I reached out to touch her again. Her wisdom echoed through the boards, deep and joyful and pensive and true. My eyes began to sting.
“I lived for her, and she for me. And I protected her as she had protected me. And I knew I had to keep the King of the Oversea from her shores at all cost. So we spun a magik so wylde…we made the Cloudgate disappear.”
I let out a long-held breath.Theywere the reason the island moved.Theywere the reason it could not be found.
He held my gaze. “And we were happy.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath.
“I was seventeen suns when the ships from the Nethersea found our shores.”
I could hear theTouchstonewhispering, her fury boilingbeneath the boards.
“You have to understand, Aro’el. I had spent the last ten years of my life hating Oversea for the slaughter of the Priestlords. Of my family. Every rune I had learned, every spell I had cast was in preparation for the day we would meet again. For ten years, I grew in magik and plotted my revenge.”
His eyes were a tempest, his jaw tight.
“And one day, an armada arrived at my shores. They were my people, my deliverance, my chance to strike back.”
Oh Forge, I didn’t like where this was going.
“What did you do?” I whispered, my voice thin and barely there.
His breath caught, a muscle twitching in his cheek.
“I taught them how to use chimeric.”
The words struck like cannon fire. Smashed through my chest, sank like iron in my gut. The war. The death. TheDawn Watch. The powder boy. All of it. Every grave, every ruin.
Oh, suns. All of it was his fault.
I wanted to strike out. To scream. To weep. But the sound lodged in my throat, along with my heart.
“Mr. Worley was right. I killed his son. I killed them all,” he said. “I was so filled with anger, with rage, with sorrow. I brought war to every man, woman, and child of the north. Not just her king. Everyone.”
TheTouchstonewas hissing, humming with memories and primal loss. I drew my hand away. This couldn’t be right. This couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be more to blame than those who had spilled blood.
“No,” I said softly. “You’re shouldering too much. We own the wreckage we leave behind, but we can’t carry the pain caused by others.”
The silence stretched between us, and I knew he was considering my words. He was good that way.
“Dev does not know,” he said softly, and he ran a hand across his forehead, made a fist in his dark hair. “He thinks they stole the knowledge. I could not bear to lose him, too.”
“Again, no,” I said. “Dev loves you. You arekel’yia.Brothers. He’d understand.”
I could feel him marshal his breath, the trembles that changed to steel.
“No,” he said. “He will not.”
His gaze caught mine, pain so raw and devastating within. Like the Sheets, it roiled the blue-green oceans that were his eyes. Like the Silence, it stole the breath from my lungs.
“I did not just teach them how to use chimeric, Aro’el,” he said. “I taught them how to use the branches of the RuneTree to carry its power. I was a proud, cocky, desperate boy. Surely she could spare a slight of wood for me, herkel’yion.Her Beloved. Surely, she would approve of my plans for revenge.”
I shook my head, but no sound came.
“But one branch was not enough,” he said. “It would never be enough for men who hunger for more.”
My chest was locked tight. When the words finally tore loose, they came raw, ragged.
