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No matter how much we might fight, I knew they meant those words.
CHAPTER34
Lynx
My asshole fatherhad imprisoned me once again.
It was no wonder we hadn’t found Teris’s stone anywhere else. My father, who usually would have worn his stone on his body as he had obsessively all those years, had left it hanging in the sky.
When I’d first wokenup in here, he’d been sitting just outside the reach of my chains, watching me with glinting eyes. I’d been groggy, the world blurred and my head pounding. It took me long seconds to realize he’d used magic to force me awake. He’d never been a patient man.
“Where am I?” I’d asked, deciding to skip calling himassholeat the moment because I wanted information—not because I had any respect for my paternal figure.
“So you can tell your friends?” he’d asked me. “I think not.”
But when I closed my eyes and tried to form a thought to them, I couldn’t. A wave of regrets crashed down over me.
I loved her, and she loved me. I should have claimed her sooner. Life was too short not to seize its joys.
And Honor was my greatest joy.
Then I saw the glint of the dragonsbane threaded through the rooftop. I’d leapt to my feet. That meant neither of us had our powers in here.
All I needed to do was get my hands on him, and we’d have a fair fight.
But the bars were between us, and he smiled.
“Oh, Lynx,” he said. “Loyal to a fault. Tender-hearted.”
“Despite your best efforts,” I said evenly.
He shrugged. “I was trying to raise a king. But you don’t need to act like I tormented you. I never beat you like Pend beat his sons.” He shook his head. “Ridiculous, if you ask me. If you want a child to act like a royal, you can’t beat them like a servant. I saw Jaik cringe away from his father when he was a boy… I never wanted to see you weak.”
“I’m not sure you have the moral high ground.”
I couldn’t help thinking of the times he’d imprisoned me as a boy, how wild it had driven Branok. He’d threatened to kill my father once if he wouldn’t release me. Bran had thought my father might imprison him with me—but Joachim had just laughed and doubled my time. He’d tousled Branok’s hair as he left us behind on opposite sides of the bars. “Someday you’ll understand about power,” he’d told us both.
“I have the high ground,” he said with a smile. “The moral part of it has never interested me very much.”
He swept his hand out behind him.
The two of us were on a stone outcropping high above the clouds. The edges, fifteen feet behind me, looked thin and crumbly. I shifted uncomfortably back toward the bars. I was shackled to the center of the stone island.
And nearby, but just out of reach, was a treasure chest—Joachim’s most precious hoard. Next to it, on a pedestal in a glass case, hung a piece of jewelry. The last Scourge stone. I wasn’t sure if he displayed it that way because it brought him so much joy or for my sake.
“Kill me, my boy, and you’ll never get back down,” he warned me.
“What do you think is going to happen?” I asked him wearily. “You partnered with Kallus. You think he’s going to leave you alive once he’s used you?”
“He thinks he’s using me.” Joachim agreed. “I’m using him.”
“You always thought you were smarter than Pend too.” I knew exactly what buttons to push. “And yet he was the one to rule.”
“I chose to let him be high king.”
“I’m sure he appreciated your generosity.” I tilted my head at him, hoping he felt sensitive enough to defend his plans. “So he’s to leave you a bit of the kingdom after he takes it over?”
“If Honor gets her way,” he said evenly, “she’ll be his tool, taking away our power to shift. We can’t let that happen, Lynx.”
