Page 70 of The Storm of the Empire

Fucking dragon hearing.

I needed to stop thinking this was anything more than convenience for her. That I would ever be more than convenience.

Her hand slid up my chest, fingers curling around the chain of my pendant. “Take this off,” she said, and I reeled from the change in direction.

“That has nothing to do with any of this,” I snapped.

“Why don’t you trust me?” she threw back in my face.

“I do. But again, it has nothing to do with any of this.” I put my hand over hers. “I feel like it’s you who doesn’t trust me.”

She took a few breaths and looked out over the dock to the ship.

“We have to go tell Nyx what we’ve seen. It’s too much now. He needs to know,” she said slowly. At least she’d calmed down and was thinking rationally.

I thought through her words and all the implications they would have. “It will blow our cover with this supply chain if we just leave and bring back an army. We need to keep going, get to the center of this thing so we know who to point the finger at.”

“No, he needs to know about this now. This is different than undead on the fridges of the Second Kingdom. This is in our backyard. This island is First Kingdom territory.” She released my pendant, and it felt final.

“We don’t even know for sure what we saw.” I felt bad the second I said it.

“I know what I saw.” Fire burned in her rose-colored eyes. “So do you.”

“If we leave now, we can’t come back, and we may never find Alora’s egg.” I was using the thing that was most important to her to try and sway her to my will. It felt nasty, and I hated it, but what choice did I have? I was in this, trying to find out where this trail of wrong led. I had to do all I could to stay on track and get to the bottom of it.

“This is bigger than Alora’s egg. The entire kingdom could be at risk.” She paled, and I could see the light had gone out of her. It deflated me.

“I know. Which is why we can’t both vanish from a secret base.”

“The King’s Army has flights ready to go.”

We had reached a divide between us. I didn’t want that, but how could I fix the cavern growing between us and make her see reason? “For the love of the Goddess, we don’t even know what resources they have. If they get spooked, we could lose their trace forever.”

“Then stay. I’ll go,” she said.

“What do I say? That you disappeared from a secret base? That you swam to shore?” She wasn’t thinking.

“Faolan will know. He knows what I am.”

“What?”

“We can smell it on each other.”

What the fuck was she saying? I tried to wrap my head around it, but the pieces weren’t adding up.

“What exactly are you saying?” I needed her to spell it out for me.

“He’s a dragon, Luka.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this to me?”

“You seemed to know him well. I figured you knew.”

“You figured I knew?” I found myself yelling, which we didn’t need. Anyone could walk by. I dropped my voice, getting ahold of myself. “How would I know that?”

“You knew him. You’ve sailed with the captain before, too. It’s not a stretch.”

“How is this even possible? Wouldn’t you know him? Don’t all of you have to go to Amaya for school and such?”

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