I start toward her. “But what? You would’ve wanted me to give up? How could I? And now—now it’s almost worked, Rasha. We’re going to do this!”
She pauses and, after a moment, nods in resignation. “Perhaps you would’ve chosen differently if I’d trusted you with more information on the airship.” She reseats herself on the bed. “And I understand why you made your decision, Nym. I just don’t know that in this case the end result will justify the means of getting there.”
“Then we should’ve just killed him when we both had the chance.” I look away, at the door. At the ceiling. At anything but her concerned frown as a stab of discomfort pricks my spine. Why do she and Eogan not see what this can do?
A moment longer and I sigh. “Eogan agrees with you if that makes you feel better.”
“Agrees how?”
“That this power I’ve taken is dangerous. He says it’s what created Draewulf.” I dig my foot into the carpet and swallow hard to shore up my suddenly quaking throat.
She gives a single, sad dip of her head. Another half-minute and she lifts her gaze to one of her Cashlin guards. “Ask them to tell Sir Gowon that the Elemental and I demand to speak with him. If he refuses, tell him I’m aware of a defining choice he made eighteen years ago.” She hesitates. “And if the Bron guard outside refuses, tell him I’m aware of what he did last evening.”
The guard clicks his heels and unlocks the door to speak with the Bron soldiers out in the hall.
I furrow my brow.
She looks at me and bites her lip. And admits with a subdued smirk, “I have no idea what he did last night, but it’s worth a shot.”
I grin. “And Sir Gowon?”
Sadness flashes through her expression and into her tone. “You are aware of Bron’s rite of passage for their boy soldiers?”
When she doesn’t continue, I nod. Mainly because I suddenly don’t trust my voice. All I can picture is Kel.
“When Gowon’s own son was ready to take it, Eogan’s father used it as a test of loyalty, giving Gowon a choice—have the boy prove his and his father’s fealty to the crown or be demoted. When it came time . . . The young man the boy was made to kill in combat was his best friend. A child barely a year younger than himself.”
My chest hardens. “You read that?”
She nods. “Although it’s now in the far past, I’m certain it’s still an area of shame for him.”
An area of shame yet he inflicts punishment on those who would disobey? Or perhaps that’s why he allowed Kel to live the other night.
She clears her throat and drops her gaze to my wrist. “So who gave it to you?”
I glance down as she fluffs a pillow and leans back.
“The ability.”
Oh. “Myles took me to a woman.”
“How did she do it?”
“Through a drink.”
“Can you go back and get rid of it?”
I don’t answer that. I won’t answer. I merely walk over until I’m facing her spot on the bed again. “Like I said, it’s been fine. I don’t need you to worry about it. I think we should be concentrating instead on what we’re going to ask Sir Gowon and how to stop the Dark Army.”
She eyes me. “In that case, that’s all I’m going to say on the subject aside from warning you that the moment you get scary with this ability, I will not hesitate to do everything I can to take you out myself. And the next time I see Myles, I will most likely rip his head from his neck.”
I nod. Fair enough.
“Now about Sir Gowon and the wraiths . . .” She casts her gaze over the bloodstain on the carpet, and for a second I’m certain her eyes go misty. As does her voice. An odd ripple of guilt goes through me—not for her grief over her loss, but that it didn’t occur to me to even wonder how it would affect her. More than that, that I never even wondered about those killed. What were their names? Did they have kids? The thought digs into me that normally I’d be moved by something like that.
Instead? I feel nothing.
“I’ll get you some water.” I grab a cup from the morning’s food tray to take to the water closet. I rinse it before filling it with water from their pipes in case someone poisoned the pitcher on the table. Not likely with her men standing there, but still . . .
Her faint smile quivers along with her chin when I return. She sniffs. “She was my maid for the past six years.”
I put my hand over hers and squeeze.
“Our kingdom is full of life but our palace . . . can be a bit lonely.” She clasps back. “With the Luminescents living in it, there’s not much need for conversation. Everyone can read everyone else.” She twists her mouth wryly and glances back over to the bloodstained carpet. “But Fara wasn’t one. She couldn’t read my intentions. She was my friend.”
“Oh, Rasha.” I sit on the bed beside her.
She scoots over and closes her eyes as if in a daze. “At first I thought maybe the murders were to get at you but . . . I’m beginning to think they’re targeting everyone.”