“Technically, I’m not asking you to help me at all.”
“Yeah,” he huffs, folding his arms over his chest. “You’re just asking me to tell you where the dragons are and then to pretend I don’t know you are going to rush there and get yourself killed.”
I give him a deadpan stare. “Tell me where they are.”
“No. No, I’m not going to.”
Standing from the couch, I prowl towards him, my lips in a grim line.
“Is that supposed to intimidate me, Little Sister?” he asks, though I don’t miss the way he adjusts his stance closer to where his weapons are on the table to his right. “Don’t forget, I trained you.”
“I’m a hundred years old. Calling me ‘little sister’ is an insult to us both. And you may have trained me, but it’s been a long time since you’ve seen me fight.” I stop a foot in front of him, fingers tapping along the hilt of my dagger. The one I stole from our father. Navin’s gaze drops to it, and despite the seriousness of our discussion, the left side of his mouth curves up.
“You don’t outgrow being a little sister—”
“Navin.” He doesn’t shrink from me, he never has, but he hardens his own shields. While I may have taunted him with my dagger, he knows my tongue can cut sharper than any blade. Guilt and shame slam into me, reminding me that I’ve made the only person who has ever cared about me enough to risk his life build a shield to protect himself from my ire. But I’ve already accepted the fact that I’m a lost cause when it comes to being decent. Navin deserves better, and the only way I can pay him back for all he’s done for me is to give him the freedom I know he wants.
And I need my fucking dragon to do that.
“Glare at me all you want. Curse me out and tell me you wish I were dead. It’s not going to matter.” His chest heaves, and my withered heart clenches at the way his face contorts into something tortured. “You may have a death wish, but I care about your life enough for the both of us. So you can fuck right off.”
I blink at his brashness, momentarily stunned as I watch him run a hand through his hair.
“Was that too much?” he finally asks, breaking the stilted silence.
“No,” I answer, tilting my head back as I blow out a breath. “Though Iappreciatewhat you’ve said, Navin, I have to go.”
“Why?” It’s a question that comes out as a plea. “Why can’t you let this go?”
Maybe it’s the exhaustion that lingers over me like the faint mists that coat our kingdom, but I don’t want to have this fight. Not when each second that ticks by could be Sunis’s last as an unbonded dragon. Leveling my gaze again with his, I drop my own shields.
“Not everyone has someone likeyouto rescue them,” I begin. Navin’s eyes widen, his body stilling as he doesn’t even dare to breathe too loudly. “For most in Khargis, there is no one to help them. No one to force them to greet each day with a new sense of purpose after they were sure there was nothing left to live for. When Daiya—” I trip over my own words, my brain used to shutting all thoughts of her down. But I force them out. For Navin’s sake. For Sunis’s. “When she lied about us being in love after we were caught—when she so easily convinced everyone that I forced her to be with me—it began a chain of events that would leave me angry that I woke up each morning to face an existence where I was so sureno onewanted me. I felt ashamed. Unworthy.Uncleanin my own body. In my ownhead. If you had not recognized that I was sinking beneath the surface, I would have drowned. In Khargis, so many get put throughhorrificthings, and they have no one else to help them but the Shadow.”
“What you see as me running towards my death is actually me saving myself from it. This is my purpose, and without it, I havenothing. But I can enact more change if I become the true heir. If I bond a dragon, the first female ever to do so, and show our father the impossible. After all, his precious godssurelywouldn’t allow a bond to happen unless it was supposed to.”The last statement is given with sarcastic flair, and Navin smiles. “And I get to free you from being trapped in a position you did not ask for.”
His gaze softens as he reaches out a hand to awkwardly pat my shoulder. “You don’t have to do anything for me. I’m happy to be in this role if it helps keep you safe.”
I lay my hand over his, squeezing it once before letting it go. “But this isn’t just about me, Navin. Or you. It’s so much bigger than that.”
He nods, bringing his hand to his face as he covers his mouth in contemplation. “Well, fuck,” he curses, shaking his head. “I suppose I can’t argue with any of that.”
For the first time since my last meeting with Aria, the corner of my mouth quirks. Navin eyes it, a victorious look settling over him.Idiot.
“I’m not going to tell you where it is.” Anger immediately floods my veins, and I lift my upper lip in a snarl as I take a step towards him, my fist raised. “Because,” he drawls, walking over to the desk in the corner and sliding a piece of paper and pen over. “I’m going toshowyou.”
I open my mouth in protest, but it snaps shut at the serious look he sends me.
“I’m going with you. That’s the deal. We do this together.” Seeing the conflict in my eyes, he amends his statement. “We dojustthis together. I’m not asking to interfere with your vigilante enterprise. But youaremy little sister, and regardless of how fearsome I know you are, I’m using my leverage as your brother to bully you into this.”
I grit my teeth but relent, giving him a curt nod. “Fine. How do you even know about where he is keeping them?”
Navin shrugs, far too casually. “When I found out about the mages, he offered to show me where it was happening.” Something bitter rises up my throat before I can stop it at thenotion that Navin didn’t even need toaskfor information. That our father viewed him as valuable enough to tell him outright. He claps his hands together once before waving me over as he begins to draw a map. “Now, let’s discuss how to break into one of our kingdom’s best kept secrets.”
Chapter One Hundred and One: Myla
KingKamonRyuu,rulerof the fae, has a fuckingcompoundnortheast of the palace, hidden within a mountain range where the mist coats the peaks in near perpetuity. And even if it didn’t, King’s Riders patrol the air in shifts so it’s never left unguarded. It’s impenetrable. Or it would be, if not for Navin.
“I don’t like this plan,” he says for what has to be the fifth time as we walk down the corridor towards our rooms after having early evening tea with our mother. The idea was mine, to ensure that people saw both of our faces today before we left for the remainder of the evening. Navin had told our mother that I would be entering a night of prayer not at the temple attached to the palace but at one located on theholy grounds. A place that, allegedly, had been the very spot where the Fae Kingdom was born into existence by the touch of Khaos. The brethren had built a temple over the land and required yearly visits for all royalty and nobility. Everyone else was banned from even setting foot in the area. But Navin had promised our mother that he would take me there and ensure I spent the proper time in the reverent place. It is utter shit, but she bought the lie easily.
