The reminder of his own honor seemed to prickle on his skin. He glared at me but went on. “The Olds have a hundred years of practice wielding their magic. The truth is they’re stronger than any of us royals. And as much as I’ll tell you that I don’t want war—and I genuinely don’t—it’s because we can’t win.”
I thought he was done speaking, but he took a deep breath and went on. “Teris genuinely loves Talisyn, and Gorion genuinely loves Arren, so that complicates things for them. They don’t want to see an uprising where they kill their sons. Jaik’s father would prefer to have a peaceful transfer of power someday, although he’s certainly eager to park his ass in that throne until the last moment. The other two… well I think they have their best intentions to seek out immortality.” He shuddered.
I wanted to ask him follow-up questions, but just like him, I wasn’t wasting a question.
He seemed to continue to mull over my question. Maybe the magic compelled him to give me such an honest answer. Or if it was something that he’d been thinking about, and he finally had the chance to discuss.
“I think the only real chance of taking them down is to find a way to take away their dragons,” he said. “Otherwise, they’re far more powerful than anyone else in the kingdom.. None of the dragon shifters who’ve served alongside them have survived as long as they have, which seems statistically questionable to me. So there’s no one else as strong as they are in the kingdom and even if we had the backing of the other dragon knights, the Olds’ pure magic is so much stronger than ours.”
He paused, then admitted, “It would be a bloodbath. I don’t think we would come out on top.”
“We have to find a way to undragon them,” I agreed. “Is there someone we can talk to that would know how to undragon them?”
“If anyone knew how to undragon the Olds, the Olds would unalive them,” he said. “Anyway, that was your second question.”
“You didn’t answer it completely,” I said. “Are there any books? If you want that to count for a second question, then you have to answer it completely.”
If I could find a book that told me how to undragon them, maybe that book would help me break the spells that they’d bound me with as well.
He hesitated. “Not here. But if we were able to leave the island, another kingdom might have a library that would give us the answers we need. I’m pretty sure that our fathers destroyed a lot of inconvenient books.”
He patted the leather bound books in front of him as if they were old friends. “We’re lucky we still have these. I’ve learned as much as I can. It doesn’t change the fact that my magic is twenty-six years old, not a hundred.”
“Well, how was the Scourge able to kill the old king?” I asked. I’d heard fairy tales about the terrible magic the Scourge had wielded, how many Scourge-cursed had died to bring down the king. But where was the kernel of truth in the legend?
“You’re all done asking me questions,” he said. “I have a question for you. Who are you really, Honor?”
“I really am Honor. I never lied about that. And you know what? I’ll throw this in for free too. I didn’t set out to win the attention of the dragon royals.”
“Likely story,” he said. I was getting really tired of being the villain in his story. Then he went on, “Maybe you didn’t set out to draw in the royals, but you did, and that has consequences for all of us.”
“Maybe there’ll be happy consequences,” I said.
“You’re such an optimist,” he said. Then he added, “I hate optimists.”
I winced as pain darted through my temple, then relaxed.
“That’s it,” he said. “That’s the end of that pain.”
I gazed up at him suspiciously, and he smiled.
“Now it’s time for me to deliver you to Jaik.” He grabbed the extra bottle of potion and gestured me ahead of him. “Go on, Honor.”
Jaik was going to be thrilled.
Chapter
Forty-Three
Honor
Early the next morning, I carried the potion carefully down the stairs to the basement.
Caldren had promised to keep Jaik busy aggravating him.
“Might as well put my special skill set to use,” Caldren had said.
“It took you a long time to come back,” Lucien said when I stepped into the room. It seemed he was trying to say it lightly, but there was a genuine worry in his voice.
“I’ll always come back, Lucien, until you’re free. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“I’m not,” he lied. “I trust you.”
“I brought you breakfast,” I said. “And I brought you the truth potion.”
I handed him a cup, and lofted my own.
“How do I know that’s really what this is?”
I stared at him in exasperation. “I’m working pretty damn hard to save you, Lucien, when I could just close the basement door and never bring you soup again. I’m not going to keep trying to convince you I’m a good person.”
“I know you’re a good person. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, I just have to protect Alina.”
“I know,” I said more gently, already feeling guilty. I never should have threatened him about something as important as soup. I raised the glass again. “To truth and freedom.”
He clinked his glass with mine, no matter how doubtful he looked. Then we both drained our cups.
He gagged. “Oh, that’s disgusting.” He was still grimacing as he asked me, “How long does it take to work?”
“It should be good now.”
He nodded, then asked, “What was your relationship with your parents like?”
“They’re both gone, so I’d like to pretend they’d be proud of me.”
“I know that feeling,” he agreed. “What do you see in those guys?”
He raised his finger to point upward.
“Caldren told you about them last night, hm?”
“They treat us terribly.”
“Well, to be fair, they think you enchanted Alina to fall in love with you, which would be unforgivable. But you get the chance to fix that now if they’re wrong. But they don’t treat me badly—I’d never stay with anyone who treated me wrong.”
He didn’t seem terribly convinced by that.
“I know that they seem like assholes. But that’s just the way they act to the outside world.
It’s not who they are all the time when it’s just us, and the way they love each other tells me that they’re more than their asshole moments.”
I was talking a lot. The potion was in full effect. From the look on Lucien’s face, he realized that too.
“I want to be on the inside,” I said wistfully.
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes. I think so. Maybe. Sometimes.”
“Seems like they treat you better than they treat me at least.”
“But they don’t know the real me. I don’t know how they’ll react when they find out.”
“I think you’re going to be disappointed in them,” he said. “I’ve known a lot of nobles in my time.”
“So have I,” I pointed out.
“Men are almost always disappointing, but noblemen are the worst.” He looked confused. “I can’t believe I just said that. I’m a nobleman.”
“It’s the potion.”
“I guess it is,” he muttered.
“If you accept it’s working now, listen to me,” I said urgently. “I’m on your side, Lucien. I’m not working for Pend, there’s no trick here. I want to help you and Alina.”