Hart jumped from Charon’s back. “Yes.” He stood there as if waiting for me to follow, like perhaps he’d catch me as I slid down the side of our giant, scaled companion. Charon must have sensed my discomfort, because he lowered his neck, allowing me to clamber directly onto the stone.
“Is Scarlett here?”
“We should hope not.”
“I might agree with Charon on this one,” Hart said.
I glanced over my shoulder. We weren’t exactly inconspicuous. It wasn’t easy to be sneaky with a dragon.
“You two go in. I’ll guard the entrance. I can at least distract her should she return.”
Hart didn’t need Charon to offer twice. He strode into the opening before I could question the plan, which didn’t sound like a plan at all. “Come on, Chaos. We need to be quick.”
I didn’t even have time to be irritated as we entered the cavern.
The interior was completely hollowed out, the space almost as large as the adamas room in the Oldwood Mines. Light followed us in from the entrance, but the visibility dimmed with each step we took deeper into the cave.
“This does not seem very secure,” I said as I caught sight of the so-called hoard. A large pile of objects was tucked as far into the cavern space as possible. I paused to glance between the stack of treasures and the entrance.
“Not many would risk Scarlett’s wrath,” Hart said, approaching the pile of items. Most gleamed in the little light still available. Silver plates, gold statues, necklaces with colored gemstones; every item seemed unique and wholly unconnected to the others.
“Why are we, again?” I chased after him. He knelt beside the pile, picking up individual pieces and evaluating them.
“Desperation,” he replied as he tossed aside another trinket.
I shook my head. “We don’t even know what the necklace does.”
“Your uncle made it. He went to great lengths to ensure it would be available to us.” Hart stood again and circled the pile as he arched a brow at me. “We haven’t found any otheroptions in Delphine’s journals. Alaric’s papers are all we have.”
“Papers Lucinda and Blair were only meant to give to me if I arrived with you. What are the odds of that?” I mumbled to myself. That fact might have made the whole thing worse.
Hart turned to me, his smirk firmly in place. “I told you, Chaos. I could find you anywhere. And once I found you, I certainly wasn’t going to let you go.”
He had said a lot of things I was no longer sure I believed. I’d been so willing to accept the words when he’d originally said them. No one had ever seen me the way I thought he had. It was probably why the sting of his betrayal was so sharp.
“A single ember,” he said under his breath as he took a step in my direction.
I wanted him to stop. I didn’t want to hear the stupid promises he’d made me. The idiotic things I’d believed against all evidence that he was a liar. Mentally, I attempted to open the box where I tucked all these stupid emotions. I wanted to shove the hurt and the embarrassment in with the rest.
Another step brought him too close, within arm’s reach. “Lighting the darkest?—”
But he wouldn’t stop. Why did he insist on continuing down this path? Something raw clawed at my insides, and when I cracked the lid to shove the feelings in, something snapped.
“Just—stop!” I pressed my hands against his chest to halt his progress. My heart beat rapidly. The temperature in the room rose, and I didn’t know if it was the heat of our connection or my anger that fanned the flame. “You don’t get to say any of that to me,Sebastien.”
I wielded the name like a weapon. It was the one I’d been avoiding. The one that proved how many secrets he’d kept. The one that everyone else had known but me. Using it shatteredthat box where I’d shoved every uncomfortable thought into a thousand pieces.
I didn’t even listen to the words I shouted. I just didn’t want to hear any more of his. “You don’t get to say that you would follow me, or that you wouldn’t let me go, or remind me of any of the stupid lies you told me in Kavios!”
He froze, though I could have sworn his lip twitched. That only made me angrier. It was as if every thought I’d tried to ignore, every memory I’d tried to erase, they all flooded my senses and coalesced as fire spewing from my lips.
“You lied to me. You used me. And what’s worse—what kills me—is that I so desperately wanted to believe you, I ignored every. Single. Sign.”
“Ember—”
Words poured forth. I wished I could stop them, but it was like a dam breaking, and I was no longer in control. “I cannot believe I didn’t see you for who you were sooner. You knew too much. You saw too much. I let myself believe that it could have been me you saw—not a prize—not a target.”
“I never?—”
