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“You are not the only one who can shadow travel, my darling niece.”
I stared at him, lost, as Kallus stepped back into the shadows.
Then he was gone, and my guts tightened as I realized his targets.
My men.
No one was ever safe behind the walls of Rylow.
CHAPTER64
Honor
Long minutes trickledby while I paced, trying to plot my next steps.
Kallus returned with Talisyn gripped in his arms. Talisyn’s hands were bound in front of him, and blood trickled from the corner of his lip. His wild eyes met mine, and then energy pulsed between us. He managed to wink at me, and my heart melted in a mix of fear and worry and love. Sheer chaos.
“Would you shadow travel to save him?” Kallus demanded. He sounded cheerful, as if this were nothing out of the ordinary.
“If I could,” my voice came out sounding lethal, “I would shadow travel, yes.”
I’d shadow travel to slit my uncle’s throat, regardless offamily,for threatening the man I loved.
“You worked hard to get this one back,” Kallus put his arm around Talisyn’s shoulders, straining since Tal was taller than he was. To Tal, he said, “She must really love you.”
“Kallus, don’t do something you can’t take back.” I warned him.
“Oh, I’ve already done things I can’t take back. I made a deal with Ebba, and now I have to live with that. Or… if this plan goes awry… die with it.”
He tilted his head to one side. “You know, I wasn’t born King of the Grey?”
“I’m happy to listen to whatever you have to say, but let’s do it without the knife.” It was hard to draw my gaze away from the sparkling dragon’s bane dagger gripped in my uncle’s hand. Its jewels seemed to wink under the flickering torchlight.
“But I need you to believe in yourself,” he said. “You and I can only defeat Ebba together.”
I stared at him, completely lost. “Why did you invade my kingdom? All you had to do wasask.I’d fight Ebba with you.”
He scoffed. “You tried to kill me.”
“You started it, Kallus. I just wanted family. I wanted so badly for you to be a hero.” My voice broke, and I cleared my throat. I hadn’t expected that. “And you decided to be a villain.”
“I never decided to be a villain,” he said. “Long before Lysander had the idea to make himself king—and save the isle from Furien—Isaved my people. Our king was a madman, and he fell in love with Amily. He had killed his previous five wives as he tired of them, so you can imagine my little sister was terrified.”
His gaze met mine. “What would you do to protect Hanna? Would you make a deal with the chaos god?”
“You know I would.” There was no point in lying. “Go on. Tell your story.”
He was going to tell it anyway. Talisyn shifted subtly away from the blade, his leanly muscled torso held taut. Zehr gripped his shoulder but dropped the knife an inch.
“There had always been legends about pieces of Ebba’s terrible power. Shards of chaos itself, vibrating with terrible power. One was supposed to be buried outside a witch’s lair, deep within a well full of cut glass so that it was hidden like a needle in a haystack. Even if they believed it was real, only a fool would pursue that shard of power.”
He began to unbutton his tunic with one hand. One scarred hand. “You don’t care about the details, I suppose. But I found the shard, and I drove it into my chest—into my heart. Either the legends were true and Ebba’s power would suffuse me, or I’d have killed myself trying to save Amily.”
He bared his chest, revealing the scar across his heart.
“Of course I was never afraid of power, unlike you, sweet Honor. When Ebba appeared, he was furious I’d stolen the shard of power. He had always intended for worshippers to use them to birth him back into the world as a complete god, but I had claimed part of Ebba’s power for my own. Though Ebba tried to convince me he was making a deal, that power is why Ebba hasn’t been able to defeat me even after you called his assassin’s curse down on me. Why I can shadow travel. I carry some of his gifts.”
“Zehr can shadow travel…” I began, trying to put the pieces together.
