The colors that had flashed over Dorian and Belshazzar as they had fought the day before.
But in the middle, I saw something I had never noticed before.
Two crowns. One black, one white, fitted into each other, glittering in the daylight.
A druid crown of gold.
A vampire crown of onyx.
What the hell?
* * *
I rushed down the hall to where our room was. I wanted answers. There was more going on around me than I suspected, and I was damn tired of being left out of the equations.
I was tired of being treated as a child.
Druids reached the age of maturity by law at twenty-five. I was nearing a century.
No, I was not as old as my twins, not by a long shot. Nor was I anywhere near Dorian’s age.
Even Queen Gwynnore, Odom, and Aiko were older.
No matter what they all thought, I wasn’t immature. I wasn’t a little girl. I was not a child.
I was the Breaker of the Spine. I held a place in the power of S’Kir thatno oneelse held. My magic was just as strong as any of the ancient old jackasses who surrounded me.
And I wanted answers.
The hallway was annoyingly long, and I saw that while Aiko’s door had been replaced, it didn’t match, and it hung crooked. It felt like a metaphor for how Dorian felt about him and treated him.
As I neared our door, I could hear three voices on the other side, raised in anger.
Dorian was back.
Had he left? Or had he just been hiding in the dorms and buildings that were still standing?
I didn’t like it when the three of them fought, but it seemed since I was awakened, it was all the three of them—four ofus—had been doing. Fighting, arguing, not speaking to one another. It wasn’t helping anything, and it seemed like it was starting to affect the mood of S’Kir.
“You haven’t seen her take blood!”
That was Rilen. His tone was angry, unwelcoming. I gasped and stopped just outside the open door.
All the questions I had in my head just moments before were gone.
“Neither of you have bothered to see what happens when she gives and takes from Aiko!”
“That’s not our business,” Dorian snapped.
“Sheis our business, you old ass! You love her just as much as Roran and I do, even though you’re too thoroughly pig-headed to admit it.”
“What’s your point, brother?” I could imagine Roran folding his arms over his chest.
“My point is that for as much as you two love her and care for her, you don’t know her. All of her. The druidandthe vampire. Whether you like it or not, she’s both. Yes, yes, I get it—she was born and raised a druid and will always lean toward that. But she’s also vampire. Being around Gwynnore, Belshazzar, Odom, and Aiko is showing her that she doesn’t have to shrink from that.”
Dorian snorted at his brother’s name.
Rilen ignored him.
