The breath bursts from me. I have a habit of betraying him too, but he’s kind enough not to say it.
And I don’t have time to argue.
“We have to move,” I warn him.
“I’m not going anywhere.” There’s a rough timbre to his voice as he pushes to his feet. The heat in his amber eyes flickers as the dragon rises. Wind whips through his air. It rips through the trees around us all of a sudden, tearing the leaves from branches and earning a startled cry from a distant figure. Keir turns in that direction as if he’s finally found a target for his fury. “Don’t you know where we are? Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?” I yell as my hair whips past my face. What is he doing?
There’s a particular quiver in the air, as if detonations of silent force vibrate out from him.
Keir’s lip curls as he smiles. “This is a dragon’s barrow. They’re in my playground now.”
And then he flings up a hand.
Trees fall violently, as if they were simply clipped at the roots. Branches simply shatter. A scream rings out, and I see a blur of black crushed by one of the toppling trees. Semirhyn.
He just… crushed him.
“Wait!” I scream, grabbing hold of his leather-clad arm. “Soraya’s out there!”
The wind cuts off as if it didn’t exist.
The devastation remains.
We’re surrounded by fallen trees, all of them radiating out from us in a circle. And right in the center lurks a dragon’s bleached skull, its knobby vertebrae covered in moss as they blend into the forest floor.
He simply… cut the trees down as if they weren’t towering giants with roots that wove through the forest floor. The power required to do such a thing…. It’s just… beyond comprehension.
“This way,” I yell, dragging him toward where I left Soraya.
The forest lies silent.
Maybe my brother caught a glimpse of my companion. Or maybe he found Semirhyn. Ruhle’s a coward at heart. He likes odds his enemies can’t match.
“Soraya!” I hiss as I slip down the slope toward where I left her.
She appears out of the hollowed-out center of a tree, her face strained and a knife in her hand. “What are you doing? Did you kill the archer?”
“Not I.” I jerk a thumb over my shoulder toward Keir. “Keir crushed Semirhyn with a tree.”
The two of them stare at each other, and all of a sudden I realize he wasn’t aware she was even here.
Indeed, the last time he saw her, she was trying to kill him.
I spin toward him, stepping between them. “Don’t.”
Keir rips his leather gloves off, one finger at a time. “Don’t what? Don’t ask what’s going on here?” Tension hardens his jaw. “Then I won’t. I have a fairly good idea already, considering you don’t look surprised to see your sister alive.” His gaze cuts over Soraya. “I assume this was planned. I assume you intended to double-cross me.”
I hold my hands in a pleading gesture. “Originally, yes. But…. I heard what you said about Calliope. About the cauldron. I was going to…. I just needed to get my hands on the horn. I was going to give it to you.”
“Was?” There’s acid in his voice.
It’s complicated.
He sees it in my eyes.
“The King Beyond the Shadowfangs wants to break the curse upon our people.” It bursts from my lips. “He sent me here to bring him the horn. If he finds the cauldron, then he’ll use it to set us free.”
“And you think he’s going to stop there?” Keir growls, his shadow falling across me as he steps closer. “I know what manner of creature your king is, Zemira. It doesn’t end there. It never does. It will end in war. Your king doesn’t want to set you free. He wants vengeance against the fae.”
“I know!”
“And you’ll what?” Anger darkens his brow as he stares at me in disbelief. “You’ll just give it to him?”
I rake my hands through my hair. “If he uses it to break the curse, then I can steal it back from him. I can get it back for you.”
Keir looks as though I just slapped him. “You’ve been planning this from the start.”
“Not from the start, no! He was the one who tore me from that dream. I couldn’t believe it when he gave me the same assignment. I didn’t intend to…. I never wanted to….”
“Betray me?” There’s a sense of bleakness in his eyes. “I kept telling myself it was different this time. I thought I knew the truth.” He scrapes a hand over his mouth. “But every time you open your mouth, lies fall out.”
There’s a piercing ache in my chest.
It’s better this way.
It has to be better.
“Why?” His voice breaks. “Why? I’ve offered you everything—”
“Because I can’t give you anything!” My chest heaves as we stand there staring at each other. “I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
Looking him in the eye is beyond me right now. “It’s not just me. We’re not all monsters. There are those among the wraithenkind who deserve a chance to live their lives free of this curse. There’s a blight afflicting our kind, a twist of the curse that is killing us. And… Soraya….” I gesture toward her, still seeing that dark mottling on her skin. “I was going to get it back for you.”
But even as I say the words, I can’t help sensing how pathetic they sound.
His expression closes over, and he gives a bitter laugh. “I was a fool once. And I knew when you walked into my dreams again I was taking the risk that I would be a fool again, but I didn’t truly believe….” He shakes his head. “Thank you. For making it very clear to me what your intentions are.”
I’ve lost him.
Forever.
And it hurts, even though a part of me knew it was never going to be.
That’s the cost of hope—you know it’s a lie and yet you still want it. You still want to believe its gentle whispers. You see a single reason to believe
