Dorian contemplated her. "You seem to know a lot about our politics."
"I grew up as my father's firstborn," Reverie said nonchalantly. "The only woman in our village to learn combat and read the stories of old."
"You mean the lies of old," Dorian corrected her.
"Lies?" Reverie balked.
"Yes," Dorian affirmed. "Lies."
Reverie sat down her blade. "The only lies I know are those told by the traitorous king you seem to follow," she argued. "Second only to the one who burned down your own kingdom and murdered some of my friends. I do not understand how you are not furious with the Venari. Their king killed your people. He is the reason your sister is dead. He seduced and brainwashed her into submission just like Duarb did to Arbina."
Dorian had expected this. He had expected every lie told by his predecessors and the Council to be burning on the surface of her mind. Once more, he stifled his true self down, and he rubbed his hands together. He exchanged another look with Corbin, who huffed under his breath and shook his head.
"You'll be at it all night with this if you start," Corbin said to him. "Save it for another. We need to be alert when we meet our friends tomorrow."
"What and let her walk around believing those lies?" Dorian said.
"Rather her believe them one more night than you starting a fire inside this cave with little chance of us escaping."
Dorian glared at Corbin, but he knew he was right.
"Excuse me?" Reverie cut in.
"He's exaggerating," Dorian muttered.
“Am I?” Corbin said.
Dorian told them he would take first watch after they'd eaten. Corbin had been grateful, but in truth, Dorian didn't know if he could sleep. Reverie's accusations rang through his mind. Her words of Draven seducing Aydra—lies he knew were circulating in every village. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to counter them and prove them differently.
He took to sharpening his own blades during his watch, counting every stroke of the whetstone as days since it had all happened. Counting calmed his mind, as did tedious work of something so simple. A constant truth he could depend on to still be the truth the next day and the next.
It was something he and Nyssa had learned to do together when her anxiety would get the better of her.
He held onto those numbers and continued to count until his brother's blade was so sharp, touching the edge cut through his finger as though it were butter.
And he didn't wake up.
The slight pain jetted through his flesh and reminded him that this nightmare was his reality.
A rumbling sounded around him. Swords were being drawn. There was shouting. The sound of punches throwing. Horses stamping and whinnying wildly.
Dorian cursed as he forced himself awake.
The scene before him was exactly as he'd pictured it in his mind.
Reverie was trying to take on two of the Blackhands that had come to retrieve them.
Dorian sat up and rubbed his forehead. He noticed Corbin sitting on the rock beside him, lazily cutting an apple and eating it off his knife.
"How long's she been at it?" Dorian grumbled.
Corbin shrugged. "Couple minutes," he replied. "Pretty entertaining. She was on Dag's shoulders a second ago."
"Impressive," Dorian yawned. "Where's Hagen?"
Corbin gave an upwards nod, and Dorian followed his gaze, finding the High Elder of the Blackhand Mountains and his friend, Hagen Vairgrey, standing off to the side in the shadows.
His arms were crossed over his thick chest, veins popping out over his skin. His long dark mahogany hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail instead of his usual braid, the sides of his head still shaved. He seemed to be both amused and confused with watching his strongest men getting their asses handed to them by a Dreamer bouncing off the walls and over their heads, dodging past their every blow.
