Fighting me.
For the first time in years, I wasn’t sure I would win.
Solkar’s Rays snapping Allie’s power.
The mere bleeding of the crater’s powers wouldn’t have done that.
This was vengeful–and I didn’t know how to combat it.
“What is he even doing here?” Nadya scowled.
I swallowed my sigh.
After almost dying, most of my energy sapped by Geryll’s wound, and the looming conversation with Allie raking through some of my worst fears, Nadya’s insistence was stomping a rare crack in my patience.
But easing her distress mattered more.
Of course she would be unnerved. We’d survived an attack, Geryll had been wounded, and this was the first time all three of us had time to talk.
So I listened, and I answered.
“Whether they want to admit it or not, the Veghearas are in danger,” I said, just as calmly, keeping the exhaustion at bay the best I could. “Solkar’s Reach is still safer than most other places in Malhaven.”
Not the safest.
Not anymore.
“So what?” Nadya stomped her feet. “We’re just supposed to harbour anyone who’s down on their luck or has a target on their backs?”
For the first time since he’d slumped in the chair, Geryll raised his head. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s totally fair,” Nadya said. “He’s not our problem–”
“You found safety here,” Geryll said, more softly than before. “It’s not fair for you to say others don’t deserve the same.”
“I was famished, bleeding, and barely coherent,” Nadya shot back.
“We shouldn’t wait until someone’s bleeding to help them.” Geryll’s voice turned into a mumble. Almost defeated.
Nadya tsked in irritation again.
“He’s right,” I said.
Geryll’s eyes jumped to mine. “I am?”
“Very much so.” And he made me proud of it. My suspicion might have bled into Nadya, but Geryll had borrowed the worthyparts. “If we turn our backs when people need us, we’re no better than the Northern Clans who let our sick younglings die.”
Succumbed to that same blasted plague which had also taken my mother and her kindness away from this world.
The one that led to me joining the Blood Brotherhood–and now forced me to participate in its impending war.
I didn’t regret it.
My people were safe and Zandyr had never once badgered or threatened me about accessing my crater’s magic, unlike my so-called relatives leading the Northern Clans.
The gods surely had a special punishment for Beren, Lioran, and Edrin once this world would finally rid itself of them.
“We don’t become what we hate,” I said. “Good will always prevail. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But it will in the end.”
