Page 69 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
Nevara took a careful breath.
“I know that,” she said softly. “But the only memories I have of her are here.”
Her mother, she meant. My father had slaughtered her when Nevara was just a child—the day she had predicted his death.
The thought twisted uncomfortably. Gnawing at me with sharp, relentless teeth. Was I likehim, punishing her for all that she did and did not See?
“You have never been your father, Draven,” Nevara said, her voice firm.
I went still. Of all the things for her to have divined, she knew I hated to talk about him.
“You aren’t angry because of what ISaw. You’re angry because of what I chose to disclose,” she said, resting her teacupback on its saucer. “You feel like I lied to you, and as long as I’ve known you, you have hated being lied to. I didn’t have toSeeto predict your fury. Your betrayal, when you were already facing it down on every front.”
“So you just saw the fallout and decided it was worth it?” I bit back. “I may not be my father, but sometimes I think you hate me nearly as much as your mother hated him.”
Nevara pursed her lips, getting to her feet. For a moment, I thought she was going to walk out, but she only turned toward her liquor cabinet.
Her staff was in the corner, but the space was familiar enough for her to stride across the room unaided. Her fingers traipsed along the wood until she felt the latch, then she repeated the process to pluck out a bottle of Emberkiss Whiskey and two glasses.
I didn’t remind her that it was barely dawn, as I was suddenly very much in need of a drink myself.
Only when she had poured us both a generous amount, something she gauged by feeling the warmth as it rose up the glass, did she sink back down onto her cushions and finally turn to face me.
“Do you remember the day I was bound?”
I took a long swig of my drink, trying not to be irritated by her abrupt change of subject. The spices burned in my throat, crackling like embers of a campfire.
“No one ever forgets the day someone is chained to their side, Nevara,” I said.
Let alone the day they lose their sight.
“No,” she shook her head quietly. “Not toyourside. To Winter. Do you remember my vows?”
“I don’t.” I had been a boy of eight, more concerned with the jarring reality that the girl I viewed as a sister would never again be able to look me in the eyes. That she could be slaughtered,just as her mother was, just for fulfilling the duty she was sworn to do.
I had been…terrified. Furious for her.
She nodded, like that was the answer she had been expecting.
“I surrender my sight of this world, that I maySeeonly the Shard Mother’s truth, to impart it for the prosperity of the Winter Court. From this moment, no falsehood shall pass my lips to Winter’s crown, nor silence when I am called to speak. If I betray this vow, let Fate unmake me.”
What was the point of a vow for something she had no choice in? Then again, I supposed my marriage had been much the same. The Shard Mother called and we all answered her bidding.
Nevara took a long drink, smoke curling past her lips as she let out a long exhale.
“So you see, I was bound to your kingdom, but I lovedyou.” Her eyes filled with a rare sheen of starlit tears. “So what to do, when the only brother you’ve ever known is destroying himself over a choice he was only ever forced to make because of your shards-cursed vision?”
Frost arched out from my fingertips to coat my glass. “What happened at the Frost Grave Pass was not your fault.”
Whatever other blame I laid at her feet, what happened that day was entirely of my own making.
Her hands tightened around her glass, coating it in a sparkling sheen of frost. “I was so busy, Draven. Searching the endless lines of your fate, searching for a single way you made it out alive, so busy drowning in the endless grief I felt every time I watched you die again that I never thought to ensure your mother didn’t.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. What was I supposed to say when she had all but acknowledged that she might have let my mother die for the sake of saving me?
All over again, I saw my mother’s face and felt the roar rip out of me as she crumpled to the ground. But I also saw Nevara’s face, young and pinched with grief. She was hardly of age, trying to make the decisions that could fell entire kingdoms.
Shards knew I understood that feeling all too well.
