Page 122

He stared down at me, eyes vibrant with lust. “That was always the plan.” One side of his mouth quirked up in that smile I loved so damned much, the dimple on his cheek making me smile, too. He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear, and I winced as reality creeped back in. I grappled for a hold on my emotions. “I don’t know what tomorrow will bring,” I said, “but I’m glad we get to be here together.”

He ran a hand down my back, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “I am, too. I just wish…” he trailed off.

“You wish we had more time?”

A heavy breath escaped his lips. “Yeah.”

The regret ran deep as I thought of the time I spent being so bitter. “I’m sorry I wasted so much of it being angry at you.”

His thumb found my chin, pulling me to look at him. “Don’t you dare apologize for that. You could have taken all the time in the world and still chosen not to forgive me and I would understand. You could take back your forgiveness and I would understand. I don’t fault you in the slightest for being angry at me.”

My lips were a hard line as I nodded. “Do you think we would have met if Castemont hadn’t been around?”

He ran his tongue across his lips. “I can’t say I have an answer to that.” A small smile quirked one corner of his mouth, his dimple showing for just a split second. “But that’s at least one thing he was good for.”

I smiled back at him, reveling in his gemstone stare if only for a moment. But the darkness crept in again, unwavering in its persistence. “What if I can’t do it?” I fought to steady my breathing at the thought that had been nagging me incessantly for days. “What if I can’t kill Castemont?”

“You will,” he answered. “I have no doubt.”

“I appreciate the faith you have in me. I really do,” I answered, turning back to him, “but you have to be realistic. There’s a very real chance I won’t make it to the castle. There’s a very real chance that Castemont’s reign,Noros’reign, won’t end tomorrow.”

He was silent for a moment, his thumb running lazily across my shoulder. “Realistically, yes. That’s a possibility. But I know you. You’re going to charge in with everything you have and fight your way to that castle. You’re going in there with your powers and you’re not going to accept defeat.”

“I don’t have them, Cal,” I whispered, still unable to face the truth, and it sounded like he hadn’t been able to either. “I don’t have my powers.”

“When I was… WhenCalomyrwas dead, I used to pray that you’d find your powers. I knew they were there, even if they were dormant. And just like then, your powers are here now, Petra, whether you can use them or not. I see them in your eyes, in the way you move, in the way you speak, the same way I did when I was Calomyr.”

I knew I needed to push the self-doubt away, that I was going to end up sabotaging myself. I was going to be charging into battle tomorrow. Ineededto be confident. But I couldn’t push the feeling away any longer, and it was going to swallow me.

“Look at me,” Cal said, tipping my chin to look at him as if he could feel the doubt that coursed through every part of me. “Youarefire. You are wind, and you are the storm. You are death, and you’re coming for Castemont. He knows it. Why else would he be hiding behind the city walls?”

I took a deep breath, letting his stare anchor me. Hewashiding, wasn’t he? Castemont… He was scared. I nodded at Cal, clinging to that thought.

“There’s a very real possibility that Castemont lives through tomorrow,” he said, his gaze hard on me. “But you know what? The possibility of him falling is just as real.”

My lungs expanded as I tried to take in as much air as I could. The uncertainty was inescapable. “It isn’t fair,” I whispered.

“No, it isn’t.” He planted a kiss on my forehead, squeezing me to him. “But such is life, Petra.”

Chapter 49

We would wait until midday to strike. A fog had descended in the early morning hours, so heavy that Eserene’s walls were invisible behind it. That was no good for an army made up of mostly inexperienced soldiers.

The atmosphere was sober. There was no more living. Everybody prayed. And that was absolutely terrifying, considering they all believed I had my powers.

“I was told to come see you?” I called as I ducked into the blacksmith’s tent, Cal trailing behind me. I didn’t recognize the man who stood waiting, but he was the epitome of a blacksmith, with arms the size of tree trunks and soot beneath his fingernails, maybe ten years older than my father would’ve been. He gave a gruff smile beneath an unruly mustache and bent to one knee, fist across his chest. Of course, he didn’t have his forge, but there were weapons and armor propped all across the tent.

“For ye, yer Majesty.” He raised his hand to a set of black armor on a form, shoulder plates made of gold scales, my crest emblazoned on the breastplate. Atop the form sat the traditional helmet that went with Cabillian armor, but he’d fashioned razor sharp golden fangs to the visor.

“I didn’t have time to make ye a whole new set, so I worked wi’ some o’ the old Cabillian armor I had. I hope ye find it acceptable, yer Majesty.”

I blinked at the metal that swallowed all the light around it, the sun and moon that both glinted in the hazy gray light. My fingers ran across the scales at the shoulders, the teeth on the helmet.

I hadn’t even considered armor. To be truthful, I hadn’t even considered what people wore to a battle. I probably should’ve, but my mind had been preoccupied with, well, everything else.

It was perfect.

“What is your name, sir?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes from his work.