Grandpa Constantine always said there are no coincidences.
Ryker banged on the blue orb. His skin sizzled on impact, but he didn’t relent. He might have ripped the crypt stone by stone, statue by statue if it meant reaching her.
I knew what he was seeing through his sparking eyes.
He’d lost Geryll.
Now he feared he would lose Nadya.
But she had never been one of his own, not really.
“Let me in, Allie,” he said, deadly calm.
The battle raging inside of him bled me dry–he wanted to trust me, but he wanted to protect Nadya at the same time.
“You said you trusted me.” I raised my open palm to pacify his fears. “Let me speak and I’ll break the orb.”
His nostrils flared, but that pull between us won. He sensed no lie, and gave a curt nod. “Now.”
I flicked my fingers and the blue light retreated to circle my wrists, like snakes ready to strike. Only two tendrils remained, reinforcing the arrows and keeping Nadya in place.
“Speak,” he bit out.
“Mrs. Thornbrew says Nadya locked herself in her room since Geryll’s death.” My words ripped more of him, his cracks echoing within me. But I couldn’t bring myself to look at him and see the pain I was causing. Instead, I narrowed my gaze on its true cause–Nadya. “To mourn. But that’s a lie, isn’t it?”
“It is not.” Mrs. Thornbrew stepped forward, all haughty and disappointed in me. “People mourn in different ways. You stayed in your room for weeks when you came here.”
A grimace pulled at Dax’s mouth, even as he slid two daggers into his palms, his own candle now forgotten on the ground.
He knew.
“I did.” I nodded at Nadya. “But you didn’t, did you? The same way you weren’t out to train that day we saw the glimmer on the crater’s rim. The message was meant for you.”
Nadya’s gaze widened for the briefest moment. Then she buried it. But I saw the change–and from the way her muscle twitched in her jaw, she knew it, too.
“You’re crazy,” Nadya bit my way. I wasn’t shocked. Just disappointed. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t protect the crater properly.”
My jaw clenched. “What did the message say, Nadya?”
How many others had she received, before–and maybe even after–I’d begun to watch the sky every day?
“She’s trying to turn you against me.” She looked up at Ryker with pleading eyes. “Please, don’t let her poison you. She’s been a pest on this land ever since she came here. Now she’s imagining glimmers and messages.”
My chest constricted for a heartbeat, terrified that Ryker would believe her. That, despite his words, he still didn’t see or trust me.
But that fear vanished as quickly as it had taken its ugly shape, as Ryker’s gaze darkened.
The change in him was instant.
His jaw tightened.
His shoulders tensed.
But his eyes…I chanced a look at them. I wished I hadn’t. They held endless sorrow, that cut the breath out of me.
“Are you telling the truth?” he asked, voice now low and dangerous, though he already knew the answer.
It drummed through him like it did through me.
