“What do you mean?”
“I mean… the child… it was not a gift to Haerland.”
“You’re telling me a child of mine is not—”
Duarb held a quiet hand up and shook his head. “Listen to me, my son,” he said, finally meeting Draven’s eyes. “You heard her say it yourself. Today. In the Throne Room. Remember?”
Draven felt his gaze narrow, and he tried to remember everything Arbina had said, if anything stuck out to him.
And then the sentence hit him.
I wondered how long it would take for you to find him.
His heart dropped, and he felt his fist tighten on itself. “She planned this?”
Duarb stayed silent for a moment, his heel tapping nervously against the stone. “She’s planned it since I was forced into my tree,” he said softly. “Since our last fight. She’s had it out for me. Always telling me she had something that would one day bring me to my knees. And she was right.”
Draven could see the water glistening in his eyes.
“She’s known what would happen if a child was conceived. She knew the people would think it sorcery, an abomination. Unnatural. And she allowed it to happen anyway. But only if her daughter mated with one of mine.”
Draven stared at the bars in front of him, feeling the anger swelling in his core.
“Arbina has always been the master manipulator. The Infi children I was cursed with… even they cannot touch her level of betrayal to this land. Everything she does is a lie. She dared them to freeze her roots because she wanted to show she could not be frozen. The pool around her roots would simply not allow it—”
“Then how do I burn her?” came the words from Draven’s lips.
Duarb stared at Draven for a long moment, and Draven could see the contemplation in his eyes, the knowing sadness bubbling through his being. Duarb stood then and went to the window where only one tiny sliver of the remaining moon shown above the water. He looked back at Draven’s sitting figure.
“I think you know.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
AYDRA WAS BARELY conscious. She felt arms underneath her as she was carried up more and more stairs. She wasn’t sure where she was being taken. She could hear the beach in her ears, and every time she glimpsed light it was from the fire torch.
“Aydra—”
The noise of Draven’s voice made her ears perk. She struggled to open her eyes, desperate to see where he was. She heard iron doors, shouting, and then the sound of something being thrown against the wall.
Which she realized was actually her own body.
“—for this. ALL OF YOU!” she heard Draven bellow.
The room spun around her, and it was barely a second before she felt his arms picking her up and then his body behind hers. She groaned as she tried to bring herself out of whatever poisoned tonic they had given her.
“Draven…”
His arms squeezed around her from behind, and he kissed her cheek. “I’m here,” he whispered.
Her subconscious slipped, for how long she wasn’t sure. The next she woke, she was still cradled in his arms, and she could hear his soft snores behind her. She forced herself to turn around so that she could see his face.
The sight of it brought tears to her eyes.
His beautiful face, marred with a purple bruise and long scratch on his cheek from where he’d been hit with the pommel of the sword. His lip cut open, dried blood in his beard. She reached up to his cheek and pressed her lips softly against his.
He stirred, his hands gently pressing against her waist, and he kissed her back. When she opened her eyes, she was met with the glistening sage eyes she swore into memory. A slow tear trickled down his cheek, and she wiped it away.
She didn’t know the words to say. Sitting in his arms on their final night together… Condemned for the only true love she’d ever felt. Her death she did not care about. She knew this day would come. She had known since the night she kissed him at banquet in front of everyone.
