AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shrug my shoulders. “I can’t help it if Kiran isn’t exactly the sharing type.”
“Maybe. But from what you tell me of Evander, he is.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean Kiran shares anything with him, either. I’ve already told you all I know. They have their sights set on Abra, which should be good news for you.”
Az levels a stare at me, and I force myself to meet it, even though it makes me feel as if he’ll see right through me.
But then something like sadness overcomes his expression, an anxiety I only get glimpses of.
“What?” I ask him.
His huff of air causes steam to appear in the chilled air before him. “It’s just that things would be so much easier if I could find a way to depose him.”
“You don’t think an army of Others will be enough?” I ask skeptically, hoping to get a tad more information about how Az plans to control said Others once the Rip is opened. So far, he hasn’t clued me in on many details of his plan, though I assume he has that part covered. Still, it would be comforting to know for sure that I’m not aiding someone in releasing a band of predators into Alondria unleashed.
“I just…” Az stares at the ground, tracing a path into the snow with the heel of his boot. “I just want to ensure she makes it out of this safely. Blaise, anything you know that could get her away from him…” He looks as if he’s about to choke on anguish.
The air chills in my lungs. “I thought you said you and Asha no longer saw eye to eye.”
Az frowns. “We don’t. But it shouldn’t be that way. He has a power, Blaise. The abominable type. One he shouldn’t have. One that allows him to control her.”
The memory of illusory comfort and ease washes over me, but it’s been diluted by time. It’s not as if I can access the feeling again. The feeling when Kiran picked me up and carried me out of my father’s manor, plunging me into a blissful peace before he deposited me back at Othian castle.
It seemed a kindness then, and I’m not entirely ready to say that it wasn’t.
Despite that, it’s a dangerous power, being able to control the emotions of others. “You think he uses that power to keep her in love with him.”
Az’s gaze snaps toward me. “Is there another option? It’s not as if Asha could love a monster like him.”
Somewhere inside, my heart crunches like the topmost layer of ice beneath our feet.
“I suppose only monsters love monsters,” I concede, finding my gaze drifting back to the wagon.
It doesn’t seem fitting, with everything I know about Kiran, that he’s controlling Asha’s emotions like that. But how much do I really know about Kiran?
I know he’s searching for a solution to Asha’s mortality. I can’t think of another reason he’d be researching liquid moonlight in the library. I also know he’s doing so in secret, without alerting her to his actions. On one hand, that seems like the actions of a male who would force a woman to love him, assuming he plans to make her immortal without her permission. On the other hand, if he’s controlling her emotions, why hide it from her when he could simply make her want immortality?
Unless he’s not completely aware of what he’s doing to her.
Unless he chooses not to be completely aware of what he’s doing to her.
I know what that’s like. To tuck the wrongness away. To ignore the way it mildews like forgotten crumbs in the pockets of your life, hoping if you let it alone, it will simply disappear.
I don’t know whether Kiran is controlling Asha, but I do know this: he and I are the same. Both of us would do anything to save the people we love.
He won’t understand when I betray him, but he should.
Because he’d do the same to me, if it was Asha stuck in an indefinite slumber.
“I’ll keep my ears open,” I say, and Az smiles.
The pile of coin in my pocket grows heavier.
CHAPTER 2
NOX
Blood doesn’t taste the same here as it does in the world from which I hail.
