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Something inside me throbbed in relief, seeing him there in front of me. And Talisyn, too, who moved to my side quickly, looking slightly green but still ready for anything. A surge of affection welled in my chest, mixed with hope.
When I needed him, Talisyn had come for me.
“How did you travel us here?” Damyn demanded, looking around at the quiet, still morning outside the broken-down cottage. “What kind of spell was that?”
I licked my lips. I wanted to lie, but I couldn’t, not to Damyn and Talisyn. “I have Zehr’s powers now.”
Damyn paled. “Honor, you didn’t…”
“Take his place as the Scourge ruler?” I filled in, as if that were absurd. But Zehr was dying, alone in Joachim’s abandoned castle, and the Scourge were rioting, and I would do whatever I had to for this kingdom. And for him. “No.”
With Kessily dead, with their leader gone, maybe the Scourge would go back to sleep under the bone mountain. Maybe they’d bide their time…until they grew too hungry.
“Then how did you travel?”
“I can shadow travel.”
“Like Zehr.” Damyn’s words fell like stones.
“Yes,” I admitted.
Talisyn’s eyes widened in concern, and all I wanted to do was talk to him; had his memories come back? My gaze met his, full of questions, but his expression gave nothing away.
I couldn’t ask him in front of Damyn. The question was too painful. I couldn’t stand to be rejected by Tal one more time—ever so politely and kindly, like he always did—and I certainly couldn’t take it with an audience.
“Why?” Damyn slipped the back of his hand across my throat, and I stiffened at his touch, my chin rising, my whole body suddenly alert at the tender gesture. He was merely moving my collar aside, though; his gaze had caught on Zehr’s mark. “Is it because you two marked each other that you share your power? Or is it…”
“Because our parents worked together to create this magic, and Zehr and I are bound together by it?” I asked. “Lysander became king, and Zehr’s father Lerick became a monster.”
Maybe they’d both become monsters with that bargain.
“A monsterking,”Damyn corrected. “Don’t think too badly of Lysander.”
“And Amily,” I added, my mother’s name bittersweet in my mouth. “She was by Lysander’s side the whole time, wasn’t she? Or… she led them?”
“She was probably smarter than he was,” Damyn’s hand fell to his side again, his critical examination of the mark complete, and I breathed deeply for the first time in long seconds. He didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m trying to break the magic,” I confessed. “To undo the Scourge. I can’t save them all one by one.”
“The dragon Knights can’t know,” Damyn said. “They’d try to stop you.”
“But you’re on my side?”
“Against my better judgement.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Then I’m sure we’ll win.”
Damyn scoffed. “That is a very optimistic read on the situation.”
I glanced toward the cottage, surprised that Arren hadn’t come out to find us.
“What is it?” Talisyn asked.
“Arren,” I said, frowning.
Talisyn’s eyes lit up with relief and perhaps pride. “You really saved him.”
I nodded. But he hadn’t come out, and the house looked empty. No smoke rose from the chimney. The high of seeing Talisyn and Damyn again was quickly replaced by the fear something had happened to Arren.
