Page 12 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons
“What is wrong with you?” she hissed. “I’m offering you a night you won’t forget.”
“That’s the problem,” I said, my voice low and unsteady. “I don’t want to forget.” I wanted to remember every moment with Livia, even the painful ones, because they were real. They were mine. This… this was just an anaesthetic, and I was done being numb.
“Get out, Valeria,” I repeated, turning my back on her to pour another drink, my hand shaking.
The predatory smile on her face faltered, replaced by a flicker of surprise and then anger.
"You're a beautiful woman, Valeria, but this isn't... I'm not..."
"Not what?" Her voice had taken on a hard edge. "Not interested in me? Or not available?"
The way she said it made something cold settle in my stomach. There was calculation in her eyes now, a predatory intelligence that reminded me uncomfortably of certain courtiers in my father's palace.
"It's nothing personal," I tried.
"Oh, but I think it is." She circled me slowly, like a cat stalking wounded prey. "Very personal indeed. Tell me, Jalend—what's so special about our dear Livia that has you turning down willing women?"
My heart stopped. "I don't know what you mean."
"Please. I have eyes. The way you look at her, the way you've been avoiding her tonight like a spurned lover..." Valeria's smile was razor-sharp. "It's quite obvious to anyone paying attention."
"You're imagining things."
"How disappointing. I'd heard rumours about your... preferences... but I hoped they were exaggerated."
"What rumours?"
"Oh, nothing terribly scandalous. Just whispers about your fascination with a certain dragon rider." Her smile turned razor-sharp. "Hardly a noble, practically a commoner. How deliciously democratic of you."
The casual cruelty in her voice made my jaw clench. "Be very careful, Valeria."
"Or what? You'll defend her honour?" She laughed, a sound like breaking crystal. "How chivalrous. Though I do wonder what she's told you about herself. Commoners can be so... creative... with the truth."
There was something in her tone that made my blood run cold. Knowledge. Certainty. The kind of satisfied malice that came from holding secrets over someone's head.
"What do you know about her?" I asked before I could stop myself.
"Enough." Valeria moved to the balcony, gazing out at the harbour with studied casualness. "Enough to know that your little dragon rider isn't just spreading her legs for you. But then, I suspect you've begun to figure that out for yourself, haven't you?"
She was fishing, trying to get me to reveal what I knew. But her confidence suggested she had her own sources of information, her own reasons for watching Livia. The thought made me sick.
"Get out," I said quietly.
"Oh, did I strike a nerve?" She turned back to me, eyes glittering with malicious delight. "How fascinating. You really don't know, do you? Here I thought you were simply slumming with the help, but you actually care about her."
"Get. Out."
"Such passion." She moved toward the door, pausing to look back over her shoulder. "Do give my regards to your dragon rider, won't you? When you see her next. If you see her next."
With a final, contemptuous glance, she swept out of the room, leaving the scent of her perfume and the poison of her words hanging in the air. I slammed the door behind her, the sound echoing the hollow crack in my chest. The brief, sordid encounter had done nothing but sharpen my pain, leaving me more alone and hopelessly in love with a woman who was destroying me.
I poured myself another drink—a large one—and sank into the chair by my window. Outside, the Academy grounds were peaceful in the moonlight, showing no trace of the violence that had torn through them weeks ago. But the scars were still there, hidden beneath carefully tended gardens and fresh paint, just like the wounds in my own heart.
I thought about Livia's secrets, about the men she'd loved and lost. I thought about my own deception, the truth about myparentage that I'd never dared reveal. We were both living lies, both hiding from truths too dangerous to speak aloud.
But while her secrets were born from necessity, from survival in a world that would destroy her if it knew who she really loved, mine came from cowardice. I'd had a dozen opportunities to tell her the truth about myself, and I'd chosen silence every time. How could I be angry with her for keeping secrets when I was doing the same thing?
The hypocrisy of it made me sick, but not as sick as the growing realization that it didn't matter anymore. Even if I told her everything—about my father, my identity, my growing horror at the Empire's actions—it wouldn't change the fundamental truth that Valeria had forced me to confront.
