And then she’d finally write her future.
‘Minders don’t fight in the war,’ Arawn said. ‘They certainly don’t die on the front lines.’
‘And yet my uncle, who you said I am to take the place of, would argue against that statistic. I have no one left because of a war he didn’tfightin.’ She fixed her stare upon the prince. And she felt the brokenness in her own words when she whispered, ‘No one.’
He opened and closed his mouth again.
‘I … understand.’
Rage unfurled within her.
‘You understandnothing,’ Ezer hissed.
But the anger had taken an edge now. It writhed inside her veins, and she didn’t have the strength to stop it.
‘You live in your perfect white castle upon the hill, gifted with magic to keep you safe while the rest of us suffer. While we wait for news that the war has come for us. A war we didn’t start. But a war we’re expected to die in, nonetheless.’
His hand tightened over his sword, but he didn’t draw it. ‘Says the woman who senses when danger is near. I don’t think you can count yourself asnomage,Minder. You argue for a people you aren’t even part of.’
Her blood went cold. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
A smug smile crossed his lips. ‘Tell that to the shadow wolf who nearly removed my head. No one can detect when they’re near. And yet …’ he raised a pale, scarred brow, ‘here I stand. How did you do it?’
‘I heard them coming.’
‘Impossible,’ he growled. ‘They make no sound.’
Her heart was a war drum now.
He knew about her strange magic. Of course he knew, and she’d been a fool to save him, to give her secret away.
But what washe going to do? Throw her in prison like the others?
He’d have to drag her all the way back to Rendegard to do that, and suddenly she was furious all over again.
‘You don’t know what it’s like to lose,Prince,’ Ezer spat. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be left in the darkness, waiting for?—’
‘I don’t know what it’s like to lose?’ he asked.
She paused, looking up at him. Because his voice had changed.
She’d thought him angry before.
Now?
Now, she backed up a step.
‘N … no,’ she said.
He lifted a pale brow and stalked towards her. ‘And how would a Ravenminder, hidden away in her tower, safe and sound from the tide of war, know what a Sacred Knight has or has not lost?’
‘You …’
She swallowed her words, because now she sounded like a fool, throwing stones when she had no clue of where they should land.
‘The Sacred are not givenchoices.We live. We serve. And we die early when the power required takes its toll on our bodies. That is the chief end of those who have magic.’
He said it like a warning.
