“What?”
“Even after that day, I was furious, but I didn’t hate you. I didn’t hate you first. But you started hating me after that. Remember?”
I didn’t answer, but I did remember.
I had hated him first.
I remembered the schism, but I didn’t remember any one fight. That was around the time our mother died, and the whole year we lost her was a red blur. “Mother had just died. I was angry then. All the time.”
“And I was alone.” The words came out clipped, but it was the most vulnerable thing he’d ever said to me, since he was crying at the side of our mother’s grave.
He’d tried to hug me, and I’d pushed him away. The memory rose with a surge of shame so strong that my stomach twisted as if I’d puke.
But he was willing to bring me into his quarters, to talk. I hoped that was a start.
Then he opened the door to his room and stepped back, holding it open for me. When I walked inside, I understood. The scent of Honor, the scent of sex lingered in the room. Jealousy crawled up my guts like a spider nesting.
“Where is she?” I asked lightly, letting him know I understood the game.
“With Calla. She won’t listen. Still throwing a fit about keeping her job.”
“She’s an independent soul. You can’t hold her too tightly, or she’ll slip right through your fingers.”
He scoffed. “I don’t need your advice. And I’d never trust it.”
Recognition rushed through me. “You think I’m trying to take Honor away too.”
He had everything. He’d have the crown, wealth, power. He was a dragon; he controlled fire and rode the wind. And he had the love of the most amazing woman I’d ever met.
But he was broken.
And I’d helped break him.
“If you want to hate me, hate me,” I said. “But we’ve got a kingdom that needs us. I might’ve been tossed out of the line of succession onto my ass, but I was raised to protect, to rule, to serve and that didn’t change.”
He shook his head. “It’s not your kingdom. And just for the record—she’s not your girl, and she never will be. Look at her throat when you see her next. I marked her.”
His chin rose boastfully.
“We can mend things, Jaik,” I said quietly, feeling more sad than angry at my brother for once. I could regret the past all I wanted, but I couldn’t fix it, and I couldn’t build a bridge across my brother’s fury.
“She’s bound to dragons,” he went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “She’s meant for more than wolves.”
I tried to tell him that she was a dragon, but the magic twisted at my mind again, and the world swam.
Through the haze, Jaik was still looking at me with that triumphant arrogance that made me want to punch him, and made my eyes hot, in equal measure.
I hadn’t cried since the year our mother died.
But she would’ve been so ashamed of us both.
I turned and walked away.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Honor
I hurriedly scrubbed the row of bathroom sinks. They were all white marble, threaded with gray and silver, softly illuminated by the glow of lanterns between the ornate silver-framed mirrors. Everything was beautiful at the academy.
Bathroom sinks are still disgusting, though, and long hairs clung to stoppers of the drains. I wrinkled my nose at them. Money doesn’t change the messy parts of people.
The doors creaked open behind me.
“Closed,” I called over my shoulder, then looked up and met Arren’s intense eyes in the mirror.
He seemed to fill the doorway, tall and muscular and imposing. A jolt went through me when I saw him, something wild and unexpected. I wasn’t sure I’d call it good. Or bad.
“I want to talk to you,” Arren said.
Of course he’d interrupt the lone twenty minutes I actually spent doing my job.
I kept on scrubbing. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Your life is in danger,” he said flatly.
“At this moment?”
He frowned at me. “Not at this moment. I’m with you.”
“I feel very safe,” I promised.
I turned and tossed him a wet rag, which he caught against his chest. Then he winced.
“I’ll feel grateful too if you help me scrub,” I said cheerfully.
He held the rag out with two fingers, distaste written across his face. “I brought you a gift. Mine is better than yours.”
I scrubbed out the last sink, then turned to face him. “What is it?”
He held out a dagger in a sheath. “It’s brought me luck.”
I took the gift, perhaps because I was so shocked. The hilt was richly inlaid with amethyst, with elaborate metal work. It looked like a noblewoman’s blade, but it was perfectly balanced. I ran my fingertips across the ornate metalwork. “It’s pretty.”
“It was my mother’s.”
“Did it bring her luck?” I regretted the words as soon as I said them.
“For a while.”
“What happened to her?”
Arren grunted. I thought that was the end of today’s surreal conversation, then he added, “I suggest you wear it in your boot. We can practice your draw this week when I’m not in the field.”
“We can practice?”
“I thought we could spar. Work on some hand-to-hand skills.”
“You’re volunteering to spend time with me?”
Arren must really think I was about to get murdered.
“If I have to deal with you, I don’t want you to be useless.”
“I don’t want you to be useless either!” I shot back. “That’s why I tried to show you how to scrub!”
He looked from me to the rag, then sighed. “Fine. But if I can clean with you, you can train with me.”
Arren stepped beside me and began to clean alongside me. He scrubbed and mopped, then caught me smiling.
He stopped, glaring at me as he leaned on his mop. “What?”
“You’re very handsome when you clean. Most men are, though.”
“I always regret talking to you.”
He sounded so grouchy, but it just made me laugh.
Arren resumed mopping, but I could’ve sworn maybe I saw his lips twitch in the start of a smile.
Chapter
Thirty
Caldren
The night before the academy was planned to go north for training, I went to see my friends at the Twisted Pines.
We were buried deep in conversation when my lookout called, “We have king’s men inbound.”
“Go through the tunnel,” I told Nora, Morick and Bryden firmly. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to my friends.
Nora’s face had gone tight. But she said, “No, it’s too late. It’s too dangerous. We can’t lose the tunnels.”
“We just have to wait and see what happens next,” Morick agreed.
My father’s Knights stormed the room taking up positions all around the room. One loomed over us, staring straight over our heads, as he posted in front of the fire; I considered pushing him into the flames.
Two knights posted in front of the doors, swords drawn.
King Pend himself strolled through, looking as if he owned the place.