In the corner behind the captain stood Dante and Ksenia and her Zver, Phantom, along with a few royal guards. In the corner behind Gryfon stood Kane and Zya along with more of our warriors. I made a beeline for them.
The king watched me pass with a frown as the prince resumed the discussion, pointing to an area on the map and saying something about impassable dunes.
"Hey," Kane said from my side, squeezing my forearm without glancing my way, "you okay?"
I nodded, though I bit my tongue to keep from actually speaking. I still felt like a fool for having cried over him again. I'd promised myself he wouldn't get to do that to me anymore. I was over it, moved on. I'd vowed never to even think about Dante of House Viper again. And yet here he was, staring at me from across a human throne room as if I couldn't feel his gaze on every inch of my exposed skin. I wanted to shout at him to stop, wanted to storm across the room and slap him, wanted to shove the darkness down his throat again until he couldn't breathe anymore, couldn't look at me like that anymore. But most of all, I wanted to hate him. And I didn't.
I should. No one had any reason to hate someone more than I did to hate Dante. I could live a hundred years, a thousand, andthe pain of what he did to me would still haunt my broken heart. I would spend every second of my miserable existence mourning the lack of the bond, experiencing that absence like a hole in myself. And I still wouldn't hate him. I couldn't. Because we'd been something more than just partners. We'd been two halves of a whole, and that wasn't something you could simply forget. I was Dante and Dante was me. To hate him would be to hate myself and, as broken and flawed as I was, I did not hate myself. I never would.
"—then we'll have to see it," someone was saying.
I blinked back to reality to find that attention in the room had shifted to me once again. I looked from the king, who'd spoken, to the prince who seemed to be watching me expectantly.
Gryfon's jaw tensed as he turned and strode through his little crowd of warriors until he was standing before me.
"You don't have to," he growled. "You aren't some sideshow attraction for these people. You don't have toperformfor them."
Oh.
I glanced at the king and prince behind him, at the royal guards in the shadows, even Roman and Ksenia. They were all waiting. They wanted to see what I could do. We were here to negotiate for their assistance in defeating the gods. If we wanted them to risk their lives for ours, the least I could do was give them a glimpse of the weapon they all wanted so badly to use in this war.
"They should see," I replied, stepping forward.
I could feel the darkness dripping into my fingertips, the hum of power running through my veins, the ache in my chest begging me to free the magic inside of me. It was closer here, somehow, easier to access. Then again, it had been ever since I'd stuffed it all down my former partner's throat back in Prima's tent.
My fingers twitched and, for a moment, nothing happened. Panic seized hold of me and I started to withdraw, but then I felt it. The power. It slipped from beneath my skin into the world beyond, slithering from my fingertips then my chest, my arms, my legs, black smoke steaming off of me and coiling in the air around us. It spread through the chamber, cloaking the ground, the furniture, the walls and ceiling. It suffocated the candles and extinguished the light, enrobing us all in living night. I breathed it in, basking in the feeling of my magic all around me.
"Pull it back, girl," the king sputtered from somewhere in the dark.
I inhaled, yanking it back until it dissipated, some slithering back inside of me. The light returned in sputtering bursts, leaving me standing in a room of stunned guards and royals. Gryfon's jaw tensed and he gave a curt nod, seemingly displeased with the display. My brow furrowed. Hadn't hewantedme to learn how to wield this power? Hadn't that been what all of his lessons were about? He'd raged at me to call the dark again and again for weeks and now that I had, it seemed to piss him off even more.
"How much is she capable of?" the king asked the general as if I weren't even there, not standing in the room able to answer questions about my own power myself.
"We aren't certain yet," Gryfon growled. Yes, he was angry, but why? "She's been getting stronger since…"
His gaze flicked to Dante in the corner and the others followed. Dante's eyes widened at the sudden attention.
"The Betrayer?" the king asked, obvious disdain in his tone. “What does he have to do with this?"
"She seems to be stronger in his presence," the general snapped and I thought I was beginning to understand the reason for his fury. "Before he arrived, she could hardly call a trickle and, even then, she couldn't control it. Once he showed up, sheformed a veritable cloud and shoved every bit of it down his lying throat."
Dante's gaze narrowed to a glare and I glanced between them, confused and wondering, not for the first time, what that altercation this morning had been about.
"Could it be the bond?" Prince Leo asked, stunned.
"The bond is severed at the culmination of the tenth Trial," Gryfon barked back the reminder.
"Maybe not entirely?"
"What does it matterwhy," the king interrupted. "This is good news. All we have to do is send the boy into battle with her and we'll have our weapon."
I bristled. I wasn't just a weapon. Fists clenched at my sides, I stepped forward to say just that, but was interrupted by a quiet voice in the corner.
"It isn't a true bond."
All eyes in the room swiveled once more to an elderly woman emerging from a servant's passage behind the dais. She strode forward slowly, leaning heavily on an ivory cane. Her grey hair was bound up so as not to be in her way and her dress was faded with age but it was her eyes that gave me pause. A brilliant violet livelier than those half her age.
As she came toddling in, I noticed Dante's eyes blow wide again, as if in recognition.
