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“Where’s Lynx?”
“He’s fine.”
“He’d better be. Where is he?”
Joachim chuckled, although it was a thin, dry sound. “You’d think you’d have better manners. I’m the one in control here.”
“I’m pretty sureKallusis the one in control. Last time I checked, you were his dog.”
“If that’s true, Honor, you’d better be scared of my bite. Lynx betrayed me. But I don’t have any intention of punishing my son… as long as I get what I want.”
“And what is that?”
“To punish you, of course. You’re trying to destroy my powers. And those of the dragon knights. You cannot possibly imagine that will be without consequences.”
“Two hundred years ago, there were dragon shifters as well. There’s no reason to think you’ll lose your powers.” I wasn’t convinced it was the truth, but I said it anyway. Anything to bring Lynx home. “It was the dragon shifters that set this all in motion to begin with.”
“No,” Joachim corrected me. “It was the way the dragon shifters were treated that set this all in motion.”
“You still had a choice of how you responded. You hurt so many people. You didn’t need to crush the prey shifters under your feet.”
He scoffed. “Awfully dramatic.”
Zehr was quiet, listening, but I could feel him in the back of my mind.
Joachim warned me, “I’ll release Lynx if you meet me at midnight. I’ll bind myself to it on the magic.”
“Promise me that you’ll let Lynx go—alive and well—if I come. Promise it on your sword arm.” I’d seen Pend’s withered arm from betraying the magical vows he’d made never to raise his hand against his sons.
“I swear it. And you must swear to me that you will not tell anyone about our plans under your own threat.”
“I vow that I will not say one word, or if I do, let the magic take my arm,” I promised.
Because I knew who else was in my mind, listening to this conversation. Joachim was speaking directly at my mind, but we couldn’t see what the other was thinking.
He could never know that Zehr was right beside me.
I’d kept secrets and deceived my men before when I thought it was what I needed to do to protect them. But I wasn’t going to do that anymore. We were all needed to fight against Joachim and Kallus.
As soon as Joachim and I were done talking, I signaled the others and landed.
Then I felt a ripple of magic over my skin, cool air touching mine like a breeze on a hot day, and Zehr was at my side, looking down at me. He looked better without the bone crown; there was color in his high cheekbones.
Zehr grabbed my hand. I nodded so he knew that I agreed with what he was thinking.
“This is the only time I’ll ever ask you to speak for me,” I said.
“Noted.”
My men didn’t look thrilled to see Zehr—or the way he gripped my hand—but that hostility faded as he began to explain. “Joachim contacted Honor. He wants a hostage exchange—Honor comes to him, and he claims he’ll set Lynx free.”
Jaik scoffed.
“He promised it on his sword arm,” Zehr went on.
Damyn gave me a stern look. “Honor. We’ve had enough of royals following their own ideas instead of working as a team.”
I felt hurt. I hadn’t said a damn thing about going to meet Joachim.
