Rasha tips her head to me. The floor is mine.
My hands are beginning to shake harder. I wrap my fingers around the insides of my cloak and eye him. “I asked you the other night about Elegy 96. Now I’m asking again.”
“Is this what you summoned me for?” He snorts and waves a hand as if he doesn’t have time for this, then turns on his heel for the door.
“Eogan trusted me enough to have me ask you about it.”
“Which only begs the question, why didn’t he tell you himself?” he throws out. “And since he didn’t, I can only assume you tricked him for the Elegy name.”
“You consider his character so weak? Or perhaps you find me so dangerous a threat.”
He stops. Flips around. The muscles in his soft throat clench.
My smile goes cold. “Draewulf has taken over Eogan, whether you trust me or not, and Draewulf is about to destroy you all. The last moment of clarity I had with Eogan, he said to tell you to take a closer look at the Elegy because it’s begun. He said Draewulf took him first but is going in order of blood. Something to do with his block and the land.”
Surprise surfaces in his eyes.
It’s followed by fear.
Before I can press him though, his face hardens and that protective expression I saw the other night flares. “And yet, if your claim was true, he’d have just as easily appeared to solicit help from me himself rather than send a message through you.” He glances back and forth between Rasha and me. “And for one supposedly having intentions on him, you insult his honor most easily while he’s done nothing but protect you.”
I give a caustic chuckle. “Like he protected his generals? Or perhaps like Draewulf’s daughter, Lady Isobel. Did you know she’s decided she wants to turn your entire Bron army into wraiths? I’m curious, how do you think she’ll go about doing—?”
“I swear to you it’s his honor we’re trying to save,” Rasha interrupts. “As well as Bron’s. Because Draewulf did take your king. You saw him in the meeting yesterday. Is that the man you knew—willing to use Draewulf’s army? Even Odion wouldn’t have done so.”
He gives a humorless laugh. “I’ve advised Eogan’s father since shortly after his and Odion’s birth, and I’ve spent the past twenty-two years watching them grow to take his place. If you knew any of them the way I have, you’d realize how foolish a statement that is. You say Eogan would have me help you, but all you’ve done is corrupt Bron tradition here.” He’s almost spitting the words at me.
I clench my hands. The cold in my bones is igniting my veins, and with them my anger. I don’t have time for this. “Look, Eogan’s block is failing, and when it does he’ll be dead and Draewulf will have complete control. We need to know what that Elegy says. What exactly has begun?”
He doesn’t answer. Just firms his stance and crosses his arms.
I snap my chin toward the wall mural. “That’s the Valley of Origin, isn’t it?”
His eyes flinch. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve been there with him.”
He shifts to the side—out of the dim lantern light so it falls on me—and shuffles closer to scan my face. He’s searching my eyes.
Ten seconds.
Fifty seconds.
Enough. This is a waste. The ice in my veins is turning into fury, to need, to bitterness that will lash out and claim the information from him if he won’t offer it. I’m just reaching out to force the only hope of surviving we have from his throat, when—
“Perhaps don’t tell us about the Elegy then,” Rasha says in her high-pitched, hazy tone. “Tell us about Draewulf.” She strolls over and smiles. “Having lived so close all these years, you must know quite a bit about his origins. Humor us.”
It’s an elongated minute before the tension has eased enough so that Sir Gowon uncrosses his arms and graces Rasha with an expression of tolerance. “King Eogan killed him. What else do you want to know?”
“Was he always able to shape-shift?”
The sound of his sigh says he’s weighing how much to give us. After a moment, he nods. “I will tell you what most people in Bron could already tell you. I’m sure you’ve heard he was born from a Mortisfaire mother and wizard father. Since Mortisfaire powers can only exist in the female line, he naturally turned to wizarding and managed to do a lot of good until an unfortunate accident. His ability to shape-shift came as a consequence of his experiments at the age of nineteen.”