Page 79 of Shade of Ruin

I stop him by shaking my head. “No.” Do I tell him the truth? Do I tell him I can do so much more with shadows than I’d have expected? That I owe two debts because of it? I know how much anger the thought of my debts brings out in Cole, but I… I think I trust him. And part of that trust is giving away my secrets. I shouldn’t expect him to tell me secrets if I’m hiding things from him. And for what? So that he doesn’t growl? No, that’s stupid.

“I trained on the way to Draenyth.” He arches an eyebrow, and I take a deep breath. Yes, this is the time to tell him. To explain things. He’s asked me so many times since we started this journey together to trust him. It’s time.

I turn my hand over and show Cole the marks on my wrist. “I asked the Shade to teach me. He’s the only member of the House of Shadows that I’ll be able to convince to teach me. The first time I called for him, it was to save my cousin after my magic poisoned her and nearly killed her. The others are because I needed him to teach me to use my magic.”

Cole reaches out and runs his finger over the little marks on my wrist, three tally marks left. Three debts. “And now you think you can use magic to defend yourself more than steel?”

The look on his face is one of pure calculations. No emotion. No care about me as a person. Just one warrior considering another warrior’s decision.

After several moments, he says, “I don’t trust your skills.”

I start to argue, to try to convince him of my abilities, but he holds up his hand. “No, your words mean nothing. The only way I’ll trust your skills is to see them. Iknowyour skill with a spear. I know your weak points and your strengths. I don’t need you to explain them.”

He purses his lips and turns to look past me, as if he were looking at a scene from another place. Another time. “Before I trust your skill with magic, I need to see it, and you can’t do it here. Here, in Draenyth, it’s too dangerous.”

“So, how can I prove my skills? The House of Steel is the most dangerous threat, isn’t it? And you’ve already said that I won’t be able to beat them with my skills and armor. So, is it really any kind of protection if they try to kill me? Wouldn’t shadows be better?”

Cole shakes his head. “No. Because if you revealed you had shadow magic, then the House of Steel would have a reason to murder you. If the only purpose in hurting you is to indirectly hurt me, then they don’t have the balls to do that. Yet. For now, armor is the right decision, I think. I’d like to see your skills, though. Maybe in a few days I can fly you out of the city and you can show me what you can do.”

I bite my tongue to keep from arguing with Cole. Everything in me cringes at the idea of wearing steel. Even holding the steel-headed spear today made me a little flustered. It didn’t move like mine. Something about it made me recoil.

“So am I supposed to put on armor just to go to the market? If I wanted to go back to those ecstatic springs, would I need to be covered in steel while I sat in the water?”

Cole’s eyebrow arches as if my questions are ridiculous. “They’re genuine questions,” I say, getting more frustrated by the minute.

“You don’t need to wear armor all the time,” he says. “But there will be times. Soon. Where you may want it. I’ll be with you nearly always now, and anytime I’m around, you don’t need to wear it. But…”

I stare at him, our gazes locked. He’s thinking of something in particular, but I don’t know what it is. “Why do you want me to have armor, Cole?” I say as directly as I can.

“Because I don’t want you to die if someone tries to assassinate you. Because it is likely that someone will very soon.”

He says it so coldly. So calculated. “Who?” I ask, my voice growing just as cold.

“The House of Steel, most likely. War is coming, Maeve. Between the House of Flames and Steel, and I’m the only one that scares King Gethin. You’re my betrothed, so if you died, I would be distraught. I’d get over it—unlike a true marriage—but as our wedding date has not been announced yet. They won’t want to wait. They’ll take my weakness as a chance to drive a dagger into my father’s ribs. I don’t want that to happen.”

I squint at him, his logic making absolutely no sense at all. “So why would you want me in armor since there’s no way I’ll outfight them?”

He grins. “You might if you took off that ring, but more than that, no one’s going to expect a female Wyrdling to be of any skill with a spear. The House of Steel won’t come for you directly. They’ll hire assassins, and those assassins will die if they attack you while you’re wearing armor. Let me commission a suit of armor for you, Maeve. It will make me feel better.”

He’s not trying to force me to do anything. He just wants… to protect me. I can see it in those eyes. A desire to keep me safe, just as he’d promised during our betrothal ceremony. I give him a nod. I’ll let him buy me a suit of armor. I’ll let him do the things that make him feel like I’m safer.

My hand moves toward him, my fingers barely touching his. “We’ve put off the conversation for several days now, but Cole, it’s time that I try to speak with Calyr. The journey to Draenyth and these first few days in the city have been hard, but Hazel needs me to find a cure for what I did to her.”

Cole’s icy blue eyes darken at the mention of talking to Calyr. “I’ve put off talking about that, not because I want to delay you, but because it’s far more difficult than you’d expect. Calyr resideswithinthe mountain. There are four entrances to his cave, two of which are blocked permanently. The other two are more heavily guarded than anywhere else in Draenyth.”

Confusion knits my brows together. “But everyone knows Calyr can grant wishes. The Shade told me he was the only being who could save my cousin. Why would his cave be guarded?”

“Because the wishes that Calyr could grant could ruin my father's and Gethin’s plans. What if someone wished to have their bloodline changed?”

I blink. I hadn’t thought of that. “Has it always been that way?”

Cole nods. “For as long as I’ve been alive. Only a handful of people have ever been allowed in to see Calyr. Most of them have been high-ranking nobles. The others have managed to sneak past the guards, most of them from the House of Shadows. But beyond that, you do realize that Calyr does not grant wishes for free, correct? You must offer something that is as valuable as the wish you’d like fulfilled. Do you have anything of that kind of value?”

I look down at the table. I have nothing of value. I never have. “No,” I whisper.

Cole sighs and shakes his head. “Maeve,” he says my name as he picks up my hand and pushes it toward my face. “That ring is one of the ancient artifacts of the House of Shadows. The Forgotten Ring has shown up in history a handful of times, and then it disappears just as fast. Like the Shadowed Cloak that the Shade wears, they’re pieces of magic that were made by Vyran, the dragon that created the House of Shadows. More valuable than entire vaults of gold, there are few items in the world more valuable than that ring.”

Well… that changes things. It’s strange to look at the silver ring with the tiny black gem in it and see it in the light that Cole’s given it. It certainly doesn’t look valuable or powerful. Just a little trinket you’d give to a young girl. The only unusual thing I ever recognized was that it always seemed to fit. Whether I was three years old or an adult, it always fit perfectly. The only time it’s ever fallen off is when I hurt Hazel.

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