Page 127 of A City of Flames

Those two words land like a blow to him. His throat tightens as he swallows and says, “I didn’t have a choice with your father. Sometimes my urges are impulsive, and I turn, the only one who has kept me sane enough is the general, I owe him.”

“So, when he ordered you to kill my father, you agreed?”

“I was just seventeen. I didn’t know what I was doing—”

“And Adriel? Did you know what you were doing then? Did you know what you were doing turning all those people into what you are? Did you know you were the one who attacked me that night in the forests?”

“You weren’t supposed to be harmed,” he says, quiet and desolate as if it will help me think differently.

My eyes begin to water, and I bite down on my cheek, holding back my tears. Lorcan reaches for me, and I shake my head retreating backward. His hand fists and he lowers it before sighing.

“Nara, please,” he says. “I love you too much for this to ruin everything.”

Love, a funny word that holds no value when someone is saying it to save themselves.

I laugh at him.

I curse at him.

I almost shatter before him.

“You don’t love me.” I shake my head because maybe, just maybe, right at the start I could have thought it to be love myself. But now? Honed daggers pick and stab at my naïve heart. “You used me,” I say in realization, the words an echo past my lips. “Just how everyone else seems to.”

“That’s not true.” Determination rings in his tone. “All this time I’ve been trying to protect you, but finding out you were helping a shifter hurt me—”

“Hurt you?” I repeat with such disbelief. “You found out I knew more about Darius than most people did, you waited to see if he would appear and then you planned it all out, you, the queen, the general. I was always going to be the bait for him, always.”

“And do you wonder why that is?” He snaps but I don’t answer him, and his gaze hardens. “He’s always tried to one-up me, he saw us together and wanted to anger me, to mess with me—”

I let out a pathetic laugh at how wrong he is, but he ignores me and continues, each time getting closer until there’s no room left for me except the dresser.

“If anyone used you it’s him, he’s the one who isn’t a good person, he doesn’t care for you, he doesn’t care for humans, he steals because that’s his fun, his mockery to all of us, he kills, he seduces anyone that comes his way and tosses them aside once he’s bored. You’re nothing to him, Nara, none of us are.”

By the time he finishes he’s breathing down on me, he’s not the Lorcan I once met. He’s what took my father away from us, he’s who gave me a scar I cannot even look at without remembering that day, he’s the first that I—I shake my head. “You’re right, he’s not your brother,” I say, not a single emotion comes from my voice. “I would never treat mine like you do.” I take a step now toward him, confident enough not to show any weakness. “And maybe I’m nothing to him.” Whether I’m lying, telling the truth or just wanting to get it out of my system I couldn’t care less. “But you, the venators, the queen give him a reason to feel that way about us all. If only I had that mentality when it came to you.”

His jaw tenses and those green eyes take on a shade darker than any forest. He opens his mouth and I prepare myself for whatever lies he will feed me again but he’s quick to shut them when his gaze travels down to my hand. “What about the carving?”

Realizing that I’m still clutching onto it, I lift my palm and open it, staring at Darius’s dried blood seeping through the wood. It’s never brought me good luck, it’s harbored the opposite.

I muster all the control I have within me before I slam it against his chest, and he stumbles back as his hands grab onto it. “Take it,” I say. “It was yours to begin with.” I storm out of his room, slamming the door shut and pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes.

A beat goes by and then I flinch as I hear something smash against the walls from inside his chambers.

The carving.

I squeeze my eyes shut, hearing him break more things and choose to walk away this time, heading towards my room.

I make it to my door, slowly turning the nob and see Freya leaning against the window, playing with her obsidian curls. She turns her head as soon as I enter and widens her eyes, springing toward me with question after question. She asks why I’m here, how worried she’s been that she couldn’t go to sleep.

I look at her, taking the keys I’d grabbed off Erion from my sheath pocket and hold them out in front of her. She stares at them, frowning and grabs both my hands in hers. I still keep looking at her, at the distress grasping onto her features as she slowly takes them from me and sets them on the bed. After that she gently touches my shoulders, sitting me down. She then settles opposite me and says my name over and over in a distant echo.

I don’t know where to start, I don’t know how to say it to her.

The floor blurs and I blink to focus as I lift my gaze to Freya’s. With any strength I have left in me, I try and explain what I can without falling apart but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the moment she does.

She’s silent for so long, without any sort of expression to tell what she is thinking but I know she’s feeling too much, all at once.

She rises, taking in a deep breath as she starts nodding with intense resolve. “I can help him.”

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