Page 14 of Court of Dragons and Ashes

Arden strokes his hand down my arm before taking my hand and linking our fingers. “I’m sorry.”

Lysander is right. We need to focus. Arden might look at home in this volcano, but the rest of us are not comfortable here. “Where are we?”

Arden grins and it makes me smile for a moment, remembering my funny, flirty fire king. “This is in the centre of my court. We’re not in any danger here. The fires will not burn you as long as you’re telling the whole truth. I don’t understand why Aphrodite brought us here for entertainment or a test at all. We can just walk to the portal and get out.” He points to a small ledge in the distance, where there is a portal and a lot of lava between us. “There needs to be no major secrets between us, which I doubt there is, to escape. We’ll be able to simply walk out of here as long as we are truthful. My father used to bring traitors here to get them to tell the truth about crimes, or they’d just stay here forever if they decided not to and die eventually from the lava.” He grins at me. “I’ve never seen or heard of that happening. Most people tell the truth because they want to get out. My father would usually show them mercy, unless they were traitors to the throne.”

Lysander looks at me, and my blood feels like it’s on fire, matching the lava. Arden is oblivious, a trait that is going to cause us problems. Aphrodite put us here because she must have known about Lysander and me. About the blackmail. If we tell Arden right now, he might not forgive us. “But there’s no major secrets between us three, is there? We know everything, so we can simply?—”

Arden goes to step on the lava, and I roughly grab his arm to stop him. Confusion is written all over his handsome face as he steps back. Confusion is better than pain, which is what he is going to feel soon. Lysander is watching me. “Are you going to tell him, or am I going to? I don’t feel like letting him get burned to death to keep this secret.”

Lysander runs his hand through his hair, roaring to the dark skies above us. “How the fuck did she know?”

Arden lets my hand go, looking between us now, and the distrust in his eyes cuts through my chest. Oh god, he is going to hate me. He walks to Lysander, grabbing his shirt. “What did she know? The truth, now!”

Lysander pushes him away, and he doesn’t say anything for such a long time. I know I need to tell him. I clear my throat, and they both look at me. I focus on Arden, on Arden who is amazing and doesn’t deserve this. “When I first came back to Ayiolyn for the Dragon Crown Race?—”

“I’ll tell him,” Lysander interrupts me. “It wasn’t all you.”

“But I’m the one in love with him, so it should come from me.” I turn to Arden, hating the betrayal written all over his face and he doesn’t even know yet. My stomach drops as I make the words leave my mouth. “When I was put into the crown test, do you remember I didn’t like you at the beginning? I didn’t want to get close to you because you killed my ex-boyfriend.”

Arden’s voice is bitter. “He deserved it.”

“Not the point,” I whisper, feeling my eyes filling with tears for the dragon who killed my ex when we met, but he did it to save me. For the king I never meant to betray…but I did.

Arden rubs his chin. “I don’t get why we’re talking about the past. What happened back then is not a secret.”

I look once more at Lysander before making sure to focus on Arden as I tell him everything. “On that first night, Lysandercornered me in the bathroom. He made it very clear that if I didn’t do what he wanted, he was going to kill my grandmother.”

Arden rounds on Lysander. “You sick bastard, why would you do that? She was a terrified mortal, who we kidnapped. Why would you scare her? What could have been worth it?” Arden looks at me. “What did he ask you to do?”

Clearing my throat, I answer him. “He blackmailed me, told me to get close to you, to make you fall in love with me. Then he was going to get me to kill you because it would hurt you more to have someone you love kill you. Some of the times when I agreed to walk with you, to talk with you, some of it was because I was scared of what Lysander would do to me. What he would do to my grandmother if I didn’t at least appear like I was trying to get close to you.” His heart breaks in front of me. Tears roll down my cheeks as I reach for him, but he steps back. “But it became real. It became real so quickly, because I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew you and trusted you. It annoyed me because I don’t trust anybody and there was so much risk in loving you. It was real, it is real.”

Arden huffs a laugh, but he doesn’t interrupt me. “I knew when you kissed me. Remember that time that you kissed me in your room after giving me the ring? Lysander was there, and he made an ice dagger in my hand. He made it very clear that he believed that you were already in love with me at that point, but I couldn’t do it. I could not do it, even when I knew what could happen, even if there was a good chance that he’d go and kill my grandmother. Myonlyfamily left. I could not do it, so I sacrificed everything for you. Please don’t hate me for this, because I do love you, but that’s the truth. The truth between us that she dropped us here for.”

Arden is still. “Quiet, princess.”

Lysander looks at Arden, no apology in his eyes. Just nothing but the cold mask he wears. “We need to talk alone,” my fire king says with ice in his gaze.

I raise my eyebrows at Arden’s request. “I’m not leaving you two alone right now.” Neither of them looks away from each other, like wolves preparing to fight. “I’m going to be right here, in the middle of you both, where I’ve been permanently since the minute I came back to this world. It seems like we were always heading for this, and if you fight now, if you kill each other, then the only person who wins is Aphrodite. Your courts need you…I need you. I’m not okay, I’m trying, but I am not okay, and if you destroy each other, then I lose everything. You’d only be hurting me and your courts.”

Arden meets my eyes for a second, his gaze softening, but then he turns back to Lysander with a vengeance. “Why?”

“Your father, for what he did. He got mine killed,” Lysander answers, simple and straight to the point. But it’s like looking at a bomb covered in thick ice, cracking every so often, and soon it will explode, taking everything with it. “That’s what I believed at the time. I thought it was your father that took mine to the Spirit Court, but it wasn’t just him to blame. I didn’t think there was anyone left in the Spirit Court, but everyone who is to blame for my father’s death is on this rock.”

“You did this for your father? You betrayed me, a fucking brother to you, for him?” Arden shouts. “Your father was a monster!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Lysander shouts.

“Do you think you’re the only court that whispers? Just because your mum lived in a delusional world and thought he was a good person, it doesn’t mean he was.” Lysander goes very still. I can practically taste the fury burning between them, the anger.

“Guys, it’s not…”

Lysander steps into Arden’s face. Arden doesn’t budge, even a step. “You know nothing about my father!”

“I know everything. So did everyone else, except you, it seems. We never spoke about it, but I was sure you knew. I was sure you wanted to be better than him, a good fucking person. The Water Court wasn’t a good place when your father ruled. He was cruel, malicious, and death was a game to him. The royalty test was something sick he came up with. Nobody else had done it before you. He didn’t do it as a child. That was a test he invented for you because he was adamant that his sons needed to be strong. Did you know you had a sister? Older than you that died in that test? I heard my mother talking with yours about how your father had taken everyone’s memories of the firstborn princess, even yours. She asked my mother if it was possible for those memories to be given back, but it’s not.”

Lysander shakes his head. “You’re lying.”

“Lies are part of you and your family, but I hoped you were better. Ask your mother, fuck, even your brother. Everyone knew but treated you like the unstable fucker you are and never said a word.”

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