AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m speechless, and believe me, Draven, renderingmesilent is quite the accomplishment.”
He snorted. “Yet there it is.”
He’d had the Court of War’s crown all this time? “You bastard.”
“I know.” He dabbed at his head and winced when his hand came away glistening with blood. “So kill me. Do it now. I won’t fight. Just tell Arin I’m sorry?”
I lowered the poker to my side. Why had he done this, why was the crown here, why had he betrayed Arin and I? Even now, with the evidence in front of my eyes, I still didn’t believe it. I knew people, I used people, and to do that, I understood them. IknewDraven. He wasn’t a liar. Something had made him one. “Why?”
“My son.”
The name on the document, a Court of Pain Benefit. Draven and his son. My heart swooped. Of course, it had to be for love. No other force could be so destructive. “He’s alive?”
Draven nodded, then flinched. He flicked his dark eyes up but couldn’t hold my stare. “He shouldn’t be. He was born with a… His foot is mangled— It doesn’t matter. It never mattered to us. We tried to hide him, but Ogden gave them both, my wife and my son, to the sands. She died from exhaustion after getting our boy to a place she believed was safe. But the Court of Pain has been harvesting our castaways. They took him, put him in an orphanage. That’s where he is now.”
“Six years old.” I remembered the document, and the child’s age. Old enough to already be in the workhouses, day and night, working to fill Pain’s vault with gold.
Draven looked up. “You saw Arin’s documents.”
“Just the name. I didn’t know for sure what it meant.”
“Razak told me my boy was alive, and if I wanted him to stay alive, then I had to go to the Court of Love. I was to report back on you, the courtly fool, but then he asked for more and more, and eventually, he had me report on… Arin.”
“Did he order you to wed Arin?”
“No, not that! I swear it.” Horror paled Draven’s face. His lips quivered. “I meant our vows, the joining was real, at least to me. I wanted it to be real, even as every day I lied to Arin.”
“All this time, Draven… We searched for that crown, you told us Ogden had it safely stored away, when you clearly took it!”
He hunched forward and his big shoulders shrank around him. “I chased Razak from the temple, and I meant to stop him, I really did, but he said he’d kill my boy. He handed me the crown, told me to ship it to Justice, to my own name, and we would er… We agreed to meet here.”
While I’d lain dying, poisoned, and Arin fought to find the antidote, Draven had been conspiring with Razak. “Youshippedthe crown to Justice?” It was so absurd, I had to ask again.
He nodded.
I backed away from the man who had looked me in the eyes and told me a hundred lies. Arin and I had planned to steal Pain’s crown, and he’d been right there, listening to our every word. We might as well have had Razak alongside us.
Draven could have stopped us, could have told us he already had a crown. If he’d handed War’s crown over, we’d have tossed it into the ocean, and none of this would have happened. Arin wouldn’t be imprisoned and I wouldn’t have had to suffer Bendrik’s twisted affections. Although, Bendrik’s death had been a high point of the last few weeks.
“This is a relief, honesty. Telling you all this.” He clutched his chest. “It’s been eating me up inside.”
“A relief? Oh, how fucking nice for you.” I dropped into the chair beside the fireplace and set the poker down. “Fuck, Draven.”
“I know, I know… My son was just a babe when Pain took him,” he croaked. “I thought him dead. Razak gave me hope again. He told me I’d see him. You’ve no idea to fear someone dead, and then have them returned. It’s like, it’s like a dream made real.”
All the rage drained out of me, leaving me numb. “Razak does not deal in hope, Draven. You’ll never see your son again. He’ll never give him back.”
He squeezed his eyes closed, and his tears fell. Good. But my glee from seeing him hurting didn’t last. The whole damn thing was tragic, and I didn’t even have it in me to rage at him.
“He was born different,” Draven said. “They blamed Cherise, my wife, and… I couldn’t do anything. Ogden saw to it they were thrown away.” Draven spluttered a sob, then choked the rest back. “It’s always been our way. The sand takes them, and nobody talks of it. It’s as though they’re erased from our memories, but not mine. I’ve never forgotten my little boy.”
My gaze dropped to the jagged fronds of War’s crown, sticking up from the traveling case.
“I had no choice. I had to obey Razak.”
“I know what it feels like to be under my brother’s thumb. But you could have said something, you could have told us. We’d have helped you.”
“No, if Razak learned of my betrayal, he’d kill him. He doesn’t care at all, he’ll cut his fingers off, send them to me, and then his head. By Dallin—” Draven sobbed again and buried his face in his hands. “I didn’t want to hurt Arin. Or you. I thought you were like the rest of them in Pain. Then I learned of your missing fingers and I… I knew Razak was capable of carrying out his threats. It seemed better if we all just did what he wanted.”
