The essence brightened in his eyes. “Vikter was right.”
“About what?”
Holland smiled faintly, causing the deep-brown skin at his eyes to crinkle. “He once told me you weren’t as reckless as her.”
My throat constricted as I jerked back a step.
“Seraphena, that is,” he said quietly.
I exhaled a short breath. I’d thought he had been talking about…theotherher. “Oh.”
“She has…knee-jerk reactions when it comes to her temper. A hair trigger,” Holland explained. “She would’ve burned the whole realm. But you would not, and that is a good thing. You will never know the horrors of the devastation giving in to your anger can inflict.”
I thought about Lord Mazeen and the guards on the Oak Ambler Rise and about how I felt less mortal each day. “I don’t know about that.”
“Not on the scale that she’s painfully familiar with,” he said quietly, and my gaze flew to his. “But Casteel? He would burn through the realms for you.”
The memory of the shadowy, crimson-streaked eather appearing in Casteel’s flesh had me going completely still.
“And he would do so without remorse,” Lirian added. “Which is why Vikter was incorrect. It is not your presence here that worries the other Fates. It is your husband.”
CHAPTER 15
POPPY
My lips flattened as a stinging iciness slowly crept into my veins. I moved so I could keep both Ancients in my line of sight. “You’re wrong. Both of you.”
“We’re not, and you know it. It’s not the act itself we disagree on,” Lirian objected. “It’s the aftermath. Because you love him, you believe he would feel remorse; therefore, preventing such an action.”
“I believe that because Iknowhim,” I seethed as anger throbbed. I swore I felt the faint stirrings of eather. “You’re right about what I would do, but you’re also wrong. I would do everything in my power to prevent the loss of life, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t risk it all if there was no other way.”
“There is always a way,” Holland said simply.
I was so close to losing my patience. “You’re both completely wrong about Casteel. He’s not a monster who cares nothing for others.”
“I’m not saying that. Caring for others and remorse are not mutually exclusive, contrary to what some believe,” Holland said. “We meant no insult.”
I glanced at the other Fate. He had turned to face us. “Sure doesn’t sound like that to me.”
“I would say the same thing about Seraphena, and she is like a daughter to me, much like you are to Vikter,” Holland said asif to reassure me. Like with Lirian, he failed. “You’re still angry. Not just because of what I said about Casteel.”
“I’m not angry. I’mfurious. We could’ve helped those people in some way. Saved hundreds—if not more—lives. But you stopped me from doing what I was drawn there to do.”
“Helping them was not why you were drawn there,” Lirian countered.
“Then why was I?”
Holland turned and made his way to the chairs I’d briefly sat in with Vikter. “Did Lirian offer you something to drink?”
“There’s no…” I trailed off, seeing a tray with a black carafe and slender glasses.
“A drink?” Holland picked up the carafe.
I had no desire to drink from something that had appeared out of thin air. “No, thank you.”
“You’re not going to ask me?” Lirian asked.
“No.”
