“Fearsome, with good hearts,” I corrected him. “After Anaria was crowned, there were plenty who came to the Citadelle, wanting to be recruited, but too many delighted in cruelty and needless violence, and we’d already had enough of that, with the brother kings. I only wanted the best, both in skill and honor.”
I saw the flash of amusement in his eyes and shrugged.
“Mock me all you want, but I wanted something I’d never had growing up. We were no longer at war, and Ididn’t need soldiers with a sword in their hand and hate in their heart patrolling peaceful streets. I wanted…a city safe enough for children, where they could grow up and just be…kids.”
Something Var and Ariel and I never had.
“I wasn’t mocking you, Lyrae. I was just…cruelty and violence are usually enough for someone in your position, is all.”
He peered at me through the coffee steam.
“I’m just surprised, is all. I’m always surprised by you.”
“We’d already seen so much death,” I murmured, motioning for his other arm, unwinding the blood-stiffened bindings, avoiding the silver cuff like the plague. “So had the Fae people, who had lost the most. Seen their husbands and sons conscripted by the kings to fight a losing war that gobbled up innocent lives and always wanted more. Watched their homes burn and their children starve. Anaria is…”
I paused, slid him a sideways look, bracing myself for his scorn.
“I worked for the Shadow King before Anaria came to Solarys. I did cruel things I can never take back. Took innocent lives. Spilled innocent blood. Every day since, I have tried to make up for those acts, and every day I feel like nothing I do will ever atone for my sins.”
Rooke stayed silent as I slowly rewrapped his arm, winding the white fabric round and round.
“But maybe, just maybe, if I keep trying, there will come a day when I feel like I’ve chipped away at my ledger board enough, that when I die, the good will outweigh the bad.”
“I have a ledger board of my own, you know,” he said quietly. “And there are days I feel the same way…the atoning part, anyway.” Kaden’s fingers tightened around the cup. “Myma is buried behind this castle. She died protecting me.”
His eyes drifted to the window and stayed there as his scent grew stronger—rain on stone, a coming thunderstorm. I swore the air in the room darkened.
“It started the way it always did. Gravelock came and started hurting me, but this time…this time she must have had enough…she attacked him with a sword she could barely even lift, but she managed to cut him good. Deep. She hurt him. I’d never seen anyone hurt the bastard before and I remembered…I was so viciouslyhappy.”
A cold, icy sadness chipped away at me, a sadness I’d carried around forever, dark and deep and hidden.
I reached out and took his hand. Squeezed.
“But Gravelock is ancient, and the wound wasn’t deep enough to kill. He turned on her, lost control. In a few minutes she was…dead.”
He didn’t blink, his face a frozen mask of pain, but he squeezed my hand back, just once.
“He just…left. Didn’t even look back. I was eleven years old, I didn’t know what to do, and the ground was frozen, and…” he drew a shuddering inhale. “It took me a few days to figure out how to bury her. To dig the hole and by then…by then…” his voice broke.
A fucking child.
Gravelock had done that toa fucking child.
I’d been angry before. Fury had driven me to kill two corrupt kings and a pair of Old Gods, for fuck’s sake. But never had I felt this kind of rage. This left me cold as ice, so sure of my next step, so resolved in my actions, that I saw the path laid out in front of me in a straight line.
A line that led straight to Evernight.
“You didn’t fail anyone,” I murmured. “If your motherwas here today…she would be proud of you, Rooke. I know she would be. As for Gravelock…”
My vicious-edged smile cleaved all the way down to my soul, splitting me apart at the seams.
“He’s already dead, he just doesn’t know it yet.”
Rooke’s eyes landed back on me, brighter than before, his lower lashes matted with tears, but there was a small, almost hopeful smile on his face when he took another sip of coffee. “Tell me more about this city of yours, commander. Tell me how children play in the streets. Tell me about how they are happy.”
Before I knew it, I was telling him everything, and all the while, he watched me with those hooded eyes, pulsing with so much emotion I avoided his gaze with the same effort I’d avoid being shot with an iron arrow.
My knees shook when I pushed to my feet, the bowl of water a rusty red, the metallic smell of old blood and coffee and pungent salve lingering around us.
