Time warped, and I stood still as a statue.
Eyes wide.
Unfeeling.
Sightless.
The door slammed open, and I jumped as Lyla walked out. The witch’s otherworldly eyes stared through me, and I averted my gaze, staring down at my ice-coated feet.
You didn’t look fate in the eyes, especially not when your fate was as corrupted as mine.
In my peripheral vision, Lyla’s forest-colored hair blew on a phantom breeze. White runes glowed across her dark skin. She stood inches away from me and waited silently.
She smelled sharp, like grief mixed with destiny.
Pressure built in my eyes, and suddenly I was hyperaware of the gaping emptiness inside my chest.
A horrible sense of foreboding slammed into me—things were going to get dark. A long stretch of merciless night spread before me.
Lyla leaned close and whispered so quietly it took me a few seconds to process what she’d said.
“You must embrace the dragon.”
Her soft words hung insidiously in the air between us.
“She’s here,” she said loudly as lightning struck, then she walked away and disappeared down the hall.
Lothaire responded. “Come in, Aran.” His voice had a strange inflection.
Orion sat down in the hall to wait for me.
I gingerly entered.
He stood up, single eye wide as he stared at the ice that spread out from underneath my feet.
I hid my hands behind my sleeves and cleared my throat. “You called for me, sir?” I asked awkwardly.
Bowed my head.
Stood at attention.
He made a strangled noise and said, “Please, don’t do that—just stand normal.”
My shoulders slouched as I stood normally. “Yes, sir,” I whispered.
He flinched like I’d slapped him.
Silence spread between us, and the temperature in his small office plummeted. Ice crackled as it trailed up my arms beneath my sweatshirt, toward my heart.
Lothaire cleared his throat a bunch of times. “Lyla has hinted that there are—things I don’t know about you.”
I harrumphed.
Understatement of the year.
I picked at my lip and waited for him to demand answers. I waited for him to get aggressive and pry, but he didn’t do any of that.
Instead, he started talking.
He told a story about a man with excessive power who’d committed horrible atrocities in his youth and was owned by the High Court as a result. He told me about how he’d been forced to conceive me with Mother. How he was trapped and had no choices.
He said he’d thought I was better off with her.
He said he’d thought I was safe.
He said a lot of things.
Finally, he pointed to his missing eye, then pointed to mine, the one that had a little more gray in it than the other.
He explained how he’d pulled it out of his eye socket for me, then he’d slashed his own face.
He was the reason I had two eyes.
The reason I could see.
My shivering intensified, and ice crawled up the outside of my throat.
I was numb all over.
I felt as if I hovered outside my body and watched him talking to me from a faraway vantage point.
Finally, he finished his heart-wrenching tale.
We stood in more uncomfortable silence.
I pulled my pipe from my pocket and inhaled enchanted smoke.
The room was freezing, and our breath puffed in frosty clouds between us.
I realized it was my turn.
Lothaire waited.
Silently.
Calmly.
With unfeeling lips, I began to talk.
I told him about the nightly tortures and the constant beatings, the harsh tutors, and even harsher guards.
The air was suddenly too thin, and it was hard to breathe.
Between shaky gasps, I told him the things Mother used to say to me. The things she’d done.
The many nights I lay sprawled across the floor on fire, screaming while I prayed someone would save me.
How no one had.
The days I was barely able to endure because I’d been so terrified about what was to come later. Anticipation eating at my stomach until I was physically sick.
When I was done speaking, Lothaire’s tanned skin was a sickly shade of pale.
He stared at me like he’d never seen me.
Then his face crumpled, and he staggered backward with a wail. His back hit the wall, and he cradled his head in his hands as he let loose an unholy sound. Sparks of power popped in the air around him.
He was a broken man.
Shattered.
Thank the sun god I didn’t tell him about the slur on my back.
“But it’s over now,” I said, my voice hoarse as I inhaled smoke like it could save me.