Page 135 of The Cruel Dawn
“Kai—”
“I’ve accepted that I must kill Danar Rrivae,” I say, holding up a finger. “He’s told me that I must die for him claim Vallendor.”
I hold up a second finger. “I’ve accepted that I must kill Zephar Itikin. He plans to strip me bare and murder me in my sleep.”
I let my hand fall. “But Jadon has never expressed intent to kill me,” I say. “You’vesaid that Jadon wanted me dead.” I stare at her and watch her begin to squirm. “My dear uncle has also said that Jadon means to kill me. You and Agon have plucked my wings and restricted my movements and lied to me about who I am, what I’ve done, and how my actions have threatened Vallendor and all the other realms.”
Elyn and Agon control Vallendor because they controlme. Anyone who possesses any more power than they do endangers the plans for this realm…a realm without me as Grand Defender.
I step closer to Elyn. She has to look up to meet my eyes.
We stare at each other for a moment before she relaxes, and a laugh bubbles up from her chest. “You’re fucking with me, right?” she asks.
Before I can speak, a steward enters the room holding two bundles. Even with the chaos all over the abbey, he moves with an assured grace. His simple robes, a deep blue-gray fabric, blend into the shadows of the room. His pale freckled face is stern, and he bows low before placing the scented bundles on the worktable.
The parcels, wrapped in coarse linen and tied with thick twine, smell of fresh-baked bread, recently harvested herbs, and glazed sugar. Their intoxicating aromas fill the room, bringing warmth to this cold space.
Elyn quickly unties the twine and unwraps these gifts. Her eyes light up at the loaf of still-warm bread, its crust golden and perfect. “I asked for food and water for the both of us,” she says, a little more relaxed in the presence of good food. She points to the second bundle. “That’s yours.”
I narrow my eyes at her again, still unsure. “They aren’t the same?”
Elyn doesn’t answer right away. “Yes and no. Yours is heavy on honeycakes while mine…” She smiles and pulls out a cookie with a thumbprint of purple jam. “Mine has these.” She takes a bite and ties the bundle back up. “But I’ll trade you some.”
Cookies for honeycakes? No. Absolutely not.
This could still be a distraction. All of my friends are enemies now, so why not Elyn? Especially since we’re no longer friends? What was shereallylooking for as I stood at the aerie’s threshold?
I join her at the table and peer at my unopened parcel. “What if we don’t kill Jadon—?” I hold up my hand before she can object. “What if I could control him instead? What if I could use Miasma against our enemies instead?”
She gapes at me. “You’re…weakening, Kai. You aren’t thinking straight.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “I don’t know the cooks who prepared this pack. I don’t know the ingredients in these honeycakes or the cleanliness of the water in this canteen. Who created these tonics? Who cut and prepared these bandages? Trusting anything and everyone is a thing of the past. That’s not my minddying. That’s makingconnections.”
Elyn doesn’t want me to control Vallendor again. That makes more sense to me than suddenly coming back into my life, acting like my best friend. She’s still the same woman who said I’d never be the god that Vallendor needed and deserved. Does she thinkshe’sthe god Vallendor needs and deserves? Isshetired of being a fucking librarian and a judge? Vallendor is already teetering on the brink of destruction, already mired in calamity, in need of a steady hand to guide her back on the right path. What I see as an end, she sees as the beginning.
Yes, Elyn sees an opportunity with Vallendor, which means she must kill Jadon—and me. Unless…she only wantsmegone.
I remember how she looked at Jadon after that fight in Fihel, at the camp that night. I remember how gentle she was, touching him. She’d draped her hand on his cheeks and pursed her lips to blow the splinter from his eye, and there was joy, not duty, in her smile. She’d drawn thatintimatesketch of his hand tattoo, in so much detail. She couldn’t have drawn that without seeing it up close.
I don’t want her wings. I want my own wings—my own power—back.
And I want theLibrum Esoterica. To find the answers I seek, I’d study the book myself even though I’m no scholar.
“Where’s Jadon?” I ask Elyn now.“Where is he?”
She grabs her parcel of food and frowns at me. “Something’s bothering you, and I wish you’d just say—”
“Did you help him escape?” I ask, closing in on her again. “Did you promise him another gift, like last time?” At the Sea of Devour, I’d discovered she had promised Jadon that she’d remove his mark if he killed me. He failed, of course, and the mark remained.
“How was it that, back in Gasho, he was with you one moment,” I ask, “and then, the next moment, he wasn’t?” I wait for her to respond. When she doesn’t, I add, “At the Sea of Devour that last time, you said that Jadon was the weapon who’d served both Danar’s purpose andyourpurpose. What did you mean by that?”
Elyn flushes, realizing finally that something is off in this room, that something is seriously out of tune. The quiet hum of the abbey now feels suffocating. She glances at the door, then over to the window, as if she’s trying to pin down what she hasn’t been able to see until now.
“Is there someone in my life I can trust?” I whisper. I don’t want to believe the answer—but reality sinks in with a cold, cruel certainty.
There’s no one in my life I can trust.
POP! POP! POP!
