“You so much as try, Ryland Storme, and I will carve you into a thousand little pieces so small, even Varian will never identify your body.”
A threat I’d made to others—and followed through on—a hundred times over.
But we both knew my warning was hollow, like a tree rotten from the inside out, all show, with nothing at its heart. Then I realized, with remarkable clarity, I couldn’t kill him. As many times as I’d visualized his death, as much as he deserved to pay for his sins, the thought of actually plunging a knife into Ryland’s chest…made my insides go loose and watery.
Hatred and anger and loss hardened a heart, making it possible—even easy—to take a life.
But…my heart was no longer hardened against Ryland Storme.
Maybe—if I was able to be truthful with myself—it never had been.
“You’ve gone very quiet, Lyrae. Finally run out of arguments?” Ryland lifted my right foot and worked my laces free before sliding off the sodden boot. “I’m getting you out of these wet clothes while Varian finds you something to eat. Then you’re sleeping in here where it’s warm and comfortable, while we go deal with Kaden.”
“I’m sleeping with my knife under my pillow, just so you know.” I warned, but my teeth sank into my bottom lip when his fingers dug into the arch of my foot and started massaging. God, I’d forgotten how good he was with his hands.
“Far be it for me to tell you how to sleep, but you have nothing to fear from Kaden. He’s no threat to you.”
“He threatened to dump me back under the ice.” I couldn’t stop the shudder racing down through me, and Ryland stopped rubbing long enough to search my face. My breath caught, my heart stilling as our eyes met, green to blue, something small and tender glimmering in his gaze.
“Do you really think so little of me, I’d allowanyoneto hurt you, Lyrae?” His hands were warm where they cradled my foot. “For the record, when you went under the ice…the world stopped turning. I thought I fucking lost you.” His trembling fingers tightened around my ankle like an iron shackle, and something sharp moved through me, settling behind my ribs.
“My fucking heart stopped beating. And it didn’t start up again until Var pulled you up out of the water.”
“Whatever.” I closed my eyes as he lifted my other foot and slid that boot off, began massaging. Even when the blood started flowing, and my feet were stiff full of pins, I didn’t open my eyes.
I couldn’t look, because I knew what I’d see.
And if I saw him right now…my heart would cleave into pieces.
Fire loved Ryland Storme, like dawn loved the horizon—painting him in light, even as darkness tried to claim him. Every flame picked out the gold strands in his hair, the amber tones in his eyes, the color in his cheeks. He was my favorite memory gilded in gold, close enough to touch, to kiss, to sink my teeth into.
And I was so very tired of fighting.
So tired of hating everyone for everything that had ever happened to me.
All those imagined wrongs…what if they were just mistakes?
What if, outside of the Oracle’s games and the Shadow King’s endless schemes, there was no grand conspiracy? What if all my rage was the result of evil people doing evil things, but none of those people had been Ryland or Varian?
Ryland has to tell you, Varian had said, up on the hill before everything had gone to shit.
“Why did you leave me that day, Ryland? When the soldiers had us surrounded at Lord Maldrake’s…why did you abandon me?”
“I never left you.” He shook his head at my accusing glare. “I swear, I didn’t. They scooped everyone up that night and separated us. Before dawn, the guards stuffed me and Varian in a prison wagon and carted us straight to Caladrius. We spent years in the Fae King’s dungeon under the care of Solok.Solok. The FuckingAxe.”
I sobered up fast at the mention of that name, at the deep scar over the bridge of Ryland’s nose, all those new marks peppering his body. At the memory of Varian’s quiet,watchful demeanor. I’d seen enough Caladrian Fae with that same brittle hollowness, those shadows behind their eyes, the result of being broken apart too many times in those dungeons.
Torture altered you on a fundamental level.
Enduring that kind of pain twisted something inside you, and Solok…Solok was the worst.
The stories of that bastard’s cruelty were worse than even the Butcher of Evernight, and the venomous way Ryland spat out the bastard’s name like a curse convinced me he was telling the truth.
Once you met Solok…no, you’d never forget that monster.
“After a few years—Varian tells me it was close to five, I’ve lost count—the bastard gave us a choice. Execution or work for the Fae King tracking down the northern covens, or what little was left of the covens. Not much of a choice.”
Oh gods.They were some of the monsters who’d hunted down Bella.
