“Am I allowed a guest?” she asked, eyes flickering to Draven behind them.
Dorian paused, squinted eyes darting over Draven’s silent figure. “I guess he can come.”
Draven smirked at him. “Nice to know one member of the family likes me,” he mused under his breath.
“My sister—”
The sound of Rhaif’s voice made Aydra stop in her tracks. She stopped, and Dorian’s arm tensed around her. She squeezed his arm back and gave him a nod as she turned and stepped away towards her brother.
“Rhaif,” she said, stepping up to him on the other side of the door.
Rhaif pushed his hands behind his back. “You’ll meet me in the Chamber in an hour,” he demanded.
“Why would I do that?” she asked.
“Because we’ve much to discuss after the meeting yesterday,” he replied.
Her jaw tightened at his gaze, and she finally gave him a nod. “Very well.”
Aydra couldn’t stop pacing, a nervous energy pouring through her core.
Draven and Lex were with her in her room. He was leaned against the poster of her bed, Lex sitting down at the end of the mattress.
“I don’t like it,” Draven argued. “What does he want?”
“One or both of two things,” Aydra said. “He either truly wants to discuss the meeting or he means to punish me.”
“Punish you?” Draven repeated with a balk of his head.
“If he touches you—”
Aydra held a hand up to Lex. “No. You’ll do nothing. Your orders are to protect my sister, no matter what happens, you protect her.”
“Wait,” Draven interjected. “What—”
Lex’s jaw tightened, and her fist clenched around her sword. “I will not—”
“Swear it,” Aydra demanded, stopping in front of her and ignoring Draven. “If you love me, you will swear it. Nyssa and Dorian must stay safe. And you cannot kill him if something happens.”
Lex stared at her. “If he kills you—”
“Why the fuck is this even a conversation?” Draven interjected, stepping forward. “Kills her—”
“—I am to simply sit back and do nothing?” Lex continued. “How—”
“The same goes for you,” Aydra suddenly told Draven.
Draven’s nostrils flared, and he stilled as though paralyzed against the post, arms crossed over his chest. “What have you not told me?” he asked deliberately.
Aydra swallowed hard, her weight shifting as she dodged his question. “If he hurts me, you are to do nothing.”
The glare in which he stared at her with then made her bones tingle, the hair on her arms stand on end. “I will rip him to shreds with my bare hands,” he uttered.
“You won’t get the chance with his fire,” she argued.
Wind knocked the grand window open so violently that one of them shattered against the stone. Draven stared at her, nostrils flared as his arms tightened across his chest so firmly that veins popped to the surface.
“Why do you think Duarb gave the Venari King wind?” he said in a low growl.
Aydra paused and met his gaze. “If you kill him, you will start a war. The Belwarks and Dreamers will not listen to Dorian even if he tells them not to go to war with you. They will want vengeance for him.”
“And they won’t if you die?”
“The Bedrani Council has wanted me subdued for some time. His killing me would be a welcome reprieve, especially after this week.” She looked between the pair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Swear to me. Both of you.”
Lex exchanged a glance with Draven, and at the same time they both said, “No.”
“Please—”
“We shouldn’t even be having this conversation,” Draven interjected.
A knock on the door signified that it was time. Aydra swallowed hard and shook her head. “I have to go.”
She disappeared from the room without look at them.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
THE RAVEN FLEW in one of the open windows and perched on her shoulder as she walked down to the Council Chamber.
Plan? it asked her.
Buy time. I do not wish to make a saint out of him.
Rhaif was sitting at the long table when she arrived. A Belwark led her inside, and she took Draven’s seat across from him. His chin sat against his hand, and he was leaned back lazily in his seat.
“Close the windows,” Rhaif instructed the Belwarks from his chair. “Then leave us.”
Aydra’s chest tightened.
He did mean to hurt her.
She shifted in her seat, jaw tightening. “Think they don’t know how to break glass?” she asked, knowing why he was closing the panes.
Rhaif stared at her, but he did not utter another word. Each grand window closed, and throughout it, she nor he moved, or blinked.
But once the doors shut, she felt her breath stop.
Rhaif sighed, and he allowed his hand to hit the end of the chair arm. “What is your plan, sister?” he asked across the table.
Her brows narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“Your plan,” he repeated. “I know better than to think you actually love the Venari brute, not to mention the display the past two days, your fraternizing with our eastern enemies… flirting and speaking to them as though you truly mean to be their allies. I do not dare to think you mean to truly bring the old Echelon together. And besides… You wouldn’t know what love was if it was thrown at your feet.”
“How would you know what love is? The only thing you’ve ever loved is yourself.”
“Wrong,” he argued upon his standing. “The only things I have ever loved are our giver mother and you. Everything I have ever done has been for you. Your safety.”
Aydra’s hands curled in on themselves. “Burning me is not love. Manipulating me is not love. You do not trust me. You sent an army after me because I went to help our allies to the south—”
“You betrayed me and all of your people to travel south for an orgy all because you thought I was being mean to you,” he mocked. A sarcastic smile rose on his face and he started crossing the space between them. “Ash told me about the two of you as soon as he and
