Page 85 of Ocean of Silver

She sighed. “You and your plans are going to get yourself killed.” A long pause. “It’s not just the fact that the King will want her now. I had another vision.”

There was a long pause that I was worried they might have gone into another room, and I would miss the rest of the conversation, but then Tezya growled, “Tell me.” His voice promised violence, and I shuddered at the authority in it. I’d never heard him speak like that to anyone. “Tell me now, Dovelyn.”

“She will turn against you. I saw a vision of her working with the King as clearly as I see you now. I saw her standing with the King, making an announcement to the Luxians. She wasn’t chained. She looked well even, not starved or tortured. She stood there willingly, Tezya. She condemned you. She condemned and ruined everything that you’ve been working for. She will destroy everything you’ve been trying so hard to build. I saw it. I saw people die right in front of her, and she didn’t do anything to stop it. She didn’t even blink or seemed surprised by it either. She just watched. She let it all happen—”

“Stop,” Tezya said, but Dovelyn kept going.

“I know what you’re planning to do. How you plan to save her, but you can’t bring her there. She will bring damnation to what you’ve been working for.”

“You’re lying. You’re just saying that because you don’t want me with her.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you. Use your ability and read my emotions, Tez. Does it feel like I’m lying to you because I’m not. She will work with the King. She will turn against us, againstyou.”

“No, that’s not true. She wouldn’t.”

“Don’t presume that you know her just because you are now bonded by the Goddess. She’s a stranger still. You’ve only been training her for a few months. You know nothing about her.”

“I said that’s not true,” Tezya growled. “Your last vision didn’t come true, and this won’t either. She wasn’t who the prophecy was talking about.”

“Tezya, my last vision was that she and the Dark Prince would marry, and they did. It came true, and so will this,” Dovelyn remarked.

“It only came true because you made it happen. You told the King to send her! You are the reason that she was sent to Tennebris. You made it happen, Dovelyn. And whatever you’re scheming now, I want it to stop.”

“You know why I did that.”

“GET OUT OF MY ROOM!”

“Tez, please…”

“I. SAID. GET. OUT.”

I heard movement coming closer to the door, and I bolted, running back to my own room as fast as my legs could take me.

THIRTY-FIVE

SCOTLIND

A cramp tookover my calf, but I didn’t notice. I kept pacing, too worked up to sleep. I’d been doing it all night, walking back and forth in my room, my mind whirling in a thousand different directions. I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t relax.

I was currently in my room at Lux, but for how long? Would I be thrown back into a cell? Where was Peter? Was he in one of those cages that I lived in when I first came here? Were they torturing him too? Was he even alive? I tried not to focus on that. He had to be alive. He couldn’t be dead. But I had no idea what had happened to him. The last time I saw him was when I blacked out before Tezya’s punishment.

And then there was Tezya… There were so many things I overheard last night, and I didn’t know what to make of them all. Dovelyn said that she saw me working with the Lux King, whatever that meant. I didn’t know that her second ability was sightseeing, that she had visions, that she saw Sie and I marry before it happened. The revelation that she had something to do with why I was kidnapped all those years ago put an ache in my heart. I couldn’t understand it. And Tezya knew about it. He knew…

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I was pretty sure I was still in shock, not able to process what I had heard, not able to make sense of it. Because I just willingly initiated the blood bond with Tezya and then spent the whole night with him, only to find out that he’s been keeping this from me. He promised me no more secrets. He promised to be truthful. But if he really knew the reason why I was kidnapped… I couldn’t let myself go there. Not yet.

Then Dovelyn said that I would betray Tezya, that I would turn against him. She said she saw me working alongside his father—the Lux King. There was no way. That couldn’t be true. Tezya said he was trying to save me, that he had a plan. But Dovelyn told him not to do whatever it was, that I would be the damnation of everything he was working for. I had no idea what any of that meant. Would Tezya listen to Dovelyn? Would he heed the warning and leave me here? Or would he still do whatever he had planned, and if so, was what Dovelyn said true? Would I really turn bad? Because there wasn’t a bone in my body that believed the Lux King was good.

If I was working with the King, if I was willingly standing by while he murdered people… I swallowed. That couldn’t be true. I didn’t care what happened, there was nothing in this world that would get me to side with him. Nothing.

It chipped away at everything I was on the inside. Would I not react as people died in front of me? Would I really work with the Lux King? I hated him. I hated everything about him. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t…

No. Dovelyn was just saying that to Tezya. She didn’t want us together. That was all that was. But, she knew Sie and I were going to get married…

A knock sounded on my door as I made another lap around my room. I hesitated. Then, another knock.

“Open up,” a voice I didn’t recognize called from behind a door. It was low and soothing. I walked over to it, my heart pounding. I had nowhere to go. The only window in my room didn’t open, and my door didn’t lock from the inside. The knock was only a courtesy. Whoever was at my door could just break in if they wanted.

I opened the door. “Arcane,” I breathed, surprised to see the eldest Prince at my chambers.

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