The skeptical look the spare is wearing tightens with unamused disapproval. The commander rises from his crouch in front of me, grabs the toppled chair I knocked over in my efforts to get away from his knife-wielding brother and sets it back on all fours. “Sit,” he orders before striding over to stand next to Lorn.
I scowl up at the brothers, fighting the sudden need to spend the rest of my life right here on this freezing floor now that I’ve been commanded to do the opposite. However, my ass is going numb, and I’ve spent way too much time in the last few months on the hard ground of a dank cell. I’m not going to make myself suffer when I don’t have to.
I take my time getting up and brushing myself off before, once again, claiming the solitary seat offered to me. I cross my legs, and both brothers track the movement. Aeson’s eyebrows dip infinitesimally when his eyes trace the long scratch still on my thigh.
“I find your claim…interesting,” Lorn contends, studying me contemplatively. “King Tenebrae didn’t have any daughters, only sons. And we would know, they were our friends.
I study the heir just as intently, but I don’t discover the slightest hint of what he might be thinking. He’s alarmingly calm, they both are. It’s putting me even more on edge. After a moment, I nod in agreement. Not with theno girls allowedpart of his assertion, but I know he and Aeson were close with my brothers before they were murdered. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that they knew my kindred better than I did.
My throat grows tight and I struggle with what to say, with how to explain. Habit has my mind whirring with ways I can skirt around sensitive truths I know won’t be easy to swallow. It feels wrong to start spilling secrets after everything I’ve done to keep them under lock and key, but trying to keep things buried is pointless. I’ve been on a collision course with The Horde from the moment I woke up in the hospital. Now it’s time to see what can be made of the wreckage.
With a sigh, I press my palms against my stomach to calm the eclipse of moths churning within.
“No.QueenTenebrae didn’t have any daughters,” I correct. “But the king did. He had me.”
Indignation undulates like a billowing sail in the room. The drakes around me remain silent, but I feel their offense nipping at my skin like hungry dogs out for blood. I’m no longer staring at stoic faces and censorious body language. Now their eyes screamliar, and fury strains the lines of their frowns. I don’t blame them. If I were in their shoes, I’d question everything coming out of my mouth too.
“You want us to believe that you’re the product of an affair?” Aeson counters, arms testily crossing over his chest while pique pulses through his clenched jaw. “Hate to break it to you, littleSyphon, but we knew your father. He wouldn’t have done that to his Bonded Mate.”
I nod again, unexpectedly touched by the way the commander and many of the other drakes are coming to my father’s defense, refusing to think the worst of him. I didn’t expect that from a Noctis, much less any of the others.
It’s…confusing.
“I’m not the product of an affair, and you’re right, my father would’ve never disrespected his Bonded like that…not without her permission anyway.”
Lorn shifts his weight as though uncomfortable with the burden of that revelation. His eyes flick to the Thrasher off to the side, the male sifting through my words and everything else he can in search of deceit.
I pull in a fortifying breath and square my shoulders, knowing I’m about to score a hit against The Horde, and dragons aren’t the type to turn the other cheek. “For lack of a better term, I’m the product of abreeding program,” I supply evenly.
Quiet wraps itself around my confession, and I try not to fidget or do anything else that might hint at my discomfort. I wait for the pieces of the puzzle to fit together and for the picture to become clear, but instead, the scions stare at me like I’m no longer speaking a language they understand.
I rub at my temples, trying to pacify the throb building there. All of this is too much. The Tainted, the blood brokers, the cliff, The Horde. I should be dead. None of this should be my problem, and yet here I am, stuck in the middle of all of it, despite every effort not to be.
“What?” Lorn demands after a beat, disbelief warring with confusion.
“The numbers of Syphons were dwindling dangerously low,” I try again, attempting to connect all of the dots. “My father and the elders worried that unless drastic measures were taken, the Syphons would go the way of the Surgers and die out altogether. They went back and forth, desperate for a solution for a long time, but in the end, it came down to needing more births than deaths. So it was decreed that all Syphon males would procreate as much as possible in hopes of more births. Our females played their own part by bearing as many babies as they could…and, of course, looking the other way when their mates were called to do their duty. Like I said, a breeding program.”
With that, anger and outrage ignite all around me, burning through the professional facades of the surrounding drakes.
“She’s covering for the duke! Don’t believe a word out of her mouth!”
“It’s been over sixty years since the wyvern rebellion; where has she been all this time?”
“I don’t see a dragon mark. She doesn’t smell like us. This is a trap!”
“Female, or not, she deserves to lose her tongue for such lies.”
I level a challenging glare at the drake who spews the last comment, daring him to try it.
Lorn raises a hand, and all the hissing and accusations instantly stop. He searches my face carefully, methodically. At first, I think he’s trying to gauge how bat-shit crazy I am, but then I realize he’s looking for hints of my father in my features.
I meet his gaze head-on, knowing he’ll find his proof in the shape and color of my eyes, the high angles of my cheeks, and the solitary dimple I have when I smile—not that he’ll ever see that. Everything else is courtesy of my mother, but I doubt the scions knew her. We were only invited to the keep once. The day everyone died.
A small, sharp, almost imperceptible intake of breath alerts me to the moment Lorn Noctis sees the truth. It sits like a snare between us, one that can’t be avoided, and yet there’s no way around it either. No matter where any of us step from here, we’re going to get tangled up in some shit, and people are going to get hurt.
He turns away after a beat and shares another charged look with Aeson. I’ve never wanted to be in anyone’s head as badly as I’d like to root around in either one of theirs right now. Their lack of a murderous reaction to everything I’m saying coupled with the fact that they seem more intent on answers than persecution has me completely thrown.
Dragons killed my people. The wyverns and the sorcai played their part in it too, but the final blow, the one that sealed my fate, belongs to our kind. Even if the Burners weren’t directly responsible for King Tenebrae’s death or the wyvern rebellion, all of the clans have been picking off Syphons for ages.
