“Stop,” I hiss. I try to push him back, but the erevas still holds me.
Don’t think of it.
Don’t think of any of it.
But Darian continues, from my hip to my back, his hand slipping in between the wall and my body. “And he whipped you here.”
The words strike against my skin, harsh with anger.
Behind him, Eres moves closer, his eyes narrowing as he folds his arms. But he doesn’t interrupt.
“Who are you?” Darian asks me, his hand dropping away. He captures my face between his palms, examining me. “I saw what he did to you. I felt every bit of it. How the fuck are you still standing?”
Eres’s expression shifts into something resembling disgust, his lips twisting. “Lightbringers have excellent healers.”
Duskbane comes to stand beside him, his brow drawn. “Who exactly ishe? What did you see?”
“I can’t keep this hidden,” Darian whispers, so low I barely catch it. “The truth, Lyra.”
My mind flicks from thought to thought, memory to memory, all of them focused onhim—
“Ah,” Darian breathes heavily. And my eyes widen as he lifts his hands away. His smile is close to apologetic. Almost sad. “So there it is.”
Foolish. I’m making foolish,foolishmistakes.
If Duskbane didn’t have me pinned, I’d likely fall. “Please step away from me.”
This time, he listens. Darian shifts, and I notice he moves between me and the prince staring at me as if he’d tear into my mind himself. If he could, I have no doubt that he would.
I lick my lips. “I told you that I was an orphan.”
Nothing. They wait, all three of them. Faces implacable, unreadable. I have the strong sense that if I make a misstep here, I won’t make it out of Duskbane’s shadows at all.
I force out the air caught in my lungs, let it go, and resign myself.
Perhaps this plan might have worked.
If only they didn’t have a dreamwalker.
If only Cindral hadn’t shattered my plans by leaving me for dead in the snow.
If only Eres hadn’t bound me in loyalty and kindness.
If, if, if.
“My name is Lyra Vaelion. And my father is Commander Vaelion.”
None of them move as seconds pass. Darian lets out a long, slow breath. He still looks shaken from his unwelcome visit into some of my childhood memories.
“What?” Eres takes a step toward me before stopping. “That’s impossible. We know his offspring.”
“You won’t find my name on the list,” I whisper. I lift my eyes enough to glimpse Kaelen Duskbane’s face. The shock. The tightening of his jaw, the darkness that steals across his expression.
“Why not?” Eres glances at Kaelen as well. Gauging his reaction, perhaps.
I lift one shoulder as best I can against my restraints. “You would need to ask him that. I’m not recognized publicly. My mother wasn’t high-born. An unknown. She left me with him.”
Truth. Truth woven between missing information, and with it comes the familiar brief tug of pain long since pushed aside. My eyes slip to Darian. My survival—at least beyond the night—all depends on how much he saw inside my head. How much heknows. But he’s leaning forward, as though this is new to him.
