I rubbed at the ache building in my temple.
Would I have even listened to Isren if he’d been open with me then? Would I have even believed him? Would knowing sooner have changed anything?
Or would I have found a way to run? Or just broken entirely beneath the weight of yet another thing neither of us had chosen?
My throat tightened painfully, and my gaze slid back to my husband, to the male who had once felt like my enemy, had oncebeenmy enemy… but now was something far closer to the air I needed to breathe.
My thoughts drifted through every moment since I first arrived at the palace—every interaction, every slow unraveling, every subtle tug of that strange thread between Draven Ashwynter and me.
From the moment the Visionary had named me his fate-chosen bride.
I let out a quiet, breathy laugh. Maybe we should have known then.
Hells, maybe Nevarahadknown… and simply kept it tucked away with the rest of the secrets she carried like another layer of armor. But thinking of her now, all still and quiet and suspended in that awful in-between, made something in my chest clench.
Until she woke up, there would be no asking her. Not about this, or about the future of the kingdom. Not about anything.
I forced my attention back on the book in my lap, anchoring myself in anything that didn’t involve adding another impossible question to the list already gnawing at my sanity. I kept reading, filling my mind with anything that might help prepare us for whatever waited in the days ahead.
But I couldn’t manage to prepare myself for the moment I got word from Amias, just as the sun crested over the horizon.
My father was lucid, and he was asking to see me.
Chapter 26
Everly
The hallways that led to the guest suites were unfamiliar and cold, much like I remembered the male I was reluctantly on my way to visit.
Amias had moved him here, though he hadn’t said why, and I hadn’t asked.
I wasn’t ready to see my father again, to talk to him, to ask him how many other secrets he had buried beneath the snow without regard for my sanity.
Draven walked beside me, though he wouldn’t be coming inside, despite his many protests. Once I demonstrated what Batty could do, he had been forced to acknowledge that he could stay within icewalking distance as long as I was out of sight.
I didn’t trust that my father would be as forthcoming with Draven in the room, if I even had a single chance at getting answers out of him.
Batty, of course, was wrapped around my neck while Lumen and Astra served as imposing bookends to our procession. Wynnie hadn’t yet arrived. She had apparently been dragged from her bed before dawn to assist another wave of villagers, butI hadn’t wanted to risk losing whatever window of lucidity my father had.
We finally stopped at an arched doorway, pale silver and indiscernible from the dozen others that graced the endless hall. I raised my hand to knock, cursing when I saw the way it shook.
My mana raged within me, launching an all-out war against itself that only Draven’s constant touch was keeping remotely at bay, but I wasn’t good enough of a liar to pretend that was responsible for the trembling in my fingers.
After all this time, I still couldn’t dredge up the bravery to unearth a decade’s worth of silence.
All at once, a vision flooded my mind.
I stood in the throne room, chin raised as I glowered up at… Draven, I realized. The image was from him.
If the king wishes to be my executioner, he is welcome to approach me to that end.
The image shifted to one of me the day he found out I was Hollow, shoulders squared.Punish me if you will, but leave my family out of it.
Then I was standing by the slab in the sanctum, fists clenched, jaw set.
Next was just a vision of me from the back, as I forged deeper into a ravaged estate, picking my way through half-eaten corpses and blood-stained debris.
And finally, eyes blazing into his as my wings emerged, shoving him through a barrier.
