Page 48 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

When had she started trembling, and why was the King holding her so tenderly?

His fingers, tips calloused from knives and claws and things far worse than that, were gentle on her skin as he tipped her chin up, as he pulled her with a look that was so searching that it made her flush. “You’ve thrived.”

She had, hadn’t she? Shan tried not to think about it too much, the lingering pain of all that she had to leave behind when she stepped into the role of Royal Blood Worker.

But just as she had when she first donned the mask of the Sparrow, just as she had when she debuted as Lady LeClaire, she put the past behind and strove to make the most out of it.

She was adaptable, shifting her plans and schemes with every new bit of information gained.

Others—her brother, Isaac, even Samuel, sometimes—saw her as mercurial and spineless, driven by fear and the terrible desire to succeed.

But she was just doing the best she could with the hand that was dealt her, and she was so tired of being treated like a failure for refusing to accept defeat.

And as the King looked upon her, with understanding and pride and something surprisingly like affection, Shan felt the burning force of absolution wash over her, leaving her clean and reborn.

“Perhaps you are right.”

His smirk was back, but he released her, and the sudden loss of his touch left her unmoored. “There is something I wish your opinion on, as my Royal Blood Worker.”

“Of course.” She sank into the seat as he settled across from her, finally taking her neglected cup of tea back, letting the taste of roses soft and floral sit gently in her mouth. The warmth spread through her, her shoulders relaxing with the savored rush of caffeine.

The King just watched her, sprawling in his seat, legs kicked out in front of him. Another mask removed, another layer shed, and Shan ached to know how much of it was real, and how much of it was what he thought she needed to see.

Blood and steel, he was right about her after all—and worse, they were the same.

Whatever their souls were made of, they were both made of the same sort of cunning and hunger.

Not just cruelty, but craft, and the willingness to sink into darkness if it gave them the advantages they sought.

The price of a soul was nothing compared to the power they could wield.

And that scared her more than Shan was willing to admit, even to herself.

“Your work with Mel has been invaluable,” the King began, and Shan felt the shiver of fear twist in her gut. “It’s been… so long since I had a partner who was brave enough to look unflinchingly into the possibilities Blood Working has to offer. I’ve spent lifetimes holding us back, Shan.”

In that moment, there was something unfathomably ancient and sad about him, a depth of sorrow that despite all the little vulnerabilities he showed her, she would never be able to understand.

Not as long as she was simply mortal, not as long as she was slated to die at a fraction of what he would experience.

What a terribly lonely life he lived.

But she couldn’t focus on that. Not when there was a part of her that wondered what it would be like, living alongside him for an eternity, dreaming of how much more she could achieve if she just had time.

Besides, there was something more pressing—a reversal of what he had told her only a few months ago.

A shift that could upend her entire life and her role as the Royal Blood Worker.

“Are you reconsidering your stance, then?”

“I am,” he admitted, “though not as drastically as you might fear. This level of Blood Working is still fraught with dangerous possibilities, and I surmise that opening it to anyone who was interested would lead only to chaos. But… in the right hands, under the watchful eye of the right people, there is much we can do to protect the Crown and the nation.”

Shan couldn’t even let herself contemplate the future he was implying, settling for simply asking, “How so?”

“We start with what Mel has taught us,” the King said, with a smile that was all teeth.

“The potential we’ve unlocked in her, the powerful creature she has become, will be a template for a new kind of Guard.

An elite Guard, who will be able to handle whatever foolishness these Unblooded rebels throw at us, as well as act as a larger deterrent.

Together, we will make Aeravin more than a nation, but a fortress for our kind. ”

She could picture it perfectly, the world that he would create. Aeravin existed in such a fragile place, accepting the exiled Blood Workers from across the world while being demonized for it at the same time.

Like her mother had been, once. Feared for a power she had never asked for, shipped across the world to be the bride of a man she had never met, only to flee back to her homeland as soon as she could.

Once, Shan had dreamed of following her, of learning the places and the people and the culture that she had come from, but she knew better now.

For the magic in her veins and the many atrocities she had been part of, she would never be welcomed there.

It was bad enough being a LeClaire, being a Blood Worker, but being the right hand to the Eternal King?

There was nowhere she could ever go, no place where she could flee from her crimes, and she had been a fool to even suggest it to Isaac.

This was their home, their only hope, and perhaps he had been right.

They had to fight for it, using whatever tools they had, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to make it better.

If only she could get him to understand that.

Still, there was the question of logistics. “If this new elite force is to be part of the Guard—” she began, only for the King to cut her off.

“Yes, I know,” he said, with a sigh. “Samuel will be a problem. But I am already working on that.” He hesitated, clearly debating with himself before huffing out a sigh. “I know that this is awkward, given your attachment to him. Which has only grown more…”

Tilting his head to the side, Shan knew the question he wasn’t quite crass enough to ask. “I told you that I could handle him,” she said, twisting her affection for her fiancé into something the Eternal King could understand, “didn’t I? This seemed to be the most expedient solution.”

Open relief flickered across his expression, and he inclined his head to her, a King acknowledging an equal. “And you’ve done a wonderful job so far. I will handle most of this, but if you would just give him a nudge?”

“You don’t even need to ask,” Shan replied, because she would. Because that was all that she did these days, corralling Samuel and his fool-heart. Assuaging the endless worries he brought to her feet—and hiding the secrets he had brought to her.

The Aberforth Gift was back, Samuel was terrified, and she was so, so tired.

“I’m glad to hear that.” The King relaxed into his seat. “I think this will be the start of something wonderful, Shan. And I do not think I could have done it without you.”

“Your Majesty,” she started to demur, but the King cut her off.

“I mean it, Shan. You rose to the occasion in ways that I could only have dreamed of.” He glanced off to the side, shamed and contrite.

“I saw the cracks in de la Cruz early on, it’s why I never considered anything like this with him.

But you, Shan—I was wrong to doubt you, and with a Royal Blood Worker like you at my side, there is nothing we can’t achieve. ”

He looked at her like she was the answer to a question she hadn’t realized he had been asking, and Shan felt sick to her stomach, acid churning through all the lies and fears she had swallowed.

But she couldn’t let him see that. This was everything she had fought so long for, everything she had ever wanted.

She would be the King’s Royal Blood Worker, and with that power, wrestle her world back to where she wanted it.

It might not be what she had envisioned once, when she was young and more foolish, but it was better than any of her childish dreams.

This was real.

Though it was a bitter victory, she held the poisoned chalice to her lips and drank deeply.

Standing, she held out her hand to the King. “I believe we have some logistics to figure out.”

Grinning, he took her hand, rising to stand beside her, almost close enough to share breath. It was too much, too intimate, but Shan couldn’t bring herself to pull away. Not when he looked at her like she was most marvelous thing in the world.

“Together, then.”

“Together,” she breathed, the word as binding as an oath.

At his side, she would bring Aeravin to its glorious future, even if she had to drag the ones she loved kicking and screaming into it. Even if she had to coat herself in blood and horror to do so.

But so long as the King held her in his favor, there was nothing she couldn’t achieve.

Shan watched the King watching their creation, perched on a stool and staring into the cell that contained Mel. Or, more precisely, the thing that once was Mel.

She hissed at them from her perch, having managed to scuttle up the corner towards the ceiling, hanging from crooked fingers that tipped into terrible claws.

Her feet had shattered, splitting and elongating into talons that hooked around the bars, bracing her weight as her wings fluttered behind her, offering a bit of balance.

The wings were webbed and dark like a bat’s but twisted and half formed, hanging above a curved spine that sent the girl lurching forward, hardly able to hold herself upright.