Page 11 of I Dream of Dragons

“You don’t have faith in me.” His hands are balled into fists and tremors are going through him. In his anger, he radiates darkness, his shadows wrapping him in a black mantle. “What has he told you? Bad things about me, I suppose?”

“Was he right?”

“About me being his notorious sword? About killing people?” He bares his teeth, a flash of white, a flash of rather sharp canines that leave me unsettled. “Is that why you let him mark you? Because he told you what I have done in his service? Did you seriously decide to become his wife because you realized I’m not nice?”

I look down at the mark. The emblem of the royal House, the Pillar and the dragon.

Self-consciously, I touch it. Don’t know how I feel about it. The king has a betrothed already, Lady Selene. And he didn’t ask me before marking me.

But he’s the boy you loved.

He didn’t talk to me afterward. He sent me to my room with an escort—and no, it wasn’t Tru and Arkin, and the new guards ignored my questions.

“What else did he tell you?” Jai asks. “What were his other claims about me?”

“He said you can open gates, bring back the dead.” I swallow hard, my brother’s face filling my thoughts. “But you won’t.”

“Damn right, I won’t.”

I flinch.

“Bringing back the dead isn’t the answer,makhair.”

“How would you know that?”

“Because I’ve lost people too and the dead should stay dead.” The barge edges closer to the isle marking the midpoint of the wall surrounding the arena. “Listen to me. The fae changed by passing through the gates. To pass the gateisto die, to lose your shadow. The colors leach out of you, leaving you pale, from your skin to your eyes and hair. It twists you through animal forms, hence the ears and the sharp teeth. And it maddens you.”

“Wow.” I draw a sharp breath, frost filling my chest. “This conversation is over.”

“Why? You…” Something in his expression softens. “Don’t you see my truth? I told you my secrets. Entered the games for you. You don’t know…”

“What?”

“What it’s like to try and control Phaethon.”

“In the end, what does it matter?” I fight the hopelessness of it all. “Whether you control him or not. Whether you are to blame or not.”

“Doesn’t it?” His teeth grind. Light flickers in his eyes, then the dark returns.

“I loved him once,” I whisper. “Still do. Therefore, I can’t kill him. I have to protect him.”

The color drains out of his face. “What the fuck did you just say?”

The barge edges closer to the wall of the arena. We’re almost there.

“You heard me,” I mutter.

“You love the king?”

“What if I do?”

“What the hell, Rae… Why couldn’t you have waited, talked to me first?”

“About what?”

“The way I feel about you.”

“You barely know me! And you said you could only love once.”