“At least you get to keep your men this time.”
She nods and I don’t speak again until the soldiers exit, the hall door is locked, and their footsteps are fading. “We need to speak with Lady Isobel. I need to know what the rest of that Elegy means and . . .” I swallow. “Then I need to get Draewulf alone.”
Her expression turns cautious. “I agree—only, not the way you spoke with Sir Gowon.”
“I’ll be more careful, but at the end of it all, we need that information.”
“
Can
you be more careful, is the question.”
“Of course I can.”
“
Will
you?”
Is she jesting?
“Okay, first off, he was an oaf. And second? You manipulate people every moment to gain access to their thoughts, so I’m not sure what I did was actually any different.”
“He was innocent. And I don’t hurt people.”
Right.
I doubt some of them see it that way. I don’t say it though because I don’t want to fight. Whether I see the difference or not, I’ve no desire to go back to not communicating. Not when every
moment now hangs on a thread, dangling back and forth like a pendulum.
I bite my lip. “What’s done is done. I’ll be more in control next time, and you do your best to read every litched intention.”
Her expression changes from caution to concern, and for a second she seems to be debating something. Finally, “Be careful not to confuse ability for your true nature, Nym. You are not your powers. If anything, the fact that you think you need them makes you a slave to them, and in doing so, weakens your true capabilities.”
This time I actually snort a laugh. Her words are clearly spoken by someone who’s never been a slave.
She frowns.
“Fine.” I lift my hands because I’ve already agreed to this and what more does she want? “I won’t rely on them too much with Lady Isobel, but if they are the only way to stop this, then I don’t understand what your offense is. Or have you forgotten you are willing to kill Eogan in order to stop Draewulf?”
“Yes, Eogan. Not everyone else. And my concern isn’t simply for harming others. It’s what I see you gain from it. Back there with Sir Gowon, you looked different. You looked like . . .”
She stops but I can almost hear her say it anyway. “Like Draewulf.” Or maybe, “Like Lady Isobel.”
After a moment she continues. “I can use my ability to see how best to pull the information from Lady Isobel. However, as much as I hate to admit it, we’re going to need Myles’s help influencing her mind. Even if that man is a disgrace to all things Uathúil.”
B
REATHE SLOWER IN THROUGH YOUR NOSE AND out through your mouth.” Myles gives an example while I look at the open door behind us, through which Rasha and her guards’ voices float in from our room.
How much longer are they going to be meeting in there?
Myles snaps his fingers in front of my nose. “Are you listening? That’ll help keep you calm, which will keep the vortex stable. If that’sss in fact what you want.”
“Of course I need it stable,” I growl. “That’s not the issue. I need to wield it
faster
on Draewulf before he or Lady Isobel can interfere. But if we don’t get to either of them soon instead of sitting around here pretending—”
“I said breathe slower,” Myles growls back. He stalls a second to swallow as his face turns an off shade of yellow, then twitches the air around us and murmurs something. Abruptly the floor falls away and my stomach lurches at the sensation. I shut my mouth and move impatiently to anchor my feet on the carpet and settle my mind on his whispered suggestion that I’m standing on a high ledge
overlooking the entire Hidden Lands. I hate this part. Or maybe it’s that part of me is beginning to like this part, to feed off this part.
Myles stirs up an image of Eogan holding his hands up in the form of claws, poised to rip his own chest open. The black wisps emerge from around his legs. “Breathe in and let it control you.”
“I’m trying but you’re just having me repeat the same scenario over and over when we have no idea how Draewulf will actually respond. I’m not sure this is going to get us to Isobel any quick—”
“Just do it.”
“
Just do it
,” I mutter. But I go ahead and press my hand toward the pretend Draewulf just as he brings down a claw. I press through it without even dodging and force the image to play out quickly, ignoring his moves and keeping my hand to his heart.
If Myles is bothered at my manipulating it, he’s too busy trying to keep his stomach bile down to say so.
Eogan’s body begins to seize, and then there are two of him. Of them. He slumps over and Draewulf rises out of him, furious and lashing out even as he weakens. I lean and tug harder. And yank Draewulf from his very skin in the same manner as I’ve done a hundred other times lately.
“Finish him.”
“You don’t have to say it every time,” I snap. I step forward to slip the knife from Eogan’s boot and bring it up to slit Draewulf’s throat. The mirage begins to dissipate.
I turn. “Happy now? Because I strongly suggest that if we’re not going to question Lady Isobel soon—”
Something catches my eye.
Something’s off with the still-fading scene.
Both Eogan and Draewulf are lying beside each other, but Eogan has his throat slit too.
The room shudders and tilts and the image vanishes quickly, and Myles is standing in front of me.
“What in litches?” I stare at him. “
What
in hulls was that?”
His hands go up. “Like I’ve said before—a scenario based on your fears.”
“That wasn’t my fears. That was your suggestion. I heard you muttering.”
He shrugs. “If he’sss not separated from Draewulf in time, you may have to kill him at some point. Are you able to do so?”
“I asked you to train me, not prepare me for what scenario you
want
to happen.” I pierce my glare through his face and only lightly notice how strong I’m shaking. “So I’ll ask again—what was that?”
“Manipulation. Preparation. Call it what you want, but peace will alwaysss require a steep price. If you’re prepared, you stand a much better chance of succeeding at this game.”
“The cost of peace took my Elemental race. I think I’m quite aware of what this game requires, thank you very much, but that—”
He gulps twice. “Good, then don’t lose sight of the goal because this anger you feel—that’sss what we want. Focus it on him when the time comes. It’s what will fuel your abilitiesss.”
“Or it’s what will turn her into you,” Rasha says.
We both glance over to see her standing in the doorway, disgust and concern coating her features.
“I believe you said you wanted to stay out of the training sessions,” Myles snarls. “In which case, I’ll kindly ask you to mind your—”
“I want to go over our plan regarding Lady Isobel.”
“And I’m merely doing my part to help Nym save the world.”
“We both know that’s a lie, so you can go ahead and drop it. Her training is for your benefit more than charity.”
He glares down his nose at her and brushes an invisible speck from his shirtsleeve. “I’m doing more for her and this war than you or anyone else isss. So while you stand there—”
They can’t be serious.
We don’t have time for their bickering any more than we have time to train. I look at them both. “Will you both just shut it for one minor minute so we can move on? So Myles wants to rule the world—it doesn’t mean he’s got a lick of a chance to actually do so.”
“He doesn’t just want to. He
thinks
he can.” Rasha walks around Myles and faces us. She sniffs and trails a frown down his entire thin frame. “And he needs you to help him do it.”
“Of course he does, but I’m not going to. Now let’s talk about Lady Isobel.”
“And why’d
you
come to Faelen a month ago, Princess?” Myles snaps. “Especially just when the war was coming to a head?”
“To show our support.”
I give up and glare at them.
“Oh really?” Myles says. “You were considering sending troops to our aid?”
“We may have.”
He sneers. “Or you knew Draewulf would be in Faelen. Or at least suspected it.”
Her fake smile falters. “We . . . may have heard a rumor he would attempt to enter Faelen. I personally told King Sedric. Even more, the moment I realized he was in Faelen, I rushed to the Keep, as you’ll recall.”
“What do you want him for?” Myles asks. “Or more precisely, what does your queen mum want him for?”
“Look,” I say over their voices. “We all want Draewulf dead, and while I’m very aware Myles has some ridiculous desire to see himself
king, none of that matters if we can’t figure out that Elegy and what it means as far as saving Eogan and killing Draewulf.”
He turns to me. “The only thing the Elegy’s clear on regarding killing Draewulf is that only an Elemental can do so. You’ll forgive me for being obvious, but I think you should safely assume that means you.”
I ignore the shiver that brings. “I think I’d gathered that, except . . .” I stop. And stare at him.
Suddenly the thing I didn’t even realize had been nagging at me since last night bubbles up and bursts forth.
I no longer have those specific powers.
I open my mouth. Shut it. Finally say, “I’m no longer an Elemental.”
Even Isobel referred to me as impotent.
“That’s exactly why you needed new powersss, my dear. You heard the witch—even she believed you could do it.”
“But they
knew
I had those powers, and it’s like they weren’t even concerned.”
Rasha’s small gasp drags my gaze over. Her mouth has dropped open and her eyes are flaring like fire.
“Nym, he . . .”
I peer back at Myles as his lips promptly clamp closed.
It takes me a minute to latch onto what she’s just deciphered before suddenly it’s somehow floating in my mind too.
“The only thing the Elegy’s clear on regarding killing Draewulf is that only an Elemental can do so . . .”
Myles already knew about the Elegy.
I’m at his throat so fast he doesn’t have time to duck away. “You knew. This whole time you knew what the Elegy said and you didn’t say a word. You heard Eogan tell me on that roof that it had begun—that the Elegy was the key—and you didn’t tell me what it
was
?”
He gurgles and thrashes his hands at me. He even tosses up an image of Eogan beneath my hands.
I squeeze tighter and lower my voice to ice. “How long have you known about the Elegy?”
He glances at Rasha—whether for help or because he knows she’ll see if he’s lying, I can’t tell. “Since visiting Bron three years ago.”
“You blasted—What else do you know about it?”
“Nothing,” he chokes.
His tone is off. His lisp is off.
He’s lying. How could I not have heard it before? In his voice—in his hesitations?
“You’re fibbing,” Rasha says.
I grind my teeth. “What
else
?”
“Only that Draewulf’s sewing of sinew and bone had begun with the Dark Army. And that only an Elemental can kill him.” He wrenches free of me, panting. “I swear.”
I look at Rasha. Her gaze is narrowed tighter than I’ve ever seen it. As if she’s filleting his insides one piece at a time in pursuit of honesty. After a moment she nods. “He’s telling the truth.”
He glares at both of us and adjusts his cuffs before smoothing his long, thin hands over his pant legs. His attitude calms quickly. Too quickly in fact, as his face takes on that hungry expression again I saw on the roof with Eogan.
“The image you showed me—I was killing Draewulf for you, and then . . . I was killing Eogan too.” I sharpen my tone. “Perhaps it’s time you tell exactly why
you’ve been helping me?”
“I assumed that was quite obvious. I need you to kill Draewulf for me. But pardon if I’m also preparing you—”
“What else do you want?”
He stops. Stares hard at my face. And grows more serious than
I’ve ever seen him, even as airsickness tugs at his lips. “If Eogan survives the separation—and Draewulf is killed—Eogan will be weak and someone will need to be there to step in. Someone with an immense amount of power to take control of the Dark Army before Isobel can use them. That person will have to do what needs to be done in order to keep the rest of the world from going to hullsss.”
“How compassionate you make your motives sound.” I snort. “Especially considering your and Draewulf’s interests in having me take on another ability.” I lean in. “Are you working with him?”
His expression turns five shades of insulted.
“How did he know?” I push. “How did Draewulf know you’d suggest it? How did he know I’d take it on? He said I’d go back even. Perhaps because you’d make sure—”
“Nym, he’s not working with him,” Rasha whispers. “Draewulf’s been around a long time. He’s excellent at guessing human nature, and he knows how you and Myles both work. My guess is he knew you’d do anything to help Eogan. But with Myles . . .”
I glance past him to her. Her eyes are a terrifying shade of red illuminated by the level of sickly pale her skin has gone. A look of realization dawns. “What?”
“Myles wants Draewulf’s powers,” she says, and her hazy tone is more than horror. It’s shock.
“For what?”
“So he can become like him. To rule in place of Draewulf.”
This? This is his bigger plan he spoke about the last time we were on this ship?
“You want to become Draewulf?” If I wasn’t so disgusted, I’d laugh at the stupidity of it.
“Not become him,” Myles snarls. “Just utilize his abilities to ensure no one like him ever gains control again.”
Does he hear himself? “You do know you sound ludicrous, yes? Not that it matters, because if I can kill Draewulf like you’re so convinced I can, then what’s to stop me from taking you out as well? I don’t care what your ulterior motives are, Myles. I refuse to be part of your endgame. I’ll not help—”
“Except you already have.” Rasha’s eyes are still doing that flaring business, and her smile is sad. “When you absorbed the power. Whatever that witch did—it not only unleashed an ability in you, it attached Myles along with it somehow. Giving him some measure of control over it. Over you.” She continues to study him. “He drank a bit of the potion because he’s just as irresponsible as his parents.”