King Opus glared at her for a long moment, then turned back to Prince Rune as though she hadn’t spoken. “You were to return with Princess Johanne, and, once our malsites were cleared away, you were to send the Nightrender back to Winterfast Island to sleep. You were to make her see that we have no Incursion.”
“I never agreed to that—”
A flash of red crossed Nightrender’s vision. Prince Rune had made different bargains with both of them.
“You swore to petition your parents for Dawnbreaker trials,” she growled, advancing on him. “You said I’d have everything I needed to stop the Incursion. Armies. Obsidian. Anything. Tell me you will not go back on your word.”
“I’m not. I just—Well, Princess Johanne wasn’t there.” Prince Rune was starting to sweat. “As the crown prince, I have to think about what that means for my kingdom, and unfortunately, it greatly limits our options. But I intend to end the conflict with Embria swiftly, any way I must—whether through negotiating an alternative bride or a prompt end to any resistance. We can’t linger on this fight, I know that. Once it’s over, you and I will end the Incursion. I swear to you.”
“The Incursion will not wait,” Nightrender said. “It is already here.”
Where did he think they would find the time to fight a whole war? Did he expect she’d simply pluck a spare year or two from the air?
“What do you want from me?” Prince Rune held up his bandaged hands. “I’m doing my best.”
“It is not enough,” Nightrender said. “I need Dawnbreakers. Real Dawnbreakers. Hold the trials immediately and get me an army I can actually use.”
The prince’s expression tightened, as though she’d struck him. Then, his eyes hardened. “Holding trials is not my decision, as I told you. I’m not king. You need my parents for that.”
Nightrender glanced at the king and queen. They did not look as though they intended to hold Dawnbreaker trials. Not now. Not ever.
“You yourself said that our wars fuel the Malice,” Prince Rune said. “Let me end the wars. Then we can figure out how to end the Incursions.”
“That isn’t how this works. You’ve been filling your cup with poison every day of your life, and now you say you’ll quit—after you drink an entire barrel. You cannot cure poison with more poison. You will die.”
“Was becoming your Dawnbreaker any safer?”
“You’re a prince. You shouldn’t be my Dawnbreaker.”
“Finally,” King Opus muttered. “She says something that makes sense.”
“You may have the privilege of ignoring our political problems,” Prince Rune pressed, “but I don’t. I have to look at the world head-on, without blinking. Embria will want an answer for the death of their crown princess. Perhaps you can afford not to take sides, but I don’t have that luxury. I must address this.”
“Your hands are not as tied as you believe they are. There is a choice, and the best one is to stop the Incursion. Fight with me.”
Prince Rune breathed out through his teeth. “I promised to help you,” he said stiffly. “And I will.”
“Your promises are now meaningless to me, Rune Highcrown.” Her wings flared wide. Perhaps she was being too hard on him, but this was all so frustrating. He was the only Dawnbreaker she had, and he shouldn’t be one at all—royals had other loyalties. (Also, he was, quite possibly, her soul shard.) And now he intended to go off to war and leave her with nothing? The Incursion wouldn’t wait for him—or the world—to be ready to fight it. “I joined you in your quest to rescue your princess. I cut away your malsite. I have fulfilled my end of our bargain, but you seem to have forgotten that you agreed to help me.”
The prince hissed. “I have forgotten nothing. I am simply asking you to wait. Do you not understand my position?”
Her jaw clenched, and her eyes narrowed. Her wings stretched until they were fully extended. Several people in the crowd stepped away, but Nightrender ignored them.
“Go on, then,” Prince Rune taunted. “Fly off, if you have no respect for our petty problems. Abandon your only friend in this whole burning world.”
“We are not friends.”
Again, he flinched as though struck, and she knew with certainty now that she was pushing too hard, but it was too late. Prince Rune took an angry step toward her, keeping his voice a low growl. “I summoned you,” he said. “I trusted you. I believed in you when no one else did. You may not like me, but I am the only one here who doesn’t want you to go back to Winterfast and sleep for the next thousand years.”
“Boy, be silent—” King Opus started, but Nightrender didn’t give him a chance to finish.
“You may trust me,” she said, “but I cannot trust you. Not when you are hiding things from me.”
Prince Rune let out a long, bitter laugh. “Do you want to know what you can’t remember? Do you want to know why everyone fears you?”
She glanced around the middle ward, catching the shock and terror on people’s faces—not just the council, but the watchmen on the top of the curtain wall, the grooms from the stables, the people peering out the keep windows. “We will not speak of this now.”
“We have to speak of it sometime. Why not now?” Prince Rune was shaking with anger. “So here it is: four hundred years ago, when you came back from the Malice, you turned on us.”
Nightrender went still, as though ice encrusted her body. All around the middle ward, people gave horrified gasps as they covered their mouths with their hands.
“You murdered us.”
She couldn’t feel her hands. Her wings. She couldn’t feel anything except this reflexive refusal of his accusation. It couldn’t be true. “No.” Her denial was a mere whisper, a breath—a plea. “I wouldn’t.”
“You did.” Prince Rune spoke coolly, levelly, as though he knew exactly how much the words cut her. He met her eyes and said, “You slaughtered every royal from every kingdom. You’re as much of a monster as the things you kill.”
16.
RUNE
She’d hurt him, so he’d hurt her back. He hadn’t even stopped to consider the wisdom of it. But as soon as the words were out, he knew he’d made a mistake.
He’d just told the Nightrender the truth about the Red Dawn.
A beat passed between them—Rune’s heart pounding, the Nightrender’s expression one of absolute horror—and then she spun, drawing her sword in the same motion, and before he had time to wonder if she meant to massacre another royal family, she flew up and away, skimming past an open window on the third floor. A girl watching from there ducked back inside.