He wasgone.
A crinkling sensation slithered across my brow and I slowly lifted the crown of flowers off my head. The twisted vines of blue flowers had withered and died, the now brown petals crumbling off the crown like ash.
“Why?” I pulled my eyes from the ruined gift to Daigen’s ugly face. “Why did you want my blood bond? Why would you take him away from me again?”
Daigen lowered onto his haunches and rested his forearms on his knees. “Did I really take him away when you never chose him? He was forced on you.”
Tepid tears lined my eyes. “Riyan never forced—”
“Fraleighforced it,” he said with disgust. “Her marriage enchantment has been corrupted for centuries, yet thousands of people are still bound under duress.”
Why would a monster on the mountain care about the noble marriage enchantment? Was he just a rival to Fraleigh’s magic?
The dead vines crinkled as I gripped them. “Do you really hate Fraleigh so much that you want to take her gifts away?”
Daigen’s eyes gleamed as the wind pushed his white hair around his horns. “Fraleigh was the start of your problem. Don’t you think the Queen of the Giants is deeply unsettled that her only sister is enslaved?”
That could not be right. Fraleigh, known to all asher majesty,could not be a…a slave.
And the Ganora was her sister?
Impossible, all of it. The Queen of the Giants did not have a sister. The Great Sorceress who dripped with jewels and lived in a palace of gold was no slave.
“But…Fraleigh is all-powerful?” I asked.
“All-powerful does not mean all-wise,” Daigen answered with a scowl. “She made a bad deal with the Hytons centuries ago and ended up permanently in their service. Ganora has been taking it out on the Dukedom ever since.”
What kind of a deal would a sorceress have made? I could not shake the memory of that piece of parchment with the Hyton seal on Father’s desk seven years ago.
A bad deal with the Hytons.
Daigen’s voice softened. “You made your payment, now you get my help.” He held out his hand. “Ganora took something from you, the Hytons took something from me. If you just trust me, we will both get what we want by the time the moon is full.”
My eyes traced the faint white scar in the center of Daigen’s palm. The mark was nearly identical to the blood bond scar on my left hand, but it was…purer, like it was formed with a different kind of magic.
I had completely surrendered to my own blood bond and let it ground me in a new, warmer reality. I thought my love for Riyan had changed me…but was it ever real?
Wasanythingbetween us ever real?
Within the dark chasm of my chest, the tiny white flame around my heart awoke. It flicked a small wisp of truth up my throat, dragging my shame with it. “How do I know if I ever loved him?”
He let out a gentle breath but did not lower his hand. “Love requires a choice. If you were ever meant to love him, you will without the bond. Trust me.”
Never before would I have considered trusting the horned monster of the mountain, but what choice did I have? Before I had a blood bond full of love and light to guide me, but now I was directionless without the enchantment from an enslaved sorceress. Did Rosaline tell me to find Daigen because he knew the truth of the world?
Regardless of why I found him or what he wanted from me…at least he was real.
Ineededsomething real.
I lowered the wreath of dead flowers into the snow and placed my left palm on top of his right, the scars from two different blood bonds meeting.
And I chose to trust him.
Daigen slowly helped me to my feet, even though my muscles shook and the cold wind blew around me.
He flicked his wrist and the snowflakes above my head melted away. “If you want to get your former husband back,Litlnadr,we have to get out of this cold first.”
The hell did he just call me?
