Page 10

CHAPTER EIGHT

“ W ell, that was… interesting,” Lyra comments once we’re finally back in the small house we’re staying in.

Isera, who is leaning against the pale living room wall with her arms crossed over her chest, gives the rest of us a flat look. “We survived, didn’t we?”

“No thanks to you, ice lady,” Alistair mutters from where he is sitting on the brown couch by the other wall.

She shoots him a pointed look. “As if you didn’t want to confront him about that as well.”

For a moment, it looks like he’s going to argue. But then he just tips his head to the side and lifts his toned shoulders in a shrug, conceding the point.

“If you’re done bickering, we have an assassination to plan,” Draven says.

He is seated in the armchair next to the couch. Lyra and Galen have squeezed themselves down on the couch beside Alistair, but I still feel too on edge to sit, so I pace across the wooden floorboards on the other side of the low table instead.

The rest of the dinner with the Unseelie King was a short and tense affair.

We ate, he explained who we needed to kill and reminded us that we needed to make sure we were seen doing it, and then we left.

And all the while, Isera and Orion were watching one another as if they were imagining carving each other’s hearts out with a dull knife.

“What’s there to plan?” Isera counters with a scowl. “It’s an assassination. We go in, we slit his throat, and then we get out.”

Alistair shrugs and hikes a thumb in her direction. “I’m with the ice lady on this one. I can just torch his entire house. Boom. Job done.”

“That’s arson,” I point out. “Not assassination.”

“Does it matter? Dead is dead.”

“How are you even going to set his house on fire?” Galen asks. “In case you hadn’t noticed, all buildings in this city are made of stone.”

“So? Everything melts if the temperature is high enough.”

Galen casts him a dubious look, which is mirrored by most of the rest of us. But before anyone can say anything, Draven tries to push the conversation back on track.

“Orion said to assassinate the guy, so that’s what we’re going to do,” he declares.

“Since when do you take orders from anyone?” Galen teases, a grin on his mouth.

Draven blinks in surprise.

Then Galen seems to realize what he just said, because panic and regret crash over his features like a bucket of cold water. Quickly averting his gaze, he clears his throat awkwardly and suddenly begins studying the pattern in the yellow and brown carpet with single-minded determination.

It looks like Draven is going to say something, but before he can, Isera speaks up again.

“Who cares about the stupid assassination,” she snaps. “What we need is to figure out a way to force Nightbane and his entire court to help us take down the Icehearts.”

Heaving a deep sigh, I finally stop pacing and instead plop down on the carpet in front of the low table. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”

They all turn to me. Draven raises his eyebrows in silent question.

I adjust my position so that I’m sitting cross-legged and then drag a hand through my hair to push a few strands out of my face. “Okay, so a few weeks ago, while you were otherwise occupied, I kind of snuck out into the city and talked to Orion’s spy in Frostfell.”

A sly smile tugs at Draven’s lips as he narrows his eyes at me. “Did you now?”

“Yes.” I give him a knowing look. “And while I was doing that, you had also snuck out so that you could be a secret legendary rebel leader, so don’t even start with me.”

He lets out a silent huff of amusement.

“Anyway, the point is,” I continue. “When I talked to Orion’s spy, Nysara, the first time, she told me that the Unseelie Court was free.” I flick a glance at Isera. “I reacted in much the same way you did. But a little less… murderous.”

She only continues watching me with those sharp eyes of hers.

I clear my throat and slide my gaze back to the others.

“When I asked why they never helped us, she said that the Unseelie Court doesn’t get involved in things outside their own realm.

And also that relations between our courts were strained even before all this.

” Glancing at Isera again, I lift my shoulders in an apologetic shrug.

“So I doubt that they would ever help us. But maybe the dryads can.”

“Dryads?” Alistair says, stunned, at the same time as Lyra asks, “You’ve met a dryad?”

Draven and I exchange a glance.

“Yes, we have,” I reply. “Several of them, in fact.”

Even Isera stares at me in surprise as I summarize our meeting with the dryads in the underground forest during the Atonement Trials.

When I’m finished, I can feel them all wanting to ask questions, but I realize that I have one too.

A question that somehow got lost in all the craziness of the past few months.

Frowning, I turn to meet Draven’s eyes. “They caught me and then let me go because of what I told them. But how did you escape the dryads without getting caught?”

His eyes gleam in the glowing faelights around the room. “I didn’t.”

“What?”

“They caught me too. But they let me go as well.”

I stare at him, my eyes wide. “Why? They hate dragon shifters.”

“They mainly hate the Icehearts. They just hate the rest of us by association. Once they realized who I was, that I am the Red Hand who has been working against the Icehearts for decades, they let me go.”

My mind spins. Shaking my head, I try to clear it. It doesn’t really work. “Wait. Stop. How in Mabona’s name did the dryads know that you’re the Red Hand? Your own people didn’t even know!”

Galen and Lyra wince, and I immediately regret bringing that up.

“The dryads are… ancient,” Lyra begins carefully, and casts an uncertain glance at Draven.

When he gives her a nod, she sits up a little straighter and continues.

“They’re connected to this world in a way that the rest of us aren’t.

From what I’ve heard, they can… communicate, or something, through a network across the continent. Like a hivemind, almost.”

Next to her on the couch, Alistair frowns so deeply that a long crease appears between his brows. “Yeah, no, I can hear that words are coming out of your mouth, but I have no fucking clue what you’re actually saying.”

“The trees in Frostfell told the trees in the Seelie court that Draven was on their side,” Isera snaps impatiently from the wall.

“A bit simplified, but yeah,” Lyra says. Then she glances uncertainly towards Draven again. “Right?”

“Yes,” he confirms. “I’m assuming so at least.”

“Huh,” Alistair comments.

My mind churns. Shifting my weight on the soft carpet, I lean forward and rest my arms on the low table before me. Outside the window, soft night winds whirl between the stone buildings, creating a faint whistling sound.

“If the dryads are that ancient,” I begin, thinking out loud.

“Then they might have a lot of answers that no one else does. Well, no one except the Icehearts, anyway. Like why the partnership between the dragon shifters and the fae ended.” I abruptly look up from the table and glance between the three dragon shifters. “Unless you already know?”

“Know what?” Galen asks.

Draven blinks at me in surprise. “What partnership?”

I frown at them all. “The one between the dragon shifters and the Seelie fae, of course. Look, Nysara has already told me the truth. That only a small minority of entitled assholes used dragon steel to control the dragon shifters and that the vast majority of Seelie fae were dragon riders because we had a mutually beneficial partnership with you guys.”

Shocked silence descends on the room.

The sight of everyone’s stunned expressions makes my stomach drop and my mouth dry out. Because it can only mean one thing. They didn’t know either.

“What are you saying?” Lyra blurts out.

Alistair and Isera look stricken.

Then rage starts building in Isera’s eyes again. “We were punished for something our ancestors didn’t even do?”

“Yes.” I quickly explain what Nysara told me about our past. When I’m done, Draven, Galen, and Lyra are all staring at me with wide eyes.

“You didn’t know,” I say. It’s more of a statement than a question.

They all answer anyway. “No.”

“We were taught that you forced us all with dragon steel,” Galen says. “Well, not our clan specifically since we weren’t a part of your politics on the mainland. But all the other clans on the continent.”

Alistair lets out a low whistle under his breath. “Shit. They lied to you too.”

“How?” I demand. “How is that even possible?”

Draven flexes his hand, his features darkening. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to rewrite history. If enough people repeat the same thing, spreading it far and wide and for long enough, it eventually becomes fact. Regardless of how blatant the lie was when it began.”

Tense silence settles over the cozy living room. The couch creaks slightly as Alistair shifts his weight.

Lyra heaves a sigh and rubs her forehead. “Well, this is depressing.”

“Why don’t we just leave?” Alistair suddenly says.

Sitting up straight again, I turn to look at him in surprise. To my utter shock, he blushes a little when everyone stares at him, but he forges on anyway. Sweeping out a hand, he gestures to our three dragon shifters.

“You said it yourself,” he begins. “You don’t want to get involved with the mess on the mainland. And we’ve all escaped the Ice Palace now.” He motions at me. “Selena is fine. We’re all safe. Why don’t we all just disappear and leave the world to its fate?”

His words stun me so much that I can’t even form a reply.

I could never just… leave. I would spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, fearful that the Icehearts might have at last caught up to me.

And more importantly, I can’t just leave the rest of our people trapped in the Seelie Court.

I know that it’s stupid and ridiculous and selfish, but I want to prove them all wrong.

After how they have treated me all my life, I want to see the look in their eyes when they realize that I am the one who saved them.

When they realize that they were wrong about me.

That they should have trusted me. Should have let me in.

Should have let me be a part of their community instead of shunning me for something that I had no control over.

Deep down, I know that a real hero would want to free their people solely for unselfish reasons.

So the fact that I want to do it partly because I want the recognition I deserve but never received from my own people, and partly because I simply want revenge on the Icehearts, rather than for any heroic reasons of the greater good makes me sick to my stomach.

I’m supposed to be a good person, aren’t I?

So why, when I open the lid and peek down into the dark pits of my soul, do I only find burning rage and festering hatred in there?

Draven clears his throat, shattering the tense silence that had fallen. “Let’s just get through this assassination first.”

Paper rustles as Draven pulls out the map that the Unseelie King gave us and spreads it out across the low table before us. Schemes glint in his eyes as he smooths down the map and then looks from face to face.

“Here’s how we’re going to do it.”