It was strange to remember that the last time we had stood this close, his face had been drawn tight with pleasure instead of pain—his mouth against mine, not pressed thin with ire.
I had known this might be the cost. Hadn’t I?
“I did what I had to do,” I said quietly.
Whether he felt the truth of it through whatever bond still tethered us, or simply pieced it together on his own, the realization struck him all at once. I saw it in the way his jaw tightened, in the sharp flare of something wounded crossing his features.
He dragged a hand over his brow, sweat streaking his skin as he exhaled hard, the sound rough and unguarded.
I had never seen him this exhausted. Not even after he’d battled countless Tharnoks and Wraiths at Thistlerun.
And if anything, it only confirmed what I already knew. I would make the same choice again. I would do anything to save him from destroying himself for Winter.
“You went to the Dragon,” he said flatly. “How did you even find him?”
“The amulet. It was a scale,” I explained.
Draven scoffed, and a muscle in his jaw feathered. “So you used a portal, having no idea if you'd be incinerated on arrival?—”
“I took a chance that was necessary,” I interrupted.
He dropped my arm, backing away as he shook his head. “Without bothering so much as to inform your husband?”
“When should I have done that, Draven?” A wave of mana pulsed through me, tendrils of shadows flooding the stones at my feet. “Did you want me to pop into the courtyard in the middle of a monster battle?”
He crossed the distance between us, his breath fogging the air between us.
“You could have sent word, told your sister, showed me something through the bond,” he fired back. “Don’t pretend you had no options, Everly. You didn’t tell me because you didn’t want me to know.”
Something closer to pain flickered alongside the fury echoing through our bond.
I wanted to argue. To tell him that wasn’t quite true, that I was too panicked to rationalize that part of the decision, to say anything at all to ease the tendril of betrayal tainting the space between us.
But he would have sensed the lie.
He glanced down at his ring as if waiting for the telltale vibration, and something inside me deflated.
I had been panicked and worried about distracting him from the battle with the Korythid, but more than those things, he wasn’t wrong. I had been concerned that he would stop me…
My shadows flared, stronger than before, edged with ice this time.
Draven clenched his jaw and took hold of my arm. His mana washed over mine, cold and sharp, and somehow, blessedly, it coaxed mine into a semblance of submission.
“Draven, I’m—” I began, but he cut me off.
“We have bigger things to worry about now.”
I bristled, fatigue washing over me all at once. He wasn’t wrong, though. There would be time for this argument later.
Probably.
“Right,” I muttered. “I need to get to the Heartstone.”
He blinked like he hadn’t heard me.
“Since I have my mana back,” I added the obvious, like we weren’t both painfully aware of that fact.
“Mana you can’t control.”
