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His words make my stomach sink, and gooseflesh rises on my arms.
“Give me access to your mother. Show me where the book is.”
Relief floods me. Thank the Saints I let the book go. “You’re not getting the book.”
My godfather steps forward again, and Lonan shifts in front of me. “I’ve let him shield you for a long time, you know. Too long.” He looks between me and Lonan. “I’ve let this go on too long. Become something it shouldn’t be.”
Then he turns his attentions to Lonan, his face dispassionate, none of that paternal familiarity he shares with me. “You cannot have her, Lonan,” he says. “She has a bloodmate. Her path has been set.”
“My bloodmate is dead.”
Van Asten jerks backward, blinking at me in shock. “Dead.” I can see his thoughts weaving, his machinations unraveling before him. “Vesper . . .”
I watch it dawn on him—he thinks I will die. Saints, the heartbreak on his face looks so real. I don’t know what to believe. He’s so confusing, warm and loving one moment, cold the next. He treats emotions like weapons, wielding them to suit his purposes.
“Don’t go near her,” Lonan says, “if you value your head.”
The corners of my godfather’s lips twitch. “My boy, your loyalty has shifted so radically? You’d choose her over me? You swore your life to me, Lonan. To my banner. You are my heir.”
It’s obvious now, knowing what we have learned this long dark night. The same sleeplessness in their eyes, the same steel, the same viciousness. Lonan is no prince of Gault. He’s my godfather’s son, the bastard prince.
“You are bound to the nation of Imaelhain, nearly as much as Vesper was to Galvin.”
“You knew,” I realize with sudden stark clarity. “You knew he was my bloodmate.”
Van Asten nods. “I knew the words that your father discovered. He was brilliant, Vesper. Truly, the most valuable spy in Imaelhain. He discovered the legend, realized what his own daughter was meant to be. He couldn’t accept the truth, however. He didn’t want to see you accomplish your destiny.”
Of course not. My father would’ve wanted me free. He would want love to be my choice.
My godfather studies the rings on his fingers. “So the prince is dead. That changes things.” His expression is so impassive, so intensely logical, as he says, “I’m afraid, Nightingale, that you have decided your own fate. If you are not loyal to me, then you are a risk to Imaelhain and to the healing of magic.”
“I won’t serve you,” Lonan says. He grips his sword in hand, the shield between me and my godfather. “Hurt her, and I’ll spend the rest of my life warring against you. You won’t know a moment’s peace.”
This is how wars rage on for generations. The sins of the father are inherited by the son. Offenses are passed from generation to generation, and thousands die—waves crashing against rocks, violent and then gone.
My godfather’s eyes go cold. “You swore an oath to me, boy, when I plucked you out of darkness and gave you purpose.”
“You only have yourself to blame,” Lonan says. “You made her my only objective. Forgive me if I’m obedient to a fault.”
“You protect her for me.”
“I protect her because she’s mine to protect.”
He’s going to get himself killed.
My godfather sighs. “All this could’ve been avoided if you, Vesper, could obey a single command.”
“Not really my style.” I glare at him, refusing to cower.
His eyes narrow. “I told you to stay in your room. None of them need have died if you’d listened. Yes, I knew about the bloodbond. That is why I wanted to keep you from the Ridding, Vesper. You were meant to be waiting in your room. And when the Ridding began, Galvin would find you.”
My knees nearly buckle.
“You . . . wanted him to turn me into a siphon.”
He sighs. “It was the best thing for you, dearest. You would have bonded, been immortal together forever. Your bloodmate. I would have been quite a terrible godfather if I’d kept you from him. That is not to mention that it would have healed magic, united the kingdoms, stopped the horrors of this war.”
I shake my head. “You and Galvin are on opposite sides.”
