I could not reveal either right now. Unless…
“Do you think she and Lightbringer might bond over their rage?”
Shadowbane scoffed.“You do not wish to be on the receiving end of Lightbringer’s rage.”
“Too late,”I told him.“Does she realize how much trouble we are in if she doesn’t fly? If we don’t escape the Trials?”
“You gambled she would not let Cara die by the flames. Now I imagine she is reluctant to be manipulated for the sake of your safety.”
“It was not a gamble. I would not gamble her life.”I felt irritated by the accusation, especially when Shadowbane had plotted with me. He was just as guilty.
The queen had played into my hands deliciously with her attempt to kill Cara; by blocking any other Amber dragon from claiming Cara, she had guaranteed Lightbringer would choose Cara. After all I had heard of Lightbringer from Shadowbane, I knew she would never have let my plucky little half-mortal perish.
“I am asking how we stop your mate from being so damned stubborn,”I told Shadowbane. I crossed to the chest and opened it, pushing apart the cloak in which Cara had wrapped the knife. She had held it to her chest so tenderly, as if it were the embodiment of her love for her family, of how far she would go for them.
The thought made something tear at my chest. I wondered if she would ever love me so fully.“If I take Tay from the queen now, she will know we have the knife. We have to escape the Trials first.”
“Break the rules,”he said flippantly.
“The other clans would turn on us, and the queen would justify sending the Nightwalkers or simply send us into some mad situation to die without the other clans’ support. I have not secured enough alliances for us yet.”
Some of the clans would go with us. Garnet, certainly. Flint. I was certain of some of my alliances. Malachite would go to the queen. Selenite had long been loyal to the queen and yet had not been well repaid. Obsidian, if they knew what I’d done, would want to turn us over to the queen—or rather, they’d want to offer her our lifeless bodies.
Before Shadowbane could offer his usual suggestions of violence, I added,“The goal is to keep the other clans alive and on our side. We are not fighting for ourselves alone, and we must not fight alone.”
I stared down at the knife. I’d told Cara that the queen would not use Tay against her, not yet. The queen could only use her family as a threat. If she could force Cara to betray me with them, she would. Once she played that hand, it was over. She wouldn’t raise him to be Fae because then Cara would come after her with all her fury.
Cara and Lightbringer would be one in all their rage.“Lightbringer will act to save Cara if she needs her.”
I had come to love Cara, with her quick mind and her irritated kindness. Lightbringer would love her too.
“If you gamble with the girl’s family, you will lose her,”Shadowbane warned.
“I will not. I promised her.”
“She doesn’t trust your promises. You tricked her and deceived her.”
There was little argument against that.“I know, but I want her to trust me. I want to make her happy, Bane.”
That was the worst confession. Worse than the trickery and the deceit, because it was making me weak when I needed most to be strong. We were so close to the opportunity to remake the world. I was beginning to better understand Ander, to even empathize with the asshole, and that was unbearable.“I can’t hold onto the knife. I have to get it out of Cara’s reach.”
She was impulsive when it came to protecting others. She had stepped in front of that wyrm’s snapping jaws without a thought for her own life. I feared she would save Tay at unimaginable cost if she thought I wouldn’t act quickly enough.
“Are you saying she isn’t trustworthy?”Shadowbane asked.“Or finally admitting that you aren’t, thanks to her?”
“You are a very tiresome voice in my head.”
“You are a very tiresome series of choices to watch.”
Perhaps the solution arrived so neatly because Ander was already on my mind. It even made sense that Ander would want to be the one to hold the knife, and it was less likely the queen would ever discover that I was the one who had stolen it if it was with my least-favorite shifter.
I wrapped the knife and carried it to the door before I could think better of it, though Shadowbane groused at me the entire way.
Clan Amber was packing up to leave, though we still had tomorrow’s Hunt before they were free. I paused at the archeddoorway, watching the bustle of packs and weapons being prepared. For most shifters, this had become their home, but they were all eager to escape.
It seemed as if dread was everywhere in the air at the end of these Trials.
“I’d speak to your clan leader,” I told the first Clan Amber shifter who looked up from the chest they’d just set on the ground. His eyes widened with unnecessary fear before he managed to feign Clan Amber’s characteristic disinterest.
