Page 106 of Kingdom of Chaos
Tightness forms in my chest. It’s not painful, exactly, but it’s impossible to ignore.
“You really see me for me, don’t you?” I ask, not even sure he’ll understand what I mean.
He cocks his head, a half smile tugging at his lips. “You’re just now figuring that out?”
“Yeah,” I admit softly. “I guess I am.”
“About time,” he says, and I look away, suddenly feeling shy under his gaze.
“I think I should do it. Take on Kerrim,” I say after a moment. “I know it probably sounds insane, but it feels like the right thing. It’s my fault he’s here. That makes it my responsibility. At least in part.”
“It’s not your fault,” Talon says firmly. “It’s not like you willingly opened the portal and invited him through. You’re as much of a victim. In fact, probably more so than anyone else caught up in this mess. He manipulated you, used you, to get what he wanted. He planned to bring Shadow Striker to the human world from the beginning.”
He searches my face.
“You shouldn’t carry guilt for that. You were deceived. I know you feel like all of this is on you—Becks getting hurt, being trapped here, Kerrim taking Shadow Striker—but it’s not. Youcame here to save your princeling, not to face off with Kerrim. He isn’t your responsibility.”
I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear those words until Talon said them. That what happened at the end of the last Chaos trial wasn’t my fault.
I know it’s true, at least in my head. I’ve been trying to convince myself of the same thing for days. But the guilt has been like a chain wrapped around me, dragging me down to the bottom of the sea. In a lot of ways, it feels like I’ve been drowning ever since that day.
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. “But Kerrim needs to be stopped.”
“Agreed. But he doesn’t have to be stopped by you. You have nothing to atone for, no matter what Kade or some dusty prophecy says.”
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. “Do you agree with Ensley? That I’m no match for him?”
He blows out a breath of air. “What I think is that it would be easier to break your princeling out of Order headquarters. Kade and his people are organized, I’ll give them that, but I’d still rather go up against them than Kerrim. I, more than anyone, know what Shadow Striker is capable of in the creature world. And I’ve always been told it would be even more powerful here in the human world. I’m not ashamed to admit that scares me.”
“You, scared? I have a hard time believing you’re afraid of anything,” I say with a chuckle.
“You’d be surprised at the things that scare me,” he replies.
When I glance over at him, he’s staring at me with a look I can’t quite read, and suddenly I can’t find the words.
I look up and realize we’ve reached the hotel. We both stop just before going in.
“Ensley’s going to put up a fight,” I say.
“She is,” he agrees. “But it’s because she loves you. She’ll have your back, though.”
I nod, because he’s right. Ensley will always have my back. And I’ll always have hers.
“All right,” I say, drawing in a breath. “I’m going to do this. I’m going to find Kerrim and figure out how to get Shadow Striker back. Without the dagger, he won’t have all that power. But if I’m going to do this, there’s something I have to do first.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
“Get Becks back.”
Twenty-Nine
The look Kadegives me is incredulous. “Let me get this straight. You want us to give you the dragon shifter and then just, what? Trust that you’re going to take care of Kerrim for us?”
I nod. “Yes. Exactly that.”
Kade’s eyebrows shoot up. He glances at Ares seated next to him at the round bistro table of the all-night coffee shop where I asked them to meet me—a neutral location away from Order headquarters.
“Well, she has guts, I’ll give her that,” Ares says.
