Page 11

I swooped down from the bridge with Callista in my claws and let the cool wind rush into my face. My heart had nearly stopped when I saw her on the bridge surrounded by the karkins.

I hadn’t realized the threat of her death would affect me so dramatically.

Now that the danger had ended, my heart needed something stronger than cold air to help it recover. The burns on my skin needed help too, but at least I knew what would soothe them.

I skirted above the lake, behind the stone pillar that held my fortress, into the forest on the opposite side of the Ancestral Bridge. I dropped into a canyon barely wide enough for my wings.

Callista gasped. Had her fear of heights resurfaced?

“Do you need to stop?” I asked.

“No,” she panted. “I’m fine. Just startled. ”

She spoke honestly, so I continued until the mountain cut away to reveal a small grotto. I landed on the edge of a large pool that was half covered by a gaping cave. Its still water reflected icicle-covered trees and frozen rock. The cave hung over half the pool, extending backward a hundred feet.

I set Callista down on the stone and stepped away from her in an effort to be less intimidating.

Her eyes widened as she took in the grotto. “This place is… incredible.” Her voice quivered, and she wrapped her hands around her arms.

“The ice crystals are beautiful,” I answered, “but perhaps I can warm a space for you.” I pressed a clawed hand to the large stone she stood on and filled both the stone and the air above it with a heat that sent steam rising above her head.

She took a huge breath and smiled. “Thank you.” It was an attractive smile—the kind that came from genuine happiness or gratitude instead of expectation or obligation. I clenched my teeth, reminding myself that I no longer trusted her.

Her brows wrinkled. “But why did you save me? I thought you thought I betrayed you.”

I sighed. Why indeed? Perhaps the only solution was as my cousin Robin had once suggested years ago with Radira—an exchange of honesty. I was too sore for anything else anyway.

I climbed into the pool and groaned as the cool healing water covered my burns.

Callista stepped closer, but did not touch the water. “Are… are you hurt?”

I did not want to admit weakness, but I felt obligated to explain the pool. “The karkins scalded large portions of my wings and back. I am… not impervious to other creatures’ magic fire. We ar e fortunate that I was able to fly here—this water will heal me faster than anything or anyone else could.”

She settled down on the warmed stone, cross-legged, and draped her dress over her knees. “The karkins were the giant, fire-breathing crabs?”

I nodded.

“Do they attack everyone who crosses the bridge?”

I tipped my wing so water covered it entirely. “No. Usually they stay in the lake. Once a year, sometime in the middle of winter, their broods hatch. The hatchlings are ravenous. They’ve even climbed the cliff by our stables a few times. The horses get very anxious every time they hatch.”

“I—” Her jaw dropped. “The crabs on the bridge were all hatchlings ?”

A smirk worked its way across my face. “Yes. We were fortunate the adults did not climb out of the lake.”

“Can you do anything about them?!”

“Yes. Usually, I burn most of the hatchlings within a day or two.”

“But then how…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes widened. “They just hatched this morning,” she explained to herself. “That’s why the soldier came for Mylo. That’s why he called me back.”

I rolled my shoulders, working out the pain in my back. “So it would seem.” I raised a brow. “And you took advantage of the chaos to attack my rose.”

Her hands flew to her hips. “It might seem that way, but that is not what happened.”

I was too tired to argue, and she launched into a defense. “I saw fae magic coming from that tunnel, the one with the rose. I know you said not to go down there, but… what if it had been my mother? What if it was my only clue to where she might be hiding? I am sorry I could not follow your instructions, but… I already told you that I was hoping to find her. You…”

Her voice trembled. “You have to know I’ve missed her so much. Enough to risk your anger. I had no idea I’d be invading your rose garden.”

She stopped talking, and my heart sank into my stomach. I had to tell her. It would be cruel to let her keep hoping to find her mother when I knew she never would. But…

I did not want to.

I wanted to prove that I would keep her as safe as I’d promised. I wanted to see her eyes light up when she decided to defend someone from my anger. And I wanted to bridle that fury so she would smile when she spoke of me.

I wanted to find out why a dry history book would make her tear up, discover what she loved about lemons, and understand how she had come to forgive Koan and Jolter.

I wanted to learn everything about her, but… I could not allow her to keep believing a lie. It was neither just nor necessary for anyone’s safety.

Emotion filled her voice. “Why do you refuse to believe everything I—”

I cut her off. “I believe you.” The drekkan’s voice was harsh and gravelly, but it was all I had. And if I waited until night, I might lose the courage that her near-death had shaken loose inside me. “I can feel when you lie.”

She sniffed and brushed at her eye. “The lemons?”

I huffed the drekkan’s version of a chuckle. “Yes, the lemons. The… bond vibrates when you lie.”

She rubbed her chest. “Then why have you not—”

“There is something else you need to know,” I interrupted. She stopped, and my throat constricted. My parents died fourteen years ago. If someone confessed to their murders today, I would consume them in flames. In an instant. My pain was still too raw for any other reaction. Was I really capable of inflicting that same pain on her by telling her that her mother was dead at my hand?

It would be the cruelest thing I had done to her yet.

But anything short of that honesty would be even more dishonorable than the crimes I needed to confess.

“I do not know what fae magic you thought you saw,” I said, grateful for the drekkan’s twisted contortion of my voice, “but it was not your mother’s.”

Her head tipped at me, and she waited for more.

I swallowed. “She…your mother… I met her that day, thirteen years ago, when she came into Hemlit. We argued. I… I worried that she had something to do with my parents’ death a year before that, and I… I tricked her into touching a talisman that absorbed all the magic in her body.”

Callista gasped. Her jaw fell. She knew.

And as I saw her realization dawn, my chest hurt. I wanted to disappear, to have the ground itself swallow me, and let me blink out of existence.

But the ground did not comply.

And I was left to stare at Callista’s undeserved pain. Perhaps if she understood better, it would hurt less. “I didn’t think it would really hurt her,” I explained. “I thought her magic would replenish itself after a few hours…”

Callista shook her head and jumped to her feet. “You killed her.” Tears filled her eyes, but she kept talking. “Her magic was tied up in her heart. If she didn’t have magic, her heart would have stopped. Taking it means you killed her, as surely as if you’d put a knife in her chest!”

“I didn’t know,” I rasped. Curse the drekkan and its horrible masking of my voice. It made me sound apathetic. But I wasn’t apathetic. I hurt as much as she did. “I did not mean to even injure her. Truly. I was trying to protect—”

Callista waved an arm to interrupt and then clutched her hands to her chest. “You talk of protection and honor, but they mean nothing without kindness. You fear what you do not understand, and you let that fear rule you.”

Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as she gestured to my body. “This drekkan is no monster compared to the beast that lives in your heart. I… I cannot stand to even look at you.”

And then she spun and walked away.