“Tell me!” Arianna screamed. “Give me a reason, Cvareh. Tell me why I don’t kill you!” Her hand quivered like a shackle was still attached, holding it back from diving into his chest.
They were running out of time, especially if she kept drawing attention with noise and blood. “Because I love you.”
Arianna’s face twisted as the invisible soldiers who fought wars in the dark battlefields of her mind plunged their claws into her all at once. “That’s not good enough.”
“Because I love you, and because you love me in return.”
Her eyes shot wide open. “I do not.”
“Why didn’t you kill me then, on the airship? Why not after? Why not on Nova, when I avoided you because I could no longer stand being in the same room as you without touching your skin? Why not when I brought you my brother’s hands? Why not a moment ago? Why not now? Why?” He needed to hear it as much as she needed to say it. They’d been dancing around it for so long, a waltz on the deck of a swan-diving airship.
“Because... because I want my boon.”
“Then why haven’t you spent this precious boon?” he pressed. She was too logical for this.
“Because I don’t know what I want.”
He sighed softly. “Yes, you do. You want this. You want me.”
“I only wanted you for a night.” Fallacy colored her magic.
“You wish that were true.”
“Damn you, Cvareh.” She cursed loudly. “Damn you!”
Arianna pushed away from him, swaying as she stood.
“You want to kill my brother. I want to see you do it. Petra’s already marked him for dead! You want to free Loom from Dragon rule, and Petra will give that to you. I will help.”
“I—”
“No more objections, Arianna. You know it’s true just as you’ve known all along that the man who betrayed you was closely connected to me. Perhaps, somewhere in that brilliant mind of yours, you’d already deduced the possibility of our familial ties.” Cvareh appealed to her sense of logic, her sense of reason. She was too smart not to have put it together. Even if she hadn’t consciously admitted it, she knew it was true.
“Everything has changed,” Arianna whispered.
“Nothing has changed,” he insisted. “There’s not much time. Come back with me to Ruana.”
“This isn’t about you,” she said sharply. “The King, he said something, something about destroying the guilds. I have to return to Loom.”
“Yveun Dono would never.”
“You’re clearly delusional if you really believe that he would not resort to whatever extreme he deemed necessary.” The very statement made him wonder if she somehow knew of the poisoned wine.
“We’ll be stronger together.”
“I don’t even know if I want to look at you.” The raw honesty of the statement cut him low. “I’m going to find a glider, and I’m going home.”
Arianna started for the door. Cvareh reached out, grabbing her wrist, stopping her. He couldn’t let her leave, not like this. She, the woman who had so claimed his heart, was leaving, and he honestly had no idea if she would ever return to him. If she would ever let him return to her.
She stared down at the offending hand, clearly waiting to see if he was going to willingly remove it or if she needed to cut it off. Cvareh chose the former.
“Ari, I’ll wait.”
“For what?”
“For when Loom is ready to join my House in this fight.” He pointed to his ear, reminding her of the whisper link they established and that either had yet to break.
Arianna stared at him with her violet eyes for one long moment. They scanned his face as if memorizing its every curve and edge. He wondered what she saw in him.
“We don’t need you,” she whispered. “You’ll only betray us again.”
“Do not lump me with my brother’s sins because it is easer for you to remain angry!”
She started down the hall once more, ignoring the comment. Cvareh watched as the first and only woman he had ever loved marched willingly into the hornet’s nest of enemies that was House Rok. He wished desperately to know what she was thinking, just once.
Arianna paused and spoke without turning, “Don’t whisper me first, Cvareh. Or I will know that everything was merely for your House, and Loom will never side with you.”
Cvareh stared long after she was gone, the image of her back imprinted on his eyes. To most, the statement would seem like the definitive end of all possibilities. But not to Cvareh. He’d come to know something of the White Wraith’s logic. And in the smallest corner of his heart, it gave him hope.
For if she cautioned him against an action that would make her not work with him, it meant that despite everything, the woman still considered him her ally. She still regarded them as a possibility, perhaps even an inevitability if nothing further was damaged between them. Repeating this fact to himself, Cvareh started back through the estate, making haste through every hallway, killing the two servants who saw him.
Petra was doing an exceptional job of keeping the place busy, for he hardly ran into anyone on his way out.
49. Arianna
There was a swirling tempest in her chest. Its winds caught pains old and new, blending them with loves familiar and yet to be fully realized. The longer she spent in his presence, the greater the likelihood it would tear her apart.
She didn’t want to love someone at the cost of her ideals. She didn’t want to need someone attached to the murderer of the last person she needed. She didn’t want to set her heart free in a world that was slowly shifting closer and closer to the end of days.
She had spent too long on Nova. She had let her mind be swept away by music and paintings. She had let her body grow fat with magic, let her mind languish. She needed to return to Loom. There, everything would make sense again. She would remember who she was and what she needed to do.
Arianna gouged out a Dragon’s throat with a grunt of frustration. Her claws severed the spine and she cast the body aside, continuing onward.
The truth continued to stare her in the face every time she caught a glimpse of the blue of the nighttime heavens. The hue reminded her of the curtains in her room at the Xin Manor, reminiscent of the color of the sky when she and Cvareh set out for the temple.
She did love him. Despite everything, it was true. Of course, if she was going to fall in love again, it’d be a Dragon. And would she pick just any Dragon? No, she had to pick the brother of Rafansi. The traitor. Finnyr.
Arianna slammed a Dragon against the wall. It was a tiny thing, and had been trying to avoid being seen at all. The boy let out an almost-squeak at the feeling of her claws pressing into his chest.
“Gliders, where are they?” she snarled.
The child nearly wet himself.
“Gliders.” Her claws bit through his flimsy Dragon clothes and into his skin. “Maybe I’ll let you live if you tell me where they are.”
“Up those stairs.” He pointed. “Down the hall, second corridor, and out.”