“I don’t think I have.” Forov inspected his fingernails, and I—fuck it all, but I wanted to tear them from his fingers and shove them down his throat. “Destovia is at a crossroads. If we’re to defend our empire, to provide the allyship your kingdom needs so direly, there is only one thing that can guarantee our partnership moving forward.”
“Something I can give to you?” I’d be damned if I would. This might not be a cage, but it may as well be for all I could escape it.
Even if I were to transform, to turn into a beast and tear my way through every person on this ship, I didn’t have wings of my own, and even under the heady fury of the monster inside me, I didn’t think I had the strength to swim across the ocean between Llangard and Destovia.
“Magic.” He set his hand down in his lap and leaned forward, beady eyes suddenly intent on me. “Cavendish blood.”
I snorted. Of course that was it.
He was undeterred. “We have heard tell of what your people can do—what your aunt did in Windy Pass. The Cavendish walk among us as gods.”
It took all that I had not to roll my eyes. What power any Llangardian mage had came directly from their bond to the dragons around them, and Forov had already proven himself as a man who valued such allies too little.
If Destovia learned the truth about magic, this man or those who worked over him would prove no better than Athelstan. They would?—
They would do what I had done, and take dragons for all they could.
But in this, I couldn’t help them. My magic was a dead, paltry thing against what it had been in my youth.
Even then, I’d had nothing a fraction as impressive as Aunt Gillian’s power.
I kept my mouth shut and let Forov continue.
“Emperor Joseph desires his heir to have magic of their own, not through rite or ritual, but through birth alone, andyourfamily is one of the last. Your ancestors nearly extinguished the snakes that plagued you.”
“Ancestor,” I corrected.
“What?”
“It was one man. Athelstan, who was so reviled that his own son banished him from Llangard. Or most recently, Vidar. He survived by craven magic, took a new name, and I killed him myself. It’s not a legacy to replicate.”
I’d have killed him again—not for all his crimes, but for the particular abuse he rained upon Aderyn. It made me selfish, and at least in this, I didn’t give a damn.
Forov’s forehead wrinkled, but his eyes were hungry. Perhaps he was weighing how much to believe me. He might think immortality was something he could achieve, or something he could offer his emperor.
It wouldn’t last. If it came to it, I’d kill him and his emperor both.
“It is power, and we require it.” Forov turned his chin up. “But we aren’t unreasonable. You need this match too—ties to Destovia so that no other nation dares threaten you. You’ll remain king, of course. Rule by proxy long enough to sire children on Princess Josephine.”
I balked. “I will not be marrying her nor anyone else.”
Not anyone. Notever.
The very idea of love had flown away on emerald wings.
“Don’t be stubborn. It wouldn’t be appropriate for you to refuse her hand, and she is a finer match than any you could make in Llangard. I’ve seen your stock?—”
I hissed, pushing to my feet, ignoring the way my stomach rebelled. “You’d be wise to hold your tongue on the matter of my people.”
Forov shut his mouth, his lips thin, the arch of his brow smug. “Perhaps you’re right. It’s too early for these conversations. You’ve had a trying day. I trust the accommodations are well-enough appointed for you?”
I cast a glare around the room. It was fine and adorned richly. The furniture was a dense, dark wood, polished to a high shine.
I fantasized about breaking it on the floor and beating this man to death with a jagged chair leg.
Otherwise, I saw no obvious weapon in the room, which seemed large for a ship but far smaller than what I was used to in the Spires.
“Quite,” I sneered between my teeth.
