Page 146 of House of Embers
“That is a very kind thought,” Fairgate said. He clasped his hands behind his back. “There is nothing kind in my brother. He would never allow it. Not even for his kin. Not even his most beloved. Not even his first child. Not even me.”
Kerrigan nodded. Of course it made sense. Even if they could use it, it didn’t mean they should. It wasn’t worth the price. It wasn’t worth her goodness. Her life. If she used it and became worse than Bastian, then he won anyway.
Bastian had lost his wife in a fire. However it had happened, whoever was responsible, he had taken that one thing in his life and let it twist him into this monster. Let it defile him and degrade him and take the rest of the country with him. Kerrigan refused to be like this. Refused to do it.
“Then I’ll take it off,” she said. “I’ll hide it away so no one else can do what I couldn’t…shouldn’t do.”
“That is the smartest course. The last binding, I felt it rip through the crown, rip through this place. The price that was taken fed the crown for many years. It wants me to let you use it. Even now I can feel it.”
“You know what Irena did?”
“Yes. I felt when it was placed on that dragon’s head. The price taken from both of them. Her goodness. His strength.”
“Oh,” Kerrigan gasped. She hadn’t know that it had drained Ferrinix as well. “It took his strength?”
He nodded. “I am unsure what it would take from you.”
“All I want is to change the binding, to make it right. I thought if I used the crown, I could alter it so that it wouldn’t require such a steep price. Our lives wouldn’t be entwined. The dragons wouldn’t die without binding. The Fae wouldn’t be subjected to dissolution.”
Fairgate placed a hand on her shoulder. “You are too good for my brother’s line. What you suggest is not possible.”
Kerrigan sniffled and nodded. All of this for nothing.
“But there is another way.”
Her eyes lifted. “Another way?”
He took her hand in his. “You have to be sure that this is what you want.”
And for a second, a vision took over her sight. Just like it had all those years before, when she had first had prophetic dreams, when her harbinger abilities had taken her over. She’d learned to control her spirit powers, and they had stopped hitting her like a freight train. Shehad almost forgotten what it was like to see the blur of images and feel her magic open and pouring out.
A flash of ice. Her magic exploding like ash from a volcano. A blinding light that reached across the entire continent and beyond. Theclick, click, clickof all the chains shattering. Fordham reaching for her in the frost.
“Are you sure?” Fairgate asked.
She was on her knees with her face in his hands, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had no idea how she had gotten there. Her magic was still open and pulsing, waiting.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Fairgate nodded and then poured her out. Her magic freezing through her veins and then exploding upward out of her. The blinding light igniting the world. For a moment, she felt every dragon and rider pair in the entire world. Every single connection that had been made with the Irena Bargain.
And she broke them all.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The Broken Bonds
Wynter lay in Dozan’s arms, naked.
They shared his bed, which wasn’t as plush as her quarters, but sometimes she preferred how austere it was. Howhimit was.
She ran a hand down his bare chest. His breath tickled her hair, his body firm against hers. This was the only time that she saw him fully relax. In sleep, he looked so much younger, so much more fragile. Not that she’d ever let her fox know that.
She brushed her lips against his jaw, and he stirred.
“Round two?” he murmured.
“Three,” she teased.
