Page 6

6

Like a Trophy

D aenn’s jaw tightens at my exclamation.

Eskil’s gaze swings back and forth between us, and he growls. “Please tell me you weren’t so foolish as to not even warn her?”

Daenn’s grimace deepens, and Eskil breaks his intimidating warrior pose to throw up his hands. “You’re a gryphon-dragged fool.”

My gaze is still pinned to Daenn, and I tense, half worried this new, deadly Daenn will strike out at Eskil for speaking so freely. But Daenn doesn’t even look at Eskil. His jaw works as he clenches and unclenches his teeth.

“Everyone out.”

Jakob immediately begins to protest; this is apparently too much for him to maintain his stoic practicality. “But the sealing kiss!”

“No,” Daenn snarls.

For once we’re in full agreement. I have no desire to kiss this beastly man.

Jakob worries his hands together. “Such a break from tradition—it’s very irregular—”

Sigrid hushes him. “Let them be, my love; come. ”

Kettil follows the elderly couple at a quick pace, and Eskil at a slower one after pausing and sharing a long look with Daenn. It seems their friendship is still intact, despite how Daenn has changed. This is probably good for Eskil’s health.

The thud of the door echoes through the empty cavern, as if to emphasize how alone we are.

I cross my arms over my stomach and wait. My previous questions still hang in the air, circling and nipping at me as I watch my new husband.

The word makes me ill. It’s been a long time since I’ve associated anything good with it, not since my early days with Tolomon before I recognized his true nature, but whenever I imagined Daenn in the role when we were younger… well, it certainly wasn’t like this.

Daenn stares at the wall. Finally, slowly, he looks to me. His gaze is heavy but otherwise unreadable. But still he is silent.

“Are all the rumors true, then?” I finally say, too impatient to wait for him to break the silence building around us like a tomb. “You killed your father to take his place.” He flinches, but it’s smoothed behind a hard, flat scowl in another breath. I relentlessly continue. “You kill your advisors simply for speaking out of turn. You rule our clan like a tyrant. What happened to you, Daenn? How did you become such a monster?”

The silence pulls between us before he deigns to speak. The words come slowly; either he’s reluctant to speak or he’s choosing his words carefully. Maybe he’s thinking how best to lie to me.

“My magic is an aura of death; anyone around me risks dying at any time. They can be perfectly healthy one day, and the next they never wake up. I did kill my father before I understood this. I took his place. It wasn’t until others started dying that I recognized what was happening, began to connect the sensation I felt when my magic moved with the deaths themselves. The rumors that I murdered him for his throne began soon after. And more recently…” His gloved fist flexes. “The deaths began happening more often, to those near me. To people I touched.”

His words drop into the silence, each one a stone into a deep pond. The image he’s painting is a horrifying one. I can imagine him feeling his magic move without his behest, as I feel mine—but having that end in people dying instead of calming… It casts his every action since coming to the lowlands for me in a different light.

There’s more he’s not saying. I can tell. Or maybe it’s wishful thinking, an aching for the boy I used to know, a weary hope that his actions mean something to him despite how he’s changed.

“What does this all have to do with me?” I ask, his words from the hall ringing in my ears. “How am I the only one who can stop you?” He hurried away, not giving me a chance to ask before, but I’m determined to get my answers now. Too late is better than not at all. “You know as well as I do that’s not how magic works. I can’t use it to do anything; it just is .”

It’s the nature of magic in our clans. There are those who can wield their magics like a tool, like the Elyri who live deeper in the mountain range, amidst the valleys and forests tucked between our peaks. But gryphon clan magic is a byproduct of our close connection with the magical creatures we live alongside: it manifests randomly, viewed as a blessing from our god, Lirev. Those with magic are revered and respected, but our magic isn’t ever something to wield. It varies from person to person, but the one constant is that it’s an aura; it might affect us or the world around us, but only in the same way a contained fire releases heat upon its surroundings by its very existence. We don’t control or direct it. That sort of magic is the domain of other peoples and cultures, and many gryphon clansfolk view that with suspicion. Using magic like a tool is an unnatural practice that usually ends tragically in the legends.

“Since your mother took over my care after my mother”—Daenn pauses, some emotion overtaking him for a moment before he swallows and continues—“circumstance made us playmates and then friends. And up until eight years ago, you were always nearby; we were inseparable.” The ghost of a smile clings to the corner of his mouth for barely a moment, and irrationally I want to grab it, trap it, and keep it with me. That hint of the boy from before or, at the very least, the memory of him. It’s gone as soon as it came, replaced with a heavy weariness that should belong to a much older man than Daenn. “When you left, the deaths began again. I didn’t even know I had magic before, because you were always there. Somehow your magic was neutralizing mine. But once I started paying attention… I can feel it around me, reaching out its poisonous roots like a carnivorous tree. Impossible to stop. All I can do is watch as it feeds off those close to me. Your magic neutralizes mine. I need you.”

He speaks with such earnestness, his words almost a plea, and I almost soften to it. It’s not hard to understand what he’s suggesting: my magic is soothing, peace. Somehow it soothed his magic from acting upon those around him, to the point that he didn’t even know about the power until I was gone from his side. I can believe that easily enough, because my magic has acted that way my entire life. Visiting chiefs from other clans commented on it when I was only a child .

It even occasionally affected lowland magic; Tolomon often had wealthy guests who would complain of their magical trinkets not working properly while they stayed at the Chambledon Estate. I never admitted that I was the cause; giving him another reason to suggest I was defective hadn’t sounded appealing.

I shake my head of my burgeoning sympathy, instead reminding myself of all the ways this king betrayed everything he used to be to me and letting that fuel my anger. “So, this is just who you are now. You need something and instead of going about it like a sane person, you kill anyone in your way.” Daenn flinches, leaning away from me, and the weaker, softer part of me wins out, but only a little. “Maybe it started with your magic, Daenn, but you embraced it. You killed Tolomon to get to me. You claim me like a trophy. You’re nothing but a cold-blooded killer now.”

It hurts watching the brief moment of soft desperation erase from his face, leaving only the cold unfeeling king behind, but I won’t take back my words. Someone needed to say it. Someone needed to call him on this depravity, and it seems everyone else in the clan has either lost their fool minds along with him, or they’re too scared of him to do so.

So I only tilt my chin and stare him down as he leans back in. He’s angry now, eyes sparking as he closes the distance between us. “If that’s what you want to believe of me, so be it. It doesn’t change that you’re my wife now. You can hate me. I’m not doing this for me. You will stay with the clan— for the clan.”

And then he leaves me standing in the ceremony hall. All alone for the time being, but bound as effectively as if my chains were real, because I’ve just married the infamous tyrant gryphon king.