"Why would they offer it to me then?" he asked.
"I imagine they'd have tricked you into making a different sort of deal and then burned the Scroll in front of you. Possibly brought Aydra back from the void but taken Nyssa as hostage somehow. And if they brought Aydra back without performing the ritual, she'd be completely powerless. A ghost of her true self. Not at all the sister you remember but rather a coreless shell of a being."
"Are you saying I made the right choice?"
Hagen considered him. "I'm not sure what kind of deal this is, Prince," he said as he glanced over the scar on Dorian's face. "What I will say is that Lovi and Nadir can tell you. And if they can't, your Sun can. Or they'll say to go to the Nitesh."
Reverie squeezed Dorian's shoulder.
Hagen pushed off the counter. "You can stay here if you want. I've an extra bedroom. The couch is comfy too. But get some rest. I'll call the others before sunrise to meet so you all can get on the road."
Dorian rose from the chair and gave Hagen a nod. Hagen reached him and did something Dorian didn't expect.
He hugged him.
Tear trickling Dorian's cheek, he hugged his friend back. And when Hagen pulled away, he clapped Dorian's cheek. "You should thank the Infi for that new scar, mate," he said playfully.
"Why?"
"Because you're a lot sexier with it," Hagen replied as he gave his cheek two pats and stepped away from him.
Dorian's brows lifted in disbelief. "Sexy? Coming from you?" A tiny smirk rose on his lips that he couldn't deny. "That's the best compliment I've ever gotten."
Hagen grinned. "Katla thinks so too," he winked.
Katla pushed off the counter and came to stand beside Hagen, leaning her bent arm on Hagen's shoulder. Her gaze traveled deliberately over him, and her chin lifted.
"He's not wrong," she finally agreed.
Reverie came up beside Dorian then, and Katla smiled down at her.
"Though I'm inclined to believe you've been claimed, and none of these wandering eyes will get to experience the new Promised King,” Katla teased.
"Not Promised," Dorian said firmly. "No King. Just Dorian."
Katla smiled. "Dorian Eaglefyre. Ruler of Infi. Conqueror of Ghosts. Made of Fire and Crowned with Blood and Obsidian." Her eyes wandered over him again, smirk widening. "I like it."
Despite Dorian's protests that Reverie and Corbin should sleep in the bed and get some well-deserved rest, they refused, insisting they would stay up with him if that's what he wanted to do. Corbin took the chair, Reverie lying on the couch, and Dorian took the floor.
He stayed up staring into the blue flames of the fireplace and turned the Infi crown over in his hands. Stomach churning with all he'd learned just in those few hours. Reverie's fingers scratched the back of his head as she laid behind him. Corbin's quiet snores were the only thing sounding over the dead of the crackling embers.
"Would you do it?" Reverie asked after a while. "The ritual."
Uneasiness settled in his bones, and her fingers slowed against his scalp. He didn't know the answer. He didn't know what he would find himself giving up to perform it.
"I don't know," he managed, voice barely above a whisper.
Reverie leaned up, her lips pressing to his cheek. "I think you do," she said, and he looked back at her. She pushed his hair off the scar, darkened lavender gaze traveling over his face. "But you don't want anyone to know the choice you would make."
Dorian became hyperaware of every scratch of her nails, every dart of her eyes to his lips. "Could you do it?" he asked. "Give up the one you love to free this world?"
A pause rested between them. One that made him curious as to what she thought of. Whether she'd left someone behind at Scindo that she had loved before all this. Perhaps was in love with still.
"No," she finally answered. "No more than you could give up one sister for the other."
“Did you leave someone behind?” he asked. “At Scindo?”
“What—like a lover?”
