“If there was any way to postpone this,” Zryan says, looking first at Astrid, then at Skylar, “I would.”
“We could ask for a delay?” It’s Axel, suggesting this. Suggesting going against what his king wants. Skylar glances at him very briefly, then looks away again before he can meet her gaze. But she can see the way he’s looking at her. And it’s not in fear or disgust. She’s not sure what exactly she’s seeing—but not that.
Skylar shakes her head. “No. Let’s go now.” She needs to know what happens next.
She offers Astrid half a smile.Thanks, though, Little Witch.And like Astrid can hear her, she nods. Then, with one final glance at Zryan, she turns away from them all.
“Skylar—” Zryan begins, when Astrid is out of earshot.
“Don’t,” she snaps. Then she takes a breath. “Just… let’s not, okay? Let’s just get this over with.”
Zryan waits for her to meet his storm-cloud gaze. “Okay.” And for some reason, that one word doesn’t sound like judgment. It sounds like solidarity.
“So,” the king says, bracing his fingers together on his desk. He is the only one seated. Ottilie is standing by his side, looking out the window, while Skylar is facing the desk, flanked by Axel and Zryan. “No dragon.” His pale blue eyes are cold and calculating on her face. She can’t tell from his voice if the disappointment is because she returned without a dragon—or because she returned at all.
Beneath her skin, her power crackles, the first she has heard from it since the island. “But I hear you’ve been hiding things from us, my girl.”
She clenches her hands into fists at her sides. She wants to tell him again what she spat at him the night she was dragged into the castle. She is nothis girl. Next to her, Axel shifts ever so slightly, and the tips of his fingers brush against the back of her hand. She’s not sure if it’s deliberate, but it’s a useful reminder to stay calm. Her fate is in the king’s hands right now—and like it or not, she has to play nice. Which for her, means staying silent.
“Explain,” the king says, looking at Axel.
Axel hesitates, glancing at Skylar. But he’s already told them, hasn’t he?
When Axel starts to speak, to explain what he saw, Skylar tries not to listen. She doesn’t need a recap. All she wants to know is what happens now. They still need her for the duel. But after that—will she take the executioner’s place? Will they just kill her? Are theyallowedto kill her, if she wins? She has no idea what the rules of the Covenant are. But regardless of that—there’s no way the people would let an Exhauster rule, is there? There would be even more uproar than there already is. She supposes this means that whoever out there was rooting for her to win might not be anymore.
She realizes then that the queen is watching her. She turns her head, meets the queen’s gaze. Ottilie’s mouth twists, just a little. Skylar can’t figure out what she’s thinking. Is she wishing she were a higher grade Discerner—so she could have sensed this power in Skylar earlier? Then again, Skylar has spent years repressing her power—since that night. She’s spent years convincing herself she’s not Blooded. So maybe the queen wouldn’t have been able to sense it anyway.
When Axel stops speaking, the king turns his focus on Skylar. He considers her for a long moment before shaking his head almost ruefully. “I did wonder how you got away that night.”
And there it is—out in the open. An admission that he had her mother killed, tried to haveherkilled.
Run, Skylar.
The last thing her mother ever said to her. She forces herself to breathe.Do not lose it, Skylar.Because if she does, in front of all of them—there’s only one way this can end, isn’t there?
“I didn’t even know for sure you were my daughter, back then,” the king continues mildly. “I’d had a brief dalliance with your mother, of course.” Next to him, Ottilie stiffens, looking away from Skylar, as if the idea of her mate ever having been with another woman is abhorrent. He reaches out, touches her waist lightly. “Brief andmeaningless,” he says pointedly. The queen continues to look away, but places her hand over his.
“I heard a rumor several years later,” the king says, regarding Skylar with an expression she can’t quite read. “Whispers around the city. Could be nothing—but I thought, why risk it? It took me nearly a year to find her—and you. Your mother worked hard to keep you hidden, that was for sure.”
Skylar’s heart rate is rising, bile bitter in her throat. She can’t look back at him. She can’t look away. He is admitting to murdering her mother. To not caring whether the child he killed was his heir—or justa casualty. And she doesn’t think she can do this: stand and listen to him talk about it. She doesn’t know why he’s telling her—other than to prove the point, perhaps, of how powerful he is—but she doesn’t want to hear it. An echo of what she felt on the island surges in her. Could she do it? Reach out, take the life force from the king, here, in front of everyone?
He’d deserve it. And does she care if they kill her for it, as long as she takes him with her? She can already sense her power, reaching out toward him. Hungry. Desperate.
You need to live, Lar.
The next breath she takes is like sandpaper against her throat. He’s right. She needs to live; she needs to not be a prisoner. For him, she needs that.
Next to her, she feels Axel shift subtly. Not enough to touch her this time, but enough to make her glance up. He’s frowning at her—but not in disapproval. She thinks it’s concern she sees behind those eyes. Because he can sense what it is she’s feeling. She gives him the tiniest of nods, trying to convey that she’s not going to lose it. At least not right now.
The king is still watching her. “The commander of my Dreki told me that your mother killed my guards that night, then she killed you both herself. My Projector sent me images of your mother’s body as proof—said you’d been blasted apart by the Air Bringer.” He pauses, and Skylar has a second to imagine—Dreki, standing around her mother’s body. Sending images of it to the king, while she was cornered in that alley.
Nausea swells, but she can’t stop her mind from going back to that night. The Dreki, invading their home, right in the southernmost part of Vatra. Her mum, begging her to run. The guard that followed her.
Nowhere left to run.
The way he’d gone in for the kill. Her body’s reaction as his knife glinted in the dark. Her power surging for the first time in her life. Urging her to pull. To take the man’s life force and watch as his face drained of color, his eyes protruding in horror as blood vessels popped. To watch him slump to the street, dead. And the power, horrible, sickening, exhilarating power, flooding her system. Ten years old, and she’d killed a man for the first time.
She found Aldric not long after. Vowed never to use her power again, so it could never be used as a reason to kill her. And so she could never be tempted to kill again.
