Page 21 of An Honored Vow

A tear streamed down his face. “I didn’t deserve it.”

“But I do!” My words echoed against the hard stone of the room. “That choice was taken from me once before.” I lifted the arm with Brenna’s name etched into the skin. “She didn’t give me a choice. I would have plunged that dagger into my own heart a thousand times for her. I would have killed a thousand people to save her, but she took that choice away.” The image of Brenna’s poison-stained lips flashed across my mind as if I were still trapped inside that moment. As if I were realizing that she was already dead all over again. I cleared my throat and met Riven’s hard gaze. “I’ve had to live with that. I have loved her and resented her for thirty years. I deserved a choice then just as I deserve a choice now—Iearnedit. And I chose you.”

Riven’s lip trembled but he didn’t say anything.

I stood. I had no fight left for this anymore. “You want to earn my forgiveness? You want to make it right? Make it so that choice doesn’t go to waste?”

Riven still didn’t speak. I turned to leave, I did not have it in me to fight for the both of us. I was almost at the door when Riven’s rasp broke the silence. “What if I can’t live with that choice? Yours and mine? What if I never get past this?” His jade eyes swam in a pool of tears as I turned back to face him.

I shrugged. I didn’t have the answer any more than he did. “You either find a way, or you let it consume you. That choice is yours.”

Riven retreated further into himself. His shoulders slumped forward, protecting him, and for the first time I saw the young prince that he had once been.

“You told me once, in Koratha, that you believed you inherited your father’s legacy, and it was on you to end the Crown. At whatever cost.” I’d thought I had been speaking to the prince about the weight of his crown, but knowing the truth now, it was so easy to see that the Crown never left Riven’s head no matter what face he wore. “You said it to me as Killian, but what does it mean for Riven?”

“It changes nothing.”

“Doesn’t it?” I waved my hand around the room that was very muchnotthe kingdom. “Your father came to these lands to conquer the Elverin for his own gain. He killed entire bloodlines that will never resurface.”

“I know.” His jaw pulsed. “You learned the stories from your tutors at the Order and then from the knowledge keepers here, but I wasfour, hearing my father boast about it over a flank and flagon of wine.” Riven’s lip pulled back over his fangs.

“If it disgusts you so much, then why do you let your father do the same to you?”

Riven stilled. “What do you mean?”

“You speak of your grand legacy. You give so much credence to your lineage under the Crown, but doesn’t your mother deserve just as much? Are you not the son of Laethellia Numenthira just as much as you are Aemon’s? Perhaps even more so, since you fight for her kin and not his.”

Riven’s jaw hung slack.

I swallowed. So much of I wanted to say stormed inside me. For Riven, but also for the younger version of me who ran from my troubles at every chance she got. The hard truths I’d come to learn had to be shared. I owed it to that young girl who was left in the Rift. “You exist because of this war, Riven. And as such, you have been dealt choices no one else has had to make. You will—you have—made mistakes. If you keep running from them, you will always wrestlewith that anger. And the others you make angry. But the truth is that you can only do one thing as you move forward.”

His word was barely a whisper. “What?”

“Choose better next time. Choose right, one day at a time. Day by day.”

Riven picked at the skin around his thumb. “I’m not sure my decisions can be trusted.”

“No leader is.” My words were heavy but tasted true enough.

Riven bit his cheek and pushed off from the wall as my gust faded. “I am sorry, for leaving like I did.” He shifted to step closer to me but then thought better of it. “I know you say you can forgive me, but …” Riven paused. “I don’t know if I can let you.”

His words pierced my belly like a sword, but they did not twist. A clean cut, something that could heal well with enough time and care.

I was willing to give Riven both as long as he kept being honest.

“Okay.” I nodded. “The two sides of this war live inside you just as they live on this land, Riven. There’s nowhere in the world you could run to hide from that truth. But maybe if you stop running, you’ll find that others do not find your truth nearly as frightening as you do.”

“And what if I can’t?” Riven looked down at the ground. His staying in Myrelinth meant that he would have to come clean about his secret to everyone.

I opened the door and told him the truth he needed to hear. “Then the war will claim you. And likely all who follow you into battle.”

Gerarda stood in the grand hall of the lower city when I walked through. The rescued Halflings were trying on the remaining clothes from the selection Nikolai and Dynara had organized weeksprior. My heart tore with guilt seeing their smiles; both of my friends should have witnessed that joy.

“The scouts have been informed and so have the remaining Fae.” Gerarda walked at full speed to keep up with my stride. “At least one adult from every dwelling will stay up overnight to respond to any emergencies. And those without immediate kin have been sorted into groups of six.”

I grabbed a leaf pad and threw it on top of a large faelight. “Good work.” I nodded at the floating orb. “Jump on. I need to grab my weapons belt before we head out on patrol.”

Gerarda’s lips pursed. She preferred to walk up the height of the Myram than ride a floating ball of light through its hollow center. But she nodded and climbed to one side. “Feron and Darythir have secured Aralinth, and we have informed all residents that no one is allowed to leave the cities after dusk. Even to harvest.”

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