After a moment she nodded, forcing herself to go on. “To watch my sister, you mean.”
His concentration slipped at the rustle of leaves, an icy wind that flipped Brianna’s hair into her face. She reached up, tucking it behind her ear, and he sent another impulse toward the guards. “Yes,” he offered, fighting against the draw of a near-constant push to so many shadows and at too far a distance, “the chosen.”
“Why?” she said. “Why do they want her, Callan?”
At the urgency in her tone, the desperation in his name, his eyes came back to her. He could tell her this. He could tell her enough to keep her safe. To get her away from here so that all of his work would not be in vain. “The ancient shadows,” he said, “they have a prophecy of their own.”
Her brows drew together in a way that made her look suddenly younger, frail, and she moved toward him. It was only a step, a small shift, but he had to fight the desire to touch her, to make her submit to the connection here and now. And then he realized she was waiting, desperate for the words of this unknown prophecy. Because it had been kept from her.
By him.
“Brianna,” he whispered, “you shouldn’t be here.”
“You pushed Morgan,” she hissed. “You manipulated events to get us here. You. Killed. Brendan.”
The practiced cool fell over his features at the change in her, his automatic response to threat. He let his gaze drift down, trail the line of her neck, linger a moment too long before coming back as he considered his response. She knew they’d controlled Morgan, but she hadn’t realized why. She still didn’t understand the danger of their sway or why the others would destroy her. He said, “There is only one way out of this, Brianna,” and she flinched.
“Why?” she asked again. “Why are you helping them?”
It was the wrong question. She should have been asking why he was helping her, why he’d risked himself. But he only answered with the truth. “My father helped hide you,” he said. “He aided your mother, bound you from your powers, and he was branded for it. Exiled.”
He felt the recognition from her, knew that she understood what he’d meant. Acacius had not been burned, not turned away. He had been destroyed, his mind emptied in the way that Callan had emptied Brendan’s.
His name was not to be spoken.
Callan felt a momentary jolt at the words, because they were not his own. But he didn’t have time to question it.
“Your mother wanted this for you, Brianna,” he said. “She believed in the prophecy, for you to join the heir to the dragon’s name.”
The dragon, he felt her think. And then, at the very edge of his grasp, Dracosicarie. Dragon Slayer.
“You have to get out of here,” he warned. “My power is slipping and I cannot hold them off much longer. Do you understand me, Brianna? They will kill you.”
Her gaze, far away, came back to him then, somehow full of more questions than when she’d first appeared. “My mother,” she whispered. “My mother wanted this.”
“She would have told you herself,” Callan promised. “She would have shown you, when you were ready. If only Morgan hadn’t pushed her too far. It was Morgan, Brianna. He was a danger to you. To all of this. We had to stop him.”
He could sense her on the precipice, so near to falling into his control. He needed her, had to convince her before she stepped off this property. But she had to leave now. Things were getting too close. She was risking them. He could feel the future he’d worked for tearing from his grasp as he spoke.
And he was losing his focus. “Brianna,” he said again, securing her by the arm to lead her to the edge of the trees. “She tried to tell you. Before Morgan took her, before he choked the last breath of life from her body, she tried to tell you. The letter, Brianna, look to the letter.”
There was a sudden stillness in the air as Brianna stopped, one small instant of respite from the wind and cold, the rustle of leaves, and Callan’s step faltered as he turned to look at her face.
She stood, expression blank, green eyes wide. Her voice was dead, tone void of all emotion when she said, “He didn’t kill her.”