Stig was in charge. The king had appointed him Lord of the Borderlands. I fought down a humorless laugh. His power-hungry father must be so pleased. To have the north go from the Beast’s domain to the control of his precious son … What a coup.
I felt sick all over again. Stig was responsible for those bodies on pikes outside the town. The room was suddenly spinning around me.
I had been wrong to stop Fell that day in the woods when he’d moved to finish off Stig. If I had not gotten between them, Stig would be dead and not torturing innocent people. I’d been wrong. Wrong about so many things. Starting with entrusting the truth of myself to Stig.
I sat motionless before the tankard in front of me, my fingers twitching around the rough clay, willing the room to stop spinning.
Perhaps Stig was not entirely responsible. It was a desperate hope, and I grasped for it with frantic hands. Perhaps he was oblivious to the nefarious deeds of his soldiers.
Arran’s gaze darted around the taproom as he spoke, clearly cautious that we not be overheard. “Famine and bandits are no longerthe greatest threats in the north.” He paused. “Now it’s him. They call him the Terror of the Borderlands, you know.”
No. I didn’t know, and I wished I didn’t know now.
I wished I was still living in blissful ignorance of this development. I wished that I could turn away from this new truth, the dawn of yet another reality that tore me up and left me raw and bruised inside.
He continued. “Doesn’t have quite the same ring as Beast, does it?”
“No.” My lips formed numbly around the word.
I far preferred the Beast of the Borderlands.
“That demonstration outside town? Unsurprising for the Terror.”
I blinked back the sting of tears.Stig, what have you become?
I moistened my lips. “Why would he do such a thing?” I muttered this more to myself than to them.
“Because he can,” Vetr replied swiftly, clearly without thought, because it was a simple matter to him. Humans did terrible things. Same story. End of story.
“They say he’s mad,” Arran offered. “He set his soldiers loose on the north like a bushfire, demanding greater tithes, killing and punishing any who can’t pay, any who dare speak out in opposition, putting to the pyre anyone with even a whiff of witchery about them.”
A lump formed in my burning throat as clarity seized me. I had done this. It was me. I lit this devouring fire.
Stig coming face-to-face with a dragon—a dragon he’d been taught was a blight on humankind, a dragon who happened to be someone he believed a lifelong friend—had pushed him over the edge and turned him into the Terror of the Borderlands.
“Any people who speak out against him or his soldiers are treated to what you witnessed coming into town—”
“You mean that was not a singular event?” I demanded bleakly.
Arran looked grim. “Impalement has become common practice.” He sent another guarded look about them. “Word is that group was meeting in private, recruiting and fomenting a rebellion.” He shrugged. “Someone turned on them.”
The people of the north were suffering.Dying.Because of Stig.
Because of me.
I felt sick with guilt. Gray-green eyes flashed across my mind.
If I hadn’t revealed myself to Stig, then he and Fell would never have fought. Fell would still be ensconced in his role as Lord of the Borderlands. Those people would still be alive.
So much death. So much misery. So much blood … and it was all on my hands.
Vetr sighed heavily, as though weary of this conversation. “Have you heard any talk of matters that actually concern us?”
I looked at him reproachfully. He might as well have said:Because human matters do not concern us.At least not unless they directly affected us.
“Just that the Terror’s army is venturing more into the Crags than ever before.”
Vetr nodded, his brow furrowing. “Our patrols have already noticed this. Any idea why?”
