“Try what again, Rivelin?” I asked tiredly.
“Don’t ruin this place,” he said in a gruff voice that sounded pained, like the very thought of it was a knife in the heart. “Please.”
Please.The word shuddered through me.
He continued. “You know what will happen if Isveig finds this island.”
“I’m all too aware.”
“So then don’t do it. If not for me, then for Lilia. For Odel. For poor Mabel, who finally found a safe haven after Isveig tookeverythingfrom her.” The ragged emotion in his voice rattled the reinforcements around my heart. “This place is all we have left.”
I lifted my eyes to his face. “And what about the dragons? Is this what you wouldn’t tell me earlier, when we were on the roof? You don’t want Isveig to find out about this place because of them.”
Sighing, he nodded. “The dragons can’t be protected the same way the folk of this island can. As they grow, they’ll start flying further and further, exploring their world. I have no control over them. None of us do. If Isveig learns they exist, he’ll wait for them to roam, and he’ll find a way to kill them all.”
I hung my head. “Draugr killed my mother and father.”
A long moment passed, the only sound the steady rush of the waves.
Rivelin finally said, “How did it happen?”
I was surprised he bothered to ask. “It was before Isveig invaded, back when Fafnir wasn’t part of his empire. Mother and Father had gone to the market. While they were there…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Draugr attacked. Three elves who had bonded with dragons and filled themselves up with their power. They burned down the entire market. Hundreds died.”
“I heard about that. It was an awful thing that happened. You couldn’t have been more than…”
“Six years old. The king took me in after that, gave me a place in his castle. I remember his face so much better than theirs, as hard as I try to picture them.”
“I understand far better than you know.”
I frowned and looked up at his distant eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I lost my family when I was only fifteen.”
“You and Lilia…”
“We had three other siblings, and our parents, of course. Plus, cousins and aunts and uncles. Grandparents, too. They’re all gone. Only Lilia and I got away.”
“I’m sorry. You mentioned Isveig and his mercenaries before. What happened?”
The muscles around his eyes tightened. “Isveig sent murks to our city when he heard the Kingdom of Edda was planning for war. We wanted to stop him from conquering any more lands. But he attacked us before we had a chance to do a damn thing.”
I’d heard about their plans. The Elven Resistance had risen up when the world learned what Isveig had done to my kingdom. But stories of the elves had dissipated as quickly as they’d appeared when Isveig had invadedtheirlands, too, in retaliation.
Rivelin sighed. “And then, three years later, I tried to get my revenge. I sneaked across the border and started killing every ice giant I could find, even those not involved. I let my rage get the better of me until I was nothing but a shell of who I’d once been.”
I looked up at him, surprised. “By yourself?”
“I’ve been by myself for a very long time. If Lilia had known, she would have tried to stop me. Not that I would have listened. I would have kept going until it claimed my life, if I hadn’t wandered into the wrong village at the wrong time, where a Draugr was hiding out—a human barely holding on to consciousness. She burned herself and the whole place down. I barely got out alive.”
I shook my head. “If what you say is true, how are you so cavalier about these dragons? You’ve seen first-hand what they can do, same as me.”
“Because the dragons are harmless, Daella,” he said, suddenly reaching out to cup my cheek. I shuddered as the steam danced between us, at the feel of his strong hand against my skin. “They just want to live in peace, and they don’t want anyone to use their power. No one truly can, anyway. They run too hot. You’ll get burned just by being too near them.”
“People did it before,” I argued. “They bonded with them.”
“Using Fildur sand. No one has any of that here on the Isles.”
“Are you certain? Have you tried to bond with them without the sand?”
