They can cut through anything.
Dragon scales. Stone. Steel.
His flesh is no challenge.
His pupils dilate, but it can’t be with fear. Emil has rarely shown fear.
At the appearance of my claws, my father starts to cackle. He probably thinks I’ll lose control of my anger and drive my claws into Emil’s chest after all.
He has remained looming a step behind Emil but is now standing farther to my left. It’s a location that keeps him positioned steadfastly between me and the only way out. It also puts him closer toThe Book of Dark Magic.
He smiles with apparent delight at our conflict.
I’m sure he’s reveling in my pain, but while I keep him within my sights, my focus on Emil doesn’t waver.
To Emil, I repeat my accusation, daring him to contradict me. “Youallowed meto believe my mother had betrayed me.”
Emil is like stone opposite me.
And then, instead of drawing away from me like I expect him to, he leans into my clawed hand as if I were cradling his face instead of threatening to rip him to shreds.
Pinpricks of blood form across his skin where the tips of my claws cut his cheek and jaw.
His eyes close and the breathwhooshesaudibly from his chest, an exhale that appears to sap everything from him.
“I did,” he says quietly. “I let you believe it.”
His shoulders slump even farther forward, his weight becoming so heavy against my hand that I’m forced to retract my claws before they tear down his cheek.
It’s the only movement I can manage right now because his admission has frozen me to the spot and the speech has died in my throat.
I never expected him to agree with me, let alone without anger.
As I try to catch my breath, his shape changes again.
His dragon wings retract and his black scales peel away. His jaw becomes chiseled and his shoulders become impossibly broad.
His clothing transforms into a white tunic and pants, the sleeveless shirt revealing all the defined muscles of his biceps and forearms. The style of this clothing is similar to the trainingclothes we wore back on the island, but the weave of the material is much finer, shinier even, the kind that might be worn by a king.
A white belt rests around his waist with a silver buckle and a small sheath attached to it that could be intended to hold a weapon—except that it’s empty.
At the same time, his hair slowly bleaches of color until its strands are like silver metal. They catch the rays of light magic glimmering around my father’s hands, fracturing the magic in the same way that my heart is cracking, splintering it into rainbows around us.
Where Emil’s face rests against my hand, his skin is unnaturally cold, an icy temperature that makes me want to withdraw.
He opens his eyes, and they are the color of the palest-green leaves.
Now, my breathing has stopped altogether because his face…
This unearthly, beautiful face…
It scares the fuck out of me.
“I chose to hurt you,” he says in a soft murmur that feels as if it wraps around my chest. “That is the truth.”
He was wearing this face when he warned me thatThe Book of Dark Magicwould destroy me.
I asked him to stay with me. To stand with me. I promised him I wouldn’t break. When he didn’t believe me, I told him that nothing was impossible.
