I move to a vault storing thousands of books and start scanning the titles in case anything helpful stands out.
Lorn clears his throat and moves closer. His Wing and Aeson’s are still standing under the golden arch of the tree trunk, watching and waiting.
“You mentioned that I owe you a few secrets. This feels like an appropriate place to pay up,” Lorn declares, apprehension dimming his half smile.
That unexpected emotion from him gives me pause. He rubs the back of his neck, a nervous tell that puts me even more on guard because Lorn Noctis isn’t the type to be nervous…ever.
I don’t trust it.
My focus shifts from the vault to the heir, and I wait for whatever bomb he’s about to drop, or maybe it will be less bomb and more knife in the back.
I guess we’ll see.
He surveys my face, and the debate happening in his pretty blue eyes is obvious. My mind picks up a baton of paranoia and runs with it, forcing me to think through a thousand different disastrous possibilities for what he’s about to say.
“I knew about you,” he tells me, his handsome face a mix of trepidation and shame.
My mind stalls and my heart stumbles. Of all the things that could have slipped out of his mouth,thatconfession was not one I was ready for or one I could have ever seen coming.
Every muscle in my body goes tense, and I blank my face of all emotion. I stand against the wall of my kith’s Crush like a speechless statue while a riot of emotions rampage through me.
“I don’t understand,” I tell him guardedly when I can finally find my voice.
“Your father came and got Novak and Ronin one day when Aeson and I were playing with them. We didn’t see them for a few days after that, which was odd. We played every day and had tutoring sessions together, but they missed those too. When we saw them again, it was clear something had happened, but Aes and I didn’t know what, and they wouldn’t tell us no matter how much we pressed.”
Lorn blows out a deep breath and looks around like he’s in search of an anchor as he continues.
“We dropped it, but a couple weeks later, Novak told me he had a secret. We shared everything, told each other everything, and I think it was killing him that I didn’t know. Especially when he was so excited about it.”
My eyes flick back and forth between Lorn’s, like I can somehow ferret the rest of the story from his gaze alone. My throat grows tight, and the fluttering in my stomach grows sharper, threatening to start stinging me at the sorrow I find cloaked in his features.
“Novak ran me through drills and all kinds of challenges our thirteen-year-old minds could come up with to prove I was worthy of his secret, that it would be safe with me.” Lorn smiles, and a hollow chuckle sneaks out of him, but his gaze is far away and steeped in the past.
There’s a sadness in his eyes, the kind that always tints the memory of a lost loved one. An ache ripples through my own memories of my brother, because Lorn knew him better than I did. They’d been best friends practically since birth. I had days with Novak. In comparison, Lorn had a lifetime of memories with him.
“I was sworn to the highest degree of secrecy, and then your brother told me that he was going to have sisters. His dad had sat him, Ronin, and Brooks down and told them all about it. King Tenebrae told them that they couldn’t tell anyone else, not for a couple of months. Not until after his sisters arrived and he met them, and their dad could make sure they were safe.”
Emotion wells in my eyes, but my heart hits every rib as it drops from my chest into my stomach. Panic floods the now empty cavern, but I force my brow to furrow and for confusion to seep into my gaze as Lorn Noctis sayssistersfor a second time.
“He didn’t tell me anything else, probably because he didn’t know anything else, but we talked about little sisters and wondered what it would be like to have them. I wasn’t much help as I’d only had a little brother, just like Novak. But we knew girl dragons were precious, and we were excited to discover all the reasons why when the secret sisters arrived. Then we played games and went to classes, and life marched on.
“When Novak died, the secret was buried under shock and grief. It surfaced in my memories a long time later, but by then, I assumed that the queen was probably pregnant and that’s why King Tenebrae had told Novak and your brothers about sisters. I didn’t think anything of it really, until I met you…”
Lorn closes the distance between us in three strides, and I fight the urge to flee. His sad eyes rove over my face, and he lifts a hand and wipes a lone tear that trails down my cheek.
“I’m so sorry, Ever,” he whispers, the words raw and sharp. “I didn’t understand what Novak was telling me, that you existed. I should have looked into it, asked questions, or tried to confirm something, anything. I made assumptions and it meant you were out there in our world alone, that you learned to hate us, that you were…hurt.”
Lorn’s face collapses in pain, and I feel it wedge between my sternum and go for my heart. He reaches for me, wrapping his big arms around my body, and I let him because all of a sudden it feels like he might be the only thing holding me together.
Maybe if he’d told me somewhere else, or if I wasn’t already so raw and teetering between grief and loss. Maybe then I could have reacted differently, could have kept myself together, but his truth is a hammer to my already weakened defenses.
We stand there, his cheek resting on the top of my head, as sorrow twines its way around us, holding us both in an exacting grasp neither of us will ever escape from. His genuine sorrow pulses off of him in waves, and for some inexplicable reason, I feel the need to comfort him.
Maybe it’s because this is real. For the first time in all my interactions with the scion, I don’t question whether this is a play or some kind of trick. His guilt is palpable, and unwarranted, and I feel it heavy in the air all around us.
“It’s okay,” I offer, and I’m surprised to find that I mean it. “You were a kid. How could you know?”
“I should have. He gave me all the pieces, but instead of fitting them together, I dismissed them,” he argues, and I smooth my hands down his back as I press my cheek against his warm chest.
