Page 88 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

“I’ll happily carve into the Marshal.” Draven pulled a blade from somewhere beneath his cloak, and Vail unsheathed the curved dagger he kept at his hip in response.

“What about me?” I stepped forward and gripped Draven’s hand, moving it until the blade was at my throat. Vail let out a rumbling growl at my back, but I ignored him, and thankfully he didn’t interfere. For now. “Will you cut through me to get to him?”

Draven paled and yanked the blade away. “I would never hurt you.”

“I know,” I said quietly. It was probably foolish of me, but I did trust Draven. Even more foolish of me was that I wanted him, and that desire I felt was so much more than just a passing fancy. I liked him.

I liked it when he was being a charming prince, I liked it when he was being a devilish rogue, and . . . I loved it when he was just being Draven. I suspected the latter was a side only Kieran and I got to see.

“Please, Drav,” I begged. “Give us a reason to trust you.”

Slowly, he reached up to stroke my cheek. “I’ve tried so hard to figure out a way to keep the two of you safe. I thought the best way to do that was to stay away.”

Me and Kieran. I thought about how he always kept a careful distance between us when we were in public and how he had pushed Kieran away so cruelly. I was still pissed off about how he’d handled things with Kieran, but I also believed he must have felt he had no other option.

“I know,” I said softly. “Tell me why. What are you keeping us safe from?”

We stared at each other for a long moment, and I could see the conflict he was battling within himself.

“Okay.” He rubbed his face with clear reluctance before sliding the dagger back into sheath on his thigh. “I’ll tell youwhat I can, but you have to understand that there aresomethings Ican’tspeak of.”

I cocked my head at how he emphasized two of the words. Magic of some kind. It had to be. I nodded. “Tell us what you can.”

“You already know my mother has half of the soul crown and about her allies.”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “She has the half to bind a soul and is looking for the other piece to see souls, and she has an alliance with the Seelie Fae, who are the wraiths that plague our lands. They’re using some type of spell that requires Moroi blood to regain their original shapes.”

He looked at me for a long moment, a slight crease forming along the corners of his deep blue eyes, and then he winced. His hands flew to his head as he let out a sharp hiss.

“There are some things I can’t speak of.”

Something about what I’d said was related to that. Could he not even think about it without pain? What the fuck type of magic was that?

I reached out a hand and rested it on his forearm as we waited for him to continue, scared if I said anything else, it would only cause him to have more thoughts that would hurt him. I glanced over my shoulder at Vail, who was still studying the prince but had put his dagger away. His expression was unreadable, though if he was swayed by the pain Draven was in, he wasn’t showing it.

After a couple of minutes, Draven straightened. I started to pull my hand away, but he rested his hand over it, keeping it trapped on his arm. I let him have it.

“Velika came into possession of the crown—half of it anyway—shortly before I was born. At first, she didn’t understand how to use it, but she figured it out. Luckily for all of Lunaria, without both halves, the crown is only capable of half of its potential.” I watched as his expression closed off until hisfeelings were hidden behind an emotionless mask that made dread pool in my gut. “But there are many wicked things she can do with that half . . . things she learned how to do by experimenting on me and those close to me.”

“But she’s your mother,” I half whispered as the dread continued to grow.

Draven gave me a small smile that broke my heart. “She wishes she weren’t. There is no one the Moroi Queen despises more than her own son.”

“Why?”

He winced painfully. Clearly, this fell under things he couldn’t speak of.

I squeezed his arm. “It’s okay.”

“What did she do?” Vail asked. “How does the crown work?”

“I’m not sure how the crown worked for the Fae, but for us, it seems there has to be some connection between who wears the crown and the person they want to bind. Velika is currently limited in only being able to control those whose blood she has taken and who have taken her blood in return. Because I am her son and of her flesh and blood, she has no restrictions in controlling me. I can fight it, but I will always lose.

“My mother had no interest in raising me. I always had caretakers,” Draven continued in that monotonous voice, as if he was speaking of what he’d had for breakfast and not the horrors his own mother had inflicted upon him. “For the first five years, I rarely saw her. Then she started showing up to check on me. They were short visits, and she always left disappointed.”

It didn’t escape my notice that he hadn’t mentioned his father once. Most people assumed Velika’s consort, Lucian, was Draven’s father. The Sovereign House had never confirmed one way or another. I always thought it strange since Draven didn’t look like either of them with his strange, black-and-silverhair and vivid blue eyes with their secondary bloodred coloring. Both Velika and Lucian were fair-haired with pale skin.

“One of the people who helped raise me was an older Moroi woman. She was always kind to me. Some of the others were distant, but Selia would read me a story every night.” His lips curved into a soft smile. “Pretty sure she made up most of them on the spot, because they didn’t always make sense, but it was something I looked forward to every night before falling asleep.”

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