And now she really did want to jump into this pit and let Dulphi eat her, if only to avoid this conversation. “Yet you called me a coward for denying he’s my mate.”
“I know your kind don’t have them, but I’ve felt bonded tugs between my kind before. Whatever you have with Cason, it’s a gods-damnedyank, and for some reason, he’s the only one pulling on that bond.”
Brela snarled. As if she didn’t already know that. She was the one denying her feelings. She was the one lying to him and leading him on, hiding who she really was.
Oni chuckled. “Perhaps the tug is just a reaction between your magic and his. But your denial doesn’t make sense.”
“I’d rather you poke more holes in me than try to explain what I can’t understand, Oni. I know he’ll betray me, I’m the one rejecting whatever tug you’re scenting, and no, I can’t figure out why I like having him not dead.”
“That’s the real reason you wanted to hide his fire from me.”
“Yes. I knew you’d try to kill him for me, and I didn’t want to have to kill you first or explain it in front of him. I waited to reveal it when I had the best advantage to keep you both alive.”
Oni shook his head. “Ov zaoczi, my shadow, you walk a dangerous line. They are too clever.”
Brela shot him a glare. “Why do you think I was pissed that you practically begged me to stop an army and put the wall back together in front of them!”
“You could do it if you weren’t so afraid of your magic,” he snapped. She only snorted. “Would you rather I beg you to turn and run? Because that’s what I really want you to do, Brela. I want to pick you up on my wind and carry you as far away from Anfroy and the wall as I possibly can.”
She gripped her fists and lowered her head. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not? You won’t run, but you also won’t use that beautiful power of yours. You only hide.” Oni reached up and lifted her chin with smooth, crystal fingers, studying her eyes. “You learned how to access more of your strength. I cansmellit, well, the lack of smell. The gaping hole I feel around you is bigger than the last time I was with you. That’s why you couldn’t hide yourself from me, even across the desert, but it’s why you could hidehim.”
Brela leaned away from his hand. “Are you saying…”
“Yes,” Oni said flatly. “And what do you think is going to happen when he discovers you’ve unlocked a magic nearly twice as powerful as his? When someone else discovers what you can do?”
She didn’t want to think about that. In fact, it was precisely those thoughts she was avoiding since waking up with shadows wreathing her skin. She was already stronger with the knowledge from that book. And she didn’t have any clue how to control that strength.
She pressed her hands into her face. “What am I, Oni? What is this shard doing to me?” She groaned through her fingers. “You smelled something wrong with me the last time I was here. You said the shard and its magic were masking something else. Is it still there?”
It was that memory—that her magic could disguise other smells—that had given her the idea to mask Cason’s scent when they got to the desert, especially after he’d used his fire in the mountains.
Oni inhaled deeply and frowned. “I don’t know. You still smell like him. Smoky and crackling.” Crystal fingers wrapped around her cheek before she could hang her head again. “Brela, I know why you’re on this mission. I know why you think you have to do this, what freedoms you’ll gain, but are they worth it?”
She slapped his hand away and bared her teeth, wishing she had fangs to rival his. “How dare you.”
How could her freedom not be worth it? After he’d learned what she’d suffered under Dernian and Ovir’s touch, he had the audacity to ask her that question?
A lesser man would be trembling. A glass man? Somehow he didn’t shatter at her glare. “You know I would never joke about this, Brela. You don’t need me to protect you, but you know I’d go to war for you.”
She studied the sand, the stillness of granules under crystal that showed his truth. Her shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry. I… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. In the last few weeks, I’ve learned my father is dead, been captured and threatened, and discovered more about shadow magic than I’ve known my entire life. Not to mention it feels like that gods-damned celvusa that tried to reclaim the Veil Scholar’s dagger is following me, awake or asleep.”
“Wait,what?” he blurted. “You saw a celvusa?”
Oh, it was not good when Oni was taken by surprise when she hadn’t done it on purpose.
“You haven’t? I thought…”
Oni shook his head. “I can sense their power at the wall, and that ripple of shadow magic is what has sent the beasts running, but…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s why Elias asked about the crack in the wall. Wondering if something got out.”
“Yes, he and Farrah were there when it attacked.”
When she was finished explaining how she’d come across the dagger and how she’d gotten to keep it from the celvusa, Oni’s black eyes were wider than she’d ever seen. Even his fangs retracted when she explained the dream she had in Severina and the shadow magic she’d called on accident.
“You should not have survived,” he said, running his smooth finger over the scar on her neck.
“I’ve lost more blood in a drunken brawl than I did from the celvusa’s claw.”
