He seems focused on his question. “For the last ten years, I’ve been cut off from the rest of the world, just like you were,” he says. “At the time when my wolf’s pack roamed these lands, the north was occupied by humans. The fae lived far east. When Thaden Kane said there were feuding queens in the north, I expected them both to be human. Some squabble between them, at most. The fae have no right to these lands and should have no reason to be here.”
“What are you saying?”
“That the fae are invaders. Any claim they purport to have over this land is certainly false.”
I shiver at how emphatically he speaks.
“The question is why?” he continues. “Why would they leave their bountiful lands to press into barren mountains?”
Oh, to think like him.
To always suspect the motives of others and recognize when a game is being played.
I wish I had that instinct.
But perhaps… I am acquiring some of that skill. “What does Milena have to do with it?”
I may not be able to see the detail of Erik’s expression, but I feel him nod.
“We’re missing something.” His arms tighten around me further. “We should find out as much as we can before we leave.”
I bite my lower lip. “Weleave?”
“I’m coming with you.” He pauses. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
Slowly, he pulls the blanket down, letting the dim light in and leaving his hair a mess.
His arms ease around me in the process.
I reach up to run my fingers along his jaw, my head tipped back to see him.
“Is this what you looked like before you were changed?”
He shrugs. “I was ten years younger then.”
I try to ask the question that matters most to me in this moment—not about the fae or the future—but I’m not sure how to phrase it. “How did this happen? Where has the wolf gone?”
His lips pull back into a smile that looks very much like a snarl. “Not gone.”
I scowl at him, completely unintimidated. “You’re evading. I don’t like it.” I hurry on. “It’s okay if you don’t know, but I need to understand what happened. I need to know if…”
My shoulders hunch, which only takes me closer to his chest. “I need to know whether or not, in the midst of all the darkness, I did a good thing.”
“You did a good thing.” His response is immediate. “Malak used that mechanism to transform me. That device was his greatest creation. The source of his pride. When he cut my chest open and implanted it in my heart, I knew its dark power was never going to let me go. Only an equally dark power could coax it out.”
Blacksmith magic is drawn to itself.
“Malak’s own power,” I whisper. My next question is more hesitant. “Did you hope that I might remove the mechanism one day?”
“Fuck, no,” he says, his voice emphatic. “I thought removing it would kill me.”
“Oh.” My eyes have widened. “I’m glad I didn’t know that.”
It nearly did kill him. It tore through his body on its way to my hand. It was only because Gliss acted so quickly that he didn’t die.
I’m horribly aware that the detail with which Erik described the mechanism means he may have been conscious for at least some of its implantation. I try to shake that off. Only terrible pain could have created the beast he was when he first came upon me in the throne room.
