For a moment, my rage singed so hard, dark spots danced in front of my eyes.
Dax froze next to me.
“This can’t be happening,” I whispered, hands jerking as if I could stop this wedding like I’d done before.
But no.
I had to sit there, thousands of miles away, and watch Evie bow her head and accept a small, copper crown that seemed to have escaped a fire.
I watched the life drain from her face and those wide, vulnerable eyes of hers harden.
And I was powerless to doanythingabout it.
The fractures in my heart deepened.
I fell back into my seat, defeated. Some part of me still refused to believe what I’d seen.
But my soul knew. And it wept for Evie.
“Allie,” Dax whispered. “What did we just witness?”
“Evie not becoming the queen of the Blood Brotherhood.”
And Ryker’s betrayal.
Chapter 26
Ryker
Zandyr’s shattered expression followed me through the icy streets, refusing to fall behind no matter how fast my feet pummeled the cobblestone leading up to the fortress.
I’d only wasted a few hours in the Capital after that heinous wedding, knowing the aftermath would have hit him harder than he’d anticipated.
Sometimes, I hated when I was right.
“What’s done is done,” Elysia had said as we’d all gathered around him. “The only way is forward. You’ll make amends and–”
“She tore her wedding dress.” Zandyr had gazed down at the golden threads of fabric as if his entire existence was slipping between his fingers. The joyful parts of it, at least.
This wasn’t the state of mind he should have been trapped in before a war.
I prayed some miracle would keep him standing. If the Dragon fell, the entire Blood Brotherhood would follow.
“We should be thankful she didn’t tear you,” I’d said. The Lost Daughter could have used that little knife of hers against him–and, at this point, Zandyr probably would have let her.
“You could try for more sympathy,” Soryn, a man known for ignoring emotions like they burned him, had muttered.
I could have. But I didn’t have anything left in me to give right then.
Not when I knew Zandyr had dragged all of us into this mess. With the best of intentions and blood oaths made long before anyone had known the Lost Daughter was alive or the thought of The Huntress had even crossed my mind, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d broken her heart–and had forced me to keep his secrets from Allie.
My loyalty had never been negotiable, but now it felt stretched thin enough to snap with one wrong decision.
My allegiance to my Clan and my allegiance to Allie should have been in balance.
At the end of the day, we all wanted to reach the same goal–but the paths to it were vastly different. And the one that beckoned me toward Allie hadn’t involved a blood oath which could have turned fatal and ruined us all.
It didn’t matter. Forced betrayal was still betrayal.
