With a whimper, I curled my fingers in to hide my claws, but Tristram took my hand and eased it slack again.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, holding on so lightly.
I wanted to cry and wail and beat his chest and tell him that it was absolutely not all right, that the last thing it would ever be was all right, but?—
But that would have hurt him. Tristram had been trying to save me when he and Rhys had given me that first sip of dragon’s blood, and the very last thing I wanted to do in this world was punish him for the crime of loving me that much.
I took a shaky breath and nodded. Even my voice came out strange and rough. “I just have to calm down. It’ll go away.”
This feeling always came upon me hot, like a fire had lit behind my ribcage. It overwhelmed all my senses.
The first time it had happened, I’d jumped from a tower window and stalked off, unharmed into the night. On pure instinct, I’d left Merrick in search of Aderyn.
I’d not come back to myself until Bet found me, and even then, my first thought had been to fight.
Fight him, or fight the whole world. It wouldn’t have mattered. But I’d calmed down, and we’d followed the army to Windy Pass.
I... had not realized what happened to me until we reached the battle proper, and I saw the warped and twisted monsters across the field—those who’d taken dragon blood in exchange for a blighted magic. It had doomed them all. They’d become feral, except my cousin—another Cavendish that survived the blood with their mind intact.
Well, relatively. I never knew how much of Nicolas was himself at the end, and how much was the blood. I liked to think it was the blood that had twisted him, but our family had been barbed and bitter long before he’d had a sip of it.
That was almost worse—the thought that my tainted inheritance was more than just a mistake or the allure of power. It was something buried deep within me, a doom that lurked just beyond the horizon, stalking ever closer.
Blood or no blood, I was wrong.
When Tristram told me how my cousin fell, I’d seen my future in Nicolas’s fate. Cruelty and darkness and greed, all writhing inside me until they were all that was left.
I couldn’t let it happen. For Tristram, for Llangard, for Aderyn, I couldn’t allow it.
The blood had still taken what pitiful magic I’d had, and it wanted all that was left of me.
Tristram held my hand firm, running his thumb over my knuckles until I could breathe steadily again.
As soon as I’d caught my breath, he gave my hand a soft tug and I tumbled forward, burying my face against his shoulder so he couldn’t see the silent tears welling in my eyes.
He hugged me tight and let me stay there, never mentioning how my breath jumped or my shoulders trembled.
When I finally relaxed, he swiped his hand down my back. “Perhaps you should take the rest of the day to rest and recover?”
The shift was coming, and there was nothing I could do to avoid it. I’d tried. Every time, the beast inside won the day.
Tris and I both knew that I wouldn’t be recovering; I’d be hiding.
I nodded anyway.
I was doomed, and as horrifying a prospect as it was to bring all of Llangard down with me, the worst part would be lookinginto Aderyn’s eyes when he realized that I was the very thing he hated most.
10
ADERYN
Tristram had given me much to consider, whether he knew it or not.
Roland’s aunt had children, so he didn’t need to have them.
Except, shouldn’t he? Wouldn’t the world be a better place with a bunch of red-haired, blue-eyed babies running around the Spires, getting into everything? They’d be clever and thoughtful and just too perfect for words.
Exactly like Roland.
