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I frowned at him. “How is she his tool?”
“He’s controlling her with her mother’s pendant. Or at least, he’s pretended it’s her pendant; I’m not sure whether it was ever Amily’s or not. Regardless, it has a spell on it that allows him to access her magic. She’s merely a conduit. He can control the Scourge. They’ve been multiplying, wild, with Zehr down and Honor failing to master her powers. Now there’s even more of them for him to use to defeat the rebels.”
“So you’ll let Kallus decimate our own people…” My stomach turned. “And then what? How does this end with you on the high throne?”
Because if Honor and Jaik died, he would rule, now that all the other Elder Royals were dead. Especially if the nobles had their way. They’d rather stick with the old ways—and their old power.
A terrible thought struck me, and my father smiled as if he knew what it was, even before I asked, “Is that what you planned all along?”
“Gorion ran off to save his idiot son. Perhaps I should’ve tried harder to stop him.” My father’s smile was sharp as a knife. “Teris should have known better than to try to take your memories of Honor from all of you at once… you’ve always been too strong as a group to defeat.”
He took a step toward me, his gaze falling to my neck. “But there are ways to divide you.”
“We’re not divided.”
“And yet… you’re the only one Honor hasn’t chosen.”
My mark was hidden by my shirt, but I wasn’t going to tell him anything about Honor. “How do you know that?”
“Well, a girl talks to her mother. Even once she’s dead.”
“The ghost. It’s… a trick of Kallus’s?” Honor would be devastated, and it took everything I had not to dash at Joachim. But it was better to milk every bit of information from him.
“Indeed. He had one of his wizards pretend to be her mother the first time. He wanted Honor to see him in the room when she met her mother. But ever since…” He shrugged. “She’s been pouring her heart out to Kallus. Stupid little girl.”
“The stupid little girl who’s outsmarted you over and over, you mean,” I said fiercely.
He laughed at that, taking another step closer. He opened his mouth to mock either her or me, but he’d finally come within my reach.
I threw myself at him, felt the chain draw slack—but I grabbed his lapel and yanked him toward me just as I ran out of chain. He snarled. He backhanded me across the face, but I didn’t stumble. I slammed my forehead into his nose and he cried out in pain.
The two of us struggled across the stone, blue sky everywhere around us.
He could fall, but I couldn’t.
He punched me across the jaw, and a triumphant look came over his face.
The moment before I threw him from the stone outcropping.
For long seconds, he fell, unable to shift due to the dragonsbane. At the last moment, before he hit the rocks below, his wings snapped out and he soared, half-crashing into the ground before he swooped up again. My feelings had a wild ride seeing him almost die.
Then I was left alone, and I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again or if I’d die along on this rock. I couldn’t throw myself off because… he had me shackled.
I was up in the clouds where I belonged, but I couldn’t be a dragon.
CHAPTER35
Near midnight, I couldn’t stop shivering. Damyn wrapped his knight’s cloak around my shoulders.
I wondered if I would ever get to finish the academy and earn my own knight’s cloak. I was supposed to be queen—but I cared most about being a dragon royal ready to defend my kingdom. That was my vision of a queen.
“You won’t be alone. You never are,” he reminded me. “You say the word, and will get you out of there.”
“Joachim will be looking out for a trick,” I said. “I do have a track record of doing stupid things so he might think I actually came alone, but if he has any idea where you are, I’d be prepared for a dragon knight attack when we’re separated.”
“We’ve got it,” he promised.
Zehr was waiting for me in the shadows. I could feel my men’s pain through our bonds; they hated seeing me walk away with him. They all wanted to be the ones at my side, and none of them trusted him. The thought he was the one who would protect me grated.
