“So do I.” My eyes well with tears, which makes no sense, but I can’t help it.
“On the night of the curse, she uncovered a plot to overthrow my father and flew with her closest allies to stomp it out. What she didn’t know was that she had been betrayed by her favorite pupil, a daughter of one of the pardoned clans. The entire plot was an elaborate trap to lure her away from the Palace of the Sky, to leave my ailing father without his strongest defender.” Bitterness edges into his voice. “I was still a young DragonKin then. Not a hatchling, of course, but not fully grown.”
“Like a child?” I can’t imagine Vander as anything but huge and strong as he is now. As a child, what would he have been like?
“Yes, though in mortal years I was about 100 years old by that time. All my brothers except Harestes were still hatchlings, Fyan slightly more than a babe, in DragonKin years. They were spared by Firefolk. Lenka smuggled them from the palace the moment the assault began, getting them far away from the bloodshed.”
“Lenka.” I close my eyes and try to reconcile her saving children with what she did to me. “Gods.” I don’t know what else to say, to think. I know what I feel, but loving Lenka and forgiving her are two different things.
Vander’s face is stony, his eyes hard, but I feel the turmoil inside him. He’s hurting. “That horrible night, when my mother returned to the palace, it was as Sela’s prisoner.”
“Sela was the pupil who betrayed her?” I ask.
Vander nods. “She and her entire DaySilver Clan ambushed my mother, killed her loyal DragonKin, and brought her back to the Palace of the Sky. They marched her in, her wings bound, and slayed any who stood against them. They overran us. DragonKin I had known since I was a hatchling, warriors I respected—no one was spared from the DaySilver’s fury. I saw Harestes fall.” He goes silent.
“Your brother?” I sit back and look into his eyes, the pain in them sending a shudder of grief through me. “That was Harestes, wasn’t it?”
He nods.
I wrap my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. “I’m so sorry.”
His wide palms spread across my bare back as he embraces me.
“He fought bravely.” He swallows hard.
We stay like that for long moments, just holding each other.
Then he takes my arms gently and pulls me away, his gaze on mine. “I have to tell you, Larellin. I have to …” He takes my hand and puts it to his chest. “You have to know me.”
“All right.” I don’t look away. His pain is written large on his face, in his eyes, and I swear I could feel it inside me, gnawing at my soul.
“When they reached the royal chambers, I challenged Sela to a one-on-one fight. I was desperate for some way to stop the bloodshed, to save my mother, my father. Sela laughed, her face drenched with the blood of dozens of DragonKin. Then she dragged my mother to me, holding her by her hair as her DaySilver soldiers mocked us.Give us your father, and your mother lives.” He shakes his head. “That was the deal Sela offered. If I stood aside and let them take my father, my mother would survive. My mother begged me to defend my father. Begged me to let her die if it meant my father would live.”
“Gods.” I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders.
He runs a hand along his jaw, his eyes closing for only a moment before meeting mine again. “It was my mother,” he says sadly. “I couldn’t watch her be slaughtered, even if that’s exactly what she begged me to do. I …” His jaw tightens. “Ichose. I chose her life over his.”
“You were a child.” I press my palms to his cheeks, my heart hurting from the torment that seems to almost choke him.
He takes my wrists and pulls my hands away. “I chose my mother.” The anguish in his voice is like a knife through me. “I stepped aside. I left my father open to attack. He was crippled after losing his wing, still strong, but no match for dozens of DaySilver soldiers. They marched past me. I heard the fight. My mother screamed and clawed the floor trying to get to him, to save him. We heard what they did to him, how they tortured him. And when I went to my mother to help her, Sela struck. She killed my mother while I watched.” He grinds his teeth. “Sela laughed as my mother’s lifeblood poured onto the ground.”
I try to hold back my tears. I can’t. They stream down my face. I feel it like a barb in my side, a blade in my heart. Gods, the pain of it. The weight should crush a mortal like me.
“After that, I fought. I knew I would die, but I fought anyway, desperate to take Sela’s life. Sela gave me this—” He points to the scar that cuts through his eyebrow. “Then the curse came down. A cracking sound that seemed to boom from the ground to the sky, shaking everything in between. Nothing after that. I woke up the next day, my body mangled, barely alive, one wing almost gone. I was at the edge of the DragonLands, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t take a step inside its borders. No DragonKin could. The curse was sealed with the blood of my parents.” His eyes hold centuries of torture, of self-loathing. “And it was all my fault.”
Chapter
Twenty-Four
VANDER
Gods, I can’t bear for her to look at me, to see my weakness. The shame she must feel, knowing that I’m her mate, that I’m the soul she’s bound to through all the eternities here and ever-after. I close my eyes, a cold breath of misery passing across my skin.
“Vander.” She shifts, the coins jingling as she scoots closer to me. “It’s not your fault.” When her palm grazes my cheek, I startle.
“What are you doing?” I look her in the eyes, the brown now sprinkled with flecks of gold the same shade as my scales. Tears wet her pale cheeks. I wipe them away, the guilt spearing me through the heart.
“Everything you told me—none of it was your fault. You were only a child. Of course you wanted to save your mother. I can’t imagine …” She swallows hard. “I would’ve done the same thing, Vander. Theexactsame thing.”
