“I’m escorting you back in the morning,” he clarifies.
“I meant what I said. I’m not going back.” I hold firm. “Besides, don’t your men need you?”
“I’m not their mother. They can handle themselves.”
“Then let us go north with you. Zadyn and I will make ourselves useful. I promise.”
He looks at me with those golden eyes, and every part of me feels electric. “What’s in it for you?”
“Honestly?” I say. “I’m hoping you’ll help me find another way to get home.”
“And defy direct orders of the king by abetting your escape? No, thank you.”
“Am I a prisoner then?” He doesn’t answer. I shake my head. “You don’t understand—I don’t belong here. This isn’t my world.”
“If that were true, I don’t think you could have found your way here even if you tried. Despite where you were born, this is where you ended up. I’m not letting you out of my sight until I know more.”
I groan in exasperation.
“I tried to run. I tried to get away from you, from the king,” Ipoint out. “Doesn’t that prove to you that this isn’t some elaborate act? That I’m not just posing as a Blackblood to win the king’s favor?”
He is silent for a moment.
“Or you just hate the food at the castle.” I roll my eyes as he shrugs.
“Why can’t you just say you believe me?” I press, ignoring his mild joke. He gives me a long look and once again deflects my question.
“I, for one, think the food is pretty decent.”
“I’m being treated like an object. Like I belong to the king, yet he won’t even see me. I have no say in anything. And you don’t help—with your constant doubt and derision.”
“The king thinks you might be of use to him.” He takes a swig from a canteen. “It’s my job to make sure you’re not a threat.”
“Then let me prove to you that I’m not. But you can’t expect me to help the king if I’m not getting something in return.” He turns his eyes to mine. “The way I see it is you need me, and I need you,” I say, not backing down from his stare. “You’ve been searching for the last Blackblood for centuries, and I want to go home. I’ll do what he needs me to do in exchange for help getting back. Safely,” I specify.
He contemplates this for a while. “You need to understand something,” he starts slowly. “This isn’t a one-time favor he’s asking of you. Aegar needs a Dragon Rider. It’s a permanent position.”
“It’s a life sentence, you mean,” I counter, leaping to my feet. “If you think I will give my life for a cause that has nothing to do with me, that I never asked?—”
He clamps a large hand around my wrist, and I stop short. His eyes are softer as he stares up at me.
“He needs you. We all do.”
His words take me off guard, but they hit their desired mark. The king needs me.Heneeds me. Which means that some small part of him believes me. How can I turn my back?
The campfire crackles as he holds my gaze. Something charged passes between us, and his reaction tells me he feels it too.
“Why is me trying to kill you one of your greatest fears?” he murmurs, his hand sliding from my arm. “The Mara show you visions of your deepest fears in order to feed on your pain and torment. You said you had a vision… of me trying to kill you.”
I nod, swallowing thickly. “You plunged a knife into my stomach. And twisted it,” I admit, staring at the ground.
“Why?” His gravelly voice is little more than a whisper. “Why would you fear that?”
“Maybe since you’ve been known to stab me in the past,” I mutter under my breath, crossing my arms.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I would have. Certainly wouldn’t have healed you afterward.”
It was Jack that healed my leg after he drove his knife into it?
