She stilled at his touch.
“But I think it’s the overwhelming urge to gut you with my dagger and feed your corpse to a lykren.” He sneered. “Out here in the middle of the Plagued Sea”—he waved a hand—“it would be so easy.”
Adara let out a short laugh, tearing her face from his reach. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing we made a deal not to kill each other before someone wins.” She shot him an innocent smile as she lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers at him, flashing the scar from their blood oath.
Although it was his intention to bring her back to her usual snarky self, he hated that no matter how many times he threatened her, he could never get to her. She had only ever laughed in his face at his threats while others would tremble in fear. He wondered if she would act any different if they hadn’t made that oath. Would she be more careful around him? Would she be afraid?
Sheshouldbe afraid. He was the King of Keys, and Adara had thrown herself right into his thieving hands.
Chapter 10
Adarawatchedwithcautionas Dominic lowered himself to the ground, sitting next to her bedroll. He leaned back against one of the wooden storage crates. “What happened to your family?” he asked softly.
“What happened to yours?” she shot back, unwilling to relive her nightmares.
Dominic’s lips twitched. He drew in a long breath. “My mother died from an illness. And my sister . . . ” He trailed off, lips parting and closing, unsure what to say.
She couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. The pain in his eyes and quiver in his lips at the mention of his sister was nothing more than a flash of uncertainty, but it didn’t go unnoticed.
Albeit, it instantly morphed to rage when he spoke again, diverting from the topic of his sister. “My father,” he paused. His teeth sank into his bottom lip, fists clenched tightly resting atop his bent knees. A wave of energy rolled off him, icy and empty like a harsh winter that sucked the life out of everything it touched. “I killed him.” Fingers clenching around his knees, Dominic kept his eyes on his hands.
Adara sensed he didn’t want to lift his head in case he’d reveal anything to her through the emotions on his lowered face.
Adara chewed on her bottom lip, not sure how to follow that. Unlike him, she had a loving family, one that cherished her. That was, until the day she was taken from them. Since that day, she had never known what became of them.
She constantly asked herself: had her family even searched for her? Did they ever try to infiltrate the Shadow Empire to save her? Or did they believe that it was out of their hands and the prophecy would be fulfilled no matter how hard the emperor tried to stop it? Maybe they left her to rot in the Shadow Empire’s dungeons because they believed she would fulfill the wrong end of the prophecy.
Shall she rise or fall? A savior or destroyer of all.The words pounded against her skull, her heart mirroring them like a war drum. What if her exile to another continent had already caused the five kingdoms to be destroyed?
Some days, Adara would sob. She’d let herself weep for the little girl her family lost and never reunited with. Tears would fall at the memories she replayed in her mind, reminding her of what her life could have been. Some days, she would forget. She found that it was easier when she didn’t think of them at all. When she pretended that she was nobody and nothing, withoutfamily or friends, a vagabond wandering through life all alone. It was better when she only had herself to look out for. It was simpler when she didn’t let herself be reminded of all she’d lost.
But most days, she would rage. Throw things at walls, satisfied by the way they shattered and debris fell to the floor, because watching things break kept her mind off how brokenshewas. Fire flooded her veins, begging to be let out and raze the entire world until nothing remained but flames and ash. It was so much easier to give into the fury. It was so much easier to hurt and destroy and burn.
No one ever came to mend her. And she didn’t have the strength—thewill—to fix herself. All that remained was vengeance.
Finally, she opened her mouth to speak, voice barely more than a croak. “My family,” she started, then cleared her throat at the rasp of her voice. “I don’t know what became of my family,” she answered truthfully. “I haven’t seen them since I was nine. They are lost along with my home, and I’m not sure there’s a way back. My mother, my father, my twin brother—they may be dead, for all I know,” she murmured, hoping her voice was low enough that Dominic didn’t notice the waver in her tone. Blemythia was wiped off the map along with everyone in it for reasons she was still unsure of. She had no clue if that meant they’d all perished.
“That’s why you are hoping to forge the Realm Fracturer,” Dominic thought aloud. It wasn’t a question.
And if Adara were selfish, she would loathe the way he saw right through her. But the Realm Fracturer was about more than getting back to her family, it was about saving her people. It was about destroying the Shadow Empire once and for all.
“Something like that,” she replied.
“Why haven’t you seen them in so long?” Dominic asked.
Now she regretted mentioning her age when she lost her family.
“I am not willing to dive into that dark memory with you.”
“Fine,” Dominic said, trying for something else. “Will you tell me about that key you keep around your neck?”
Adara pressed a hand over her chest where the key rested on a gold chain, tracing the outline of the metal through the fabric of her tunic.
Her eyes flickered down at the necklace beneath her shirt, then back up to him. “That depends. Will you tell me about all the keys you’ve stolen?”
Dominic shrugged. “What is there to tell?”
“Then no,” she finally answered. The wound in her chest from Callan’s death had not fully healed, and she didn’t want Dominic ripping off any bandages she’d been precariously placing over it for the past year.
