Page 180 of Of Nine So Bold

Ignatius didn’t say a word.

Never taking my eyes from the larger giant, I took Gwyneira’s arm and pulled her behind my back. It wasn’t that I actually believed she was in danger from the scholar. The reaction was instinctive, a need to protect her that transcended any rational evaluation of the threat.

No, the scholar wouldn’t harmher.

Me, he would eviscerate. Not with swords or knives, but with words and disgust. With excommunication. Because no matterwhat respect he may have shown me in the past few days, I’d just violated all my vows and become exactly what scholars like him had always said I was.

Weak.

Incapable of honor or integrity.

A shame to the Order.

“Please,” Gwyneira persisted, using her vampire strength to pull away from my grip and move into view of the old scholar once more. “He’s never broken his vows, and he wouldn’t?—”

Ignatius raised a hand, his eyes never leaving me, and despite the fact she was nobility and outranked him, my beautiful princess fell silent, casting an anxious glance in my direction.

It hurt. I never wanted to cause her to worry, and yet she did, all because of what I was about to endure.

Gods, I’d send her away if I thought she’d go.

“Do you believe in the Order?” Ignatius asked me, his quiet words nevertheless seeming loud in the silence of the ruined library.

I refused to tremble. To cower. “With all my heart.”

A brief chuckle left him, the corner of his lip rising. It was not a kind expression. “Do not lie, boy.”

My jaw clenched. A new feeling simmered below my worry, my dread. It was hot. Burning. It had no name, no shape. But it chewed up from my gut into my chest, scorching everything to ash.

“I don’t lie.” I bit off the words.

Ignatius was silent.

It was worse than any insult.

“I served.” Fury thickened my voice. “Every.Single.Day. Even when I thought I might be the only scholar left in the world, I kept the rituals. The ceremonies. I held true to my vows because I believed?—”

“Enough.”

“No!”

Ignatius’s brow rose at my shout.

“No,” I repeated in a lower voice. “You spent years making my childhood hell. Denying me even the mostbasicrespect because of how I was born. And only now that there isno one else leftdo you offer me the respect that should have been mine all along.” My body quivered with rage as I nodded to Gwyneira, never taking my eyes from him. “This is my treluria. We were chosen for one another by fate and the gods themselves. I love her with everything I am. But because I gave into that love for onefuckingmoment, you’d strip away everything I’ve fought to uphold for my entire life and disrespect meyet again.”

Ignatius’s expression didn’t change. “One moment is all it takes for the truth to emerge.”

Outrage burned me alive from the inside, turning my voice into a snarl I barely recognized. “I could have served athousandlifetimes, and it still wouldn’t have been enough to prove my worth to you.”

“No.”

The agreement was simple. As plain and honest as the sun in a winter sky.

And to hear it out loud…

Something snapped around my heart, falling away like the metal shards of a restraint I’d kept in place for far too long. “Youare the disgrace to the Order.” Contempt filled my voice. “Not me.”

Taking Gwyneira’s hand, I started for the door, determined to shove past him if that was what it took. I was done with this wretched old man who, like so many others, had driven me to doubt myself for so many years. I was done with the belief I only needed to work harder, do better, in order to earn something theyneverwould have truly given.

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