“You do not.” Cvareh wouldn’t hear it.
“How much time did I spend with her because ‘you cannot trust yourself to be in her presence’?” Cain threw Cvareh’s past words from when he arrived on Nova back at him. “You never said why, but clearly it’s because you can’t handle her for longer than a few days before you would force yourself on her.”
Cvareh lunged. Cain side-stepped and Cvareh twisted to meet him. He kept his fists balled, claws contained. He wanted to pummel Cain, but he wouldn’t make his fellow Xin bleed. Not yet at least.
His fist connected with Cain’s face. The other man reeled. Claws jutted from sea foam hands. Cvareh pushed forward and slammed Cain against the tack wall, pressing him into the shelves and leathers, one hand on his wrist.
“Do not challenge me, Cain,” Cvareh snarled, his mouth wide and teeth bared.
“If I do, will you fight me in the pit, Xin’Ryu?” Cain gnashed his teeth back at Cvareh as he spoke. “Or will you send your Chimera? Will you have a woman from the land below do your fighting?”
He wanted to peel Cain’s skin off one strip at a time. He wanted to throw the man on the floor and cut down through muscle and sinew to bone. He would gnaw on his innards and feast on his heart. Cvareh had never bested Cain before in a fight, practice or otherwise. But he knew in that moment he could. Fighting for Arianna somehow made him more vicious than he’d ever been. It gave him a reason to be more dangerous than he’d ever thought possible. Dangerous enough to kill even a Xin. For her.
Cvareh threw Cain away. The man stumbled but spun, ready for a continued attack. None came.
“You have made a fool of yourself with this, Cain’Da. Abandon this folly, and return to the obliging man this House needs.” Cvareh straightened.
“You know the depth of my loyalty to our House.” Cain waited for Cvareh to challenge. He didn’t. “Do you think I would question you or Petra if I didn’t think it was in our best interest?”
His heart sang the truth of Cain’s words. Despite his means, the man worked toward an end he truly believed was best for their House. Cvareh sighed heavily. The fact would keep him alive. “I will keep this from Petra for now, for our friendship. For she would flay you for your disobedience.”
Cain had no objection. The man might think he could handle Cvareh in a row, but Petra was another force altogether. The only Dragon foolish enough to challenge the Xin’Oji was the Dono himself. They were titans among men and women.
And they both fear Arianna. Cvareh’s mind betrayed him. He snarled at the echo of Cain’s words twisting in his mind. Petra feared nothing. Petra only needed an ally.
“Return to the Xin Manor, and pray to Lord To for wisdom in this.” Cvareh threw a saddle on the boco at random, tightening it for punctuation. “And pray to every Lord and Lady you have breath for that I do not reconsider letting Petra know of your misgivings.”
A darkness lurked over Cain’s features that Cvareh had never seen before, least of all directed at him. The man had been his friend, his brother, and he was determined to dig a chasm between them so wide that Cvareh could not jump across. Cain saw one possible future, a bleak place where Cvareh would be forced to choose between his House and the woman he had come to love. He gripped the boco’s reins, leading it from the stable with a flutter of wings.
“Cvareh’Ryu,” Cain called. Cvareh should have never stopped. He should have not allowed any more of Cain’s poison words through his ears and into his mind. “That woman will be your undoing. If you wish to damn yourself with her, fine. But for the love of Xin, do not damn the rest of us by taking her into the House’s bed, too.”
Cvareh did not dignify the statement with a response.
33. Yveun
“She means to make a fool of you.” Coletta nursed a glass of wine, reclining in a chaise.
“That much is apparent to anyone with eyes.” Yveun continued to pace the room. It was large and open, with a gaping maw of a balcony and tall ceilings. It was more elegant than he wanted to admit and befitting of his station—which fed his anger further. Petra insulted him with one hand, while lauding him with the other. She toed the line finely enough that he could not challenge without seeming in the wrong to the masses.
“What is also apparent is that you are letting her.” Coletta regarded him with eyes the same color as the drink she consumed. Eyes that stripped him bare. Eyes that judged him even more harshly than he judged himself.
“I have not—”
“You are the Dono.” When Coletta wished to be heard, none would interrupt her. None would sway her. She was not a flashy weapon like most Dragons, and was all the more deadly for it. “You only do what you wish.”
“You would not have had me sit in the place Petra prepared at the Court.”
“I would not have had Petra organize the Court at all.”
He loved and hated his mate all the more when she was right.
“You did not consult me before this whole affair and you took a half measure on the matter, Yveun,” Coletta admonished. “You wanted to make a statement by holding the Court on Ruana. But you merely gave Petra the opportunity to show Nova what a Cobalt Court would look like. The only thing Dono about you today was the title servants called you as they fattened you on Xin food and drink while you sat out of sight and out of mind of the people.”
His claws strained against his fingers from the tension he put them under. Still Coletta sat, and sipped, and spoke.
“You sent a half-trained ‘Master Rider’ into the fray, who was made into an even larger fool than you by an Anh.” She straightened slightly. “I gave you Leona. I instructed you to nurse her in every way a man can. You had one of the greatest tools of our past forty years of work, and you wasted her.”
“There is something deeper here.” Yveun knew there must be. He would not let so much power slip through his hands otherwise. There was a variable he was still missing. “The Chimera on Loom—”
“You would blame your shortcomings on a Chimera.” Coletta stood, walking to the balcony. “That is the only thing I could imagine to be worse than blaming them on Petra.”
Yveun watched as the small-framed Dragon ventured out into the night. She possessed all the grace of a Dono. But Coletta had never desired the title. She couldn’t win it by normal measures, so it had suited her better to attach herself to him. They needed each other in different ways.
“It is only through half measures that these things are allowed to happen.” She raised her wine to her lips again, savoring the taste. “And if they continue, you will lose everything, Yveun.”
She didn’t say “we” or “House Rok”. The statement was so pointed, it was nearly a threat. She wanted him to be made aware that the House would live without him. She would live without him.