyond the glow of the fire light. I knew we should stay close, and yet something drove me to keep moving, further away. I wanted privacy to talk to her. The thought of being wrong squeezed my heart.
She gave me a perplexed but gentle smile. “Tal, what is it?”
“Did I ever… push you off a roof?”
“Yes…”
“That was quite a dick move. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
She looked at me uncertainly. “Someone must have told you about it. Right? Or you saw it… maybe I was thinking about it when I was thinking about how I’ll never fly again.”
“We don’t know for sure yet that we’ll never fly again.” I didn’t like the thought that the dragon knights were hunting Honor because they thought she’d stolen their gifts.
She shrugged, but the movement was heavy, as if her shoulders were weighed down by all she carried. “It wasn’t worth showing you. It was a bit of a dick move, you’re right. But you are a dragon royal.”
“Were,” I corrected.
She gave me a look that was full of knowing, her lips tilting up mischievously. When she looked at me like that, I wanted to lean over and kiss her. The impulse was so strong I barely resisted.
“Nothing could make you not a dragon royal, gods help us all. There’s a certain combination of arrogance and selflessness and fearlessness that makes you a Royal.”
Her words lit a warm glow in my heart. Then she tilted her head to one side and said, “Why is it that you wanted to come into the woods to talk? I’m happy to insult all of you Royals at once if you like. When I first met you, I thought you had a bit of a kink for being insulted.”
I hadn’t remembered that, but now that I thought about it, I did remember her saying that she could make an infinite number of jokes based on our laundry alone. A memory rose of her and I on those porch steps that that led up to the school, that wound around and around through the stone, where it felt like one slip would have you plummeting down the side of a mountain.
