“I did. And here’s another warning: it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” I sit on the very edge of the bed. Picking up the tweezers and his discarded tunic to absorb the blood, I set to work digging in the hole in his shoulder.
The torn tissue oozes with blood, dripping down his chest and onto the sheets. He clenches his teeth and hisses a string of curses. I continue to poke around inside his shoulder. The resistance from the damaged tissue makes me cringe. I wish this could wait for the medic, but only the Statera knows how long we will be in here. I’m scared that if I don’t act now the wound will become infected.
The end of the tweezers hit something small and solid. “Hang in there, I almost got it,” I whisper and bite my lip as I try to get the slippery splinter between the pointed ends of the tool.
“Where did you learn to do this? It reminds me of something Ulric would do on the battlefield,” Kyron asks.
My heart constricts at the mention of the man who once bandaged me up after a sparring match. The last time I saw Ulric and Terro was the day they rescued me and my father from the tunnel leading out of Stigian. There were times at the Sibyl Temple when I questioned my choice to go there instead of Basecamp. I missed them and the way things used to be.
“I haven’t seen Ulric or Terro for close to a year,” I say, pulling the sliver of wood from his arm and pressing his tunic to his shoulder. “I took some time away from Lucent and spent a lot of it sparring and learning to control the Eporri. Needless to say, I had my fair share of mishaps in the beginning.”
His brows furrow as he asks, “Why wouldn’t you have had Ulric, Terro, and Greer teach you? You were doing well under their instruction.”
“I had other things I needed to look into.”
“What was more important than?—”
“This is going to sting again,” I say, pouring more alcohol onto his injury.
“Shit, I feel like you’re enjoying this too much. I suppose this is payback.”
I grit my teeth and place a clean gauze into the wound. It irks me that he thinks this pain could ever be retribution for what he did. It’s minisculecompared to what I’ve endured, and I’d gladly trade it for what he is going through now. I force my rage down and concentrate on wrapping his shoulder.
“This isn’t payback,” I say, securing the loose end of the bandage. “Only plunging a knife in your heart and twisting the blade could put us on even ground,Your Grace.”
“Raelle, I?—”
“I spent the last seven months at the temple, researching the Sibyls’ tomes for a way to break the parah bond. That’s how badly I don’t want to be connected to you anymore, how much I don’t want to be here.”
He winces and reaches out for me, but I spring up from the mattress before he can touch me. I gather the bloody tools and dump them into the basin along the wall. The need to ignore him is so strong that I busy myself with scrubbing the tweezers clean until my fingers are raw. A whole slew of painful tasks would be better than turning around and facing him again.
“The parah bond can’t be broken,” he gently says.
“No shit, Kyron,” I snap.
The room goes deathly silent, and I finish cleaning and putting everything back the way I found it. With no other choice, I turn around and lean against the counter. My ruined statement dress suddenly feels too revealing with its sheer panels. I cross my arms over my chest and avoid looking at him.
“Everything I did, I did it for you, Raelle.”
With a calm I don’t feel, I force my voice to remain monotone, and say, “Oh yeah, I can see where you thought gaining a crown and being anointed the ruler of the kingdom I stand against was for my benefit.” I glare at him, wishing I could plunge daggers in him with my stare. “Thanks for that. It was super helpful.”
He moves to sit on the edge of the bed, placing his feet to the ground and running his palms over his face. Seconds tick by in uncomfortable silence before he drops his hands between his knees and releases a long breath. “No, all of that was the price I paid to ensure that you would walk away with the thing you wanted most.”
My cheeks burn and my legs shake as I push away from the counter and stalk toward him. I stop short of the bed and glare down at him. Through my gritted teeth I say, “Don’t you dare tell me that you did it for my father.”
“I did it foryou, so you could take him home.”
“Fuck you, Kyron!Wecould have found another way, butyouleftme in the dark. In fact, you conveniently left me in the dark about a lot of things.”
He stands and towers over me. His jaw ticks as he runs his tongue over his teeth and his eyes blaze with fury. “If I thought for a second that we could walk in here and rescue him, we would have done it.”
I pull my shoulders back and lift my chin. “We knew it was going to be hard. I wasn’t delusional about that, but you started plotting with your mother amonthbefore we attacked. You let her know my soldiers were coming.”
“Your soldiers? I believe I was their general.”
I scoff and shake my head. “You stopped being their general the minute you purposefully put their lives at risk.”
“I took the necessary steps to protect them. I put a clear contingency plan into play to minimize the loss.”
