“What if I don’t want that any longer?”
Profound sadness filled his eyes, as if the veil he’d placed over them to keep the world from seeing the true Vexxion parted only for me. “Then I have no reason to exist.”
“Do not pin that on me.” I started stomping around again, expending my fury in my movements as well as in my voice. “You and your friends came to the fortress. No, we won’t call them friends. You,your brother—”
“Half-brother.”
Whatever. “You, Zayde, and your cousin came to the fortress solely to make sure I would be claimed and presented to your father for draining.”
“I went to the fortress to speak with the commander, nothing else.”
“Forgive me if I have a hard time believing you.”
He nodded. “I deserve that. Hit me if you want.”
“While smacking you would bring me endless pleasure, it won’t change what you’ve done.” I grunted. “Back at the fortress, you said you told the commander no, but then . . .” I sorted through my memories, trying to line them up. “You saidyou told him you’d speak to . . .” Ah, yes. “The king, I assume, as long as he did something for you.”
“Yes. That’s when I asked him to send you to the Claiming.”
I flung my arms up into the air rather than pull the blade at my side and slam it into his belly. Oh, how I itched to do it, to end this with the dagger he’d gifted me. But then I’d have to turn the blade onto myself if only to sever the feelings still coursing through me for this wretched fae man.
“Farnoll had already spoken to the commander, though I didn’t know that back then,” he said. “He was sent to make the arrangement, not me. I will mention that I knew he’d traveled with me to ensuresomeonewas sent to the Claiming. I didn’t know it was you.”
“And you had no problem with that? You were going to blithely allow him to send a powerful Nullen to be drained by your father?”
“I told you I don’t claim him as my father,” he bit out.
“Your wishes don’t matter in this, because he’s claimed you already,Controller.”
“I’ve spent almost all my life convincing him that he can trust me, as far as he trusts anyone, that is.”
“Why?”
“How else will I get close enough to kill him? He won’t stand in place and let me drive the blade through his heart like I ache to do.”
“You’re close enough to him already. You hover by his side, doing his bidding without question. Pull the knife and stab him through the eye. You did it with dregs; do it with him.”
“I told you his spell keeps me from doing anything that might cause him harm.”
“Is that why you’re weak after you flit? Do his spells impact everything you do?” If so, I could only imagine how powerful Vexxion would be if his magic wasn’t suppressed.
“Yes, the spell weakens me at times, but it doesn’t impact everything.”
Obviously, or he wouldn’t be able to function as the controller.
I laid it all out as I saw it in my mind. “You were weak when you arrived at the fortress.”
“I’d just come from Bledmire. His spell had full effect.”
“But you grew stronger the longer you were away from him, strong enough to flit here to try to help Brodine and Reyla.”
He nodded.
“And now that you’re back here again, the spell deadens your magic.”
“More or less.”
“You tell me. More or less?”
