I don’t respond.
A hesitation. His fingers pick up drumming against the wall. “The physician believes you’ll be steady on your feet in two days’ time. After that—”
“I don’t care,” I say hoarsely, eliciting another tortured coughing spell that forces me into a sitting position. It lasts half a minute before abating, and I look up to find his sterile attitude has caved to concern. It grates against the massive, aching chasm in my chest. As if he has any right to worry. “How should I feel?” I mutter. Crazy? Infuriated? “And who in hulls is asking? Eogan the trainer, or Ezeoha—Bron’s heir?”
Eogan’s jaw shifts. Tightens. “Both.”
Right. I glance away. “Does Colin know who you are?”
“Only you.”
“And Isobel,” I point out in a raspy voice. “Who, by the way, I would’ve assumed was the love that broke your heart, except you didn’t look too heartbroken in her arms last night.”
His coloring fades in direct proportion to the hardness materializing in his eyes. The finger tapping slows. “I’m aware you won’t believe this, but my heritage and past relationship are actually of little importance. What is important—”
He’s right. I don’t believe it. “Are you a spy?”
“I’d think you know me better than that. Although, considering the volatile situation, you’ll understand why I’d wish to keep my identity private.”
“An interest Isobel clearly doesn’t share.”
He frowns. “She won’t reveal it at this point.”
“Except to me because—let’s see, how did she put it?—I’m ‘just grateful to be alive and too weak-minded to be a threat.’ ”
“That’s only because she actually views you as a threat.”
“Bolcranes,” I scoff. “Why would she, unless you’re a spy?”
His harsh gaze flickers to my lips, where it pauses before dropping to the floor. He says nothing.
“Is that a yes? Because for kracken’s sake, Eogan, at least have the guts to admit it! What were you doing—scouting? Trading secrets?”
“I think you’ve read enough of Adora’s history books to know that most of my kingdom thinks I’m dead,” he says bitterly. “I chose to leave Bron rather than fight Odion for my right to rule, not expand my dominance, so don’t even attempt to judge my intentions.”
“Right. And would those be the same intentions you had wrapped around Isobel’s body last night?”
He utters an oath and pushes off the wall toward the door. “You’re being ridiculous.”
Then stalls.
He plows a hand through his black messy bangs as he turns back to me and sighs. “Look . . . Isobel was—is—a part of my past. Our fathers hoped to make a marriage of it, but clearly that didn’t happen. I’ve not seen her in the four years since I left Bron.” His glare narrows. “Now can we move on to why I’m down here?”
“What’d she do to you?”
A strange grief flexes across his face even as his lips curl. His breath wavers audibly, as if he’s trying to decide whether to confess or curse at me. “Let’s just say there’s more than one way to turn a person’s heart to stone,” he finally growls.
I cross my arms. Not good enough.
He dips his head. “Fine. I was six. My father asked Isobel to change Odion and me. Guessing accurately that our blocking abilities would protect us physically while her curse hardened our emotions. Thus making us incapable of feeling and, in his mind, the perfect pair—relying on logic rather than the influence of sentiment. He then proceeded to raise Odion in politics and me as Bron’s war general—assuming whichever of us was strongest would succeed him after his death. Except Isobel’s curse worked too well on me. By the time he died, I didn’t even care enough to fight for what, by rights, is mine as firstborn.”
A hurricane of images slips through my head. Eogan’s closeness, his coldness, his repeated withdrawals from me.
“It wasn’t until I hit my coming-of-age that I realized the only emotion Isobel left me with was a desire for her. Something I eventually came to disrespect. Four years ago, when I left Bron for Faelen, I thought that perhaps if I lived among the people I’d slaughtered in my youth, it might . . . fix me.”
A desire for her.
The people I slaughtered in my youth.
I narrow my gaze, not even attempting to hide the hurt and venom I feel. My fingers tighten into fists even as something from the smoky scene last night niggles at the back of my mind. Something he said . . .
Something made hazy by Adora’s medicinal herbs.
His gaze drops to the ground. “Not until I discovered the Valley of Origin did something alter in me. It didn’t break the curse completely, but . . .” His voice shudders. “It made me feel things. Remember things. And then . . .”