I stormed across to the tapestry, wrenching open the door without knocking. Darius, who had been sitting at the desk in his sitting room, took one look at me and sprang to his feet.
“Verene!” He rushed over and gripped my shoulders, examining me carefully from head to toe. “What happened? Where are you hurt? We need to send for Raelynn.”
I glanced down, taking in the utter mess that had started the day as my white robe. I must look terrible. But I pushed the thought aside.
“I was attacked. Here in the Academy.”
“Again!” His whole face blazed, and he reached for his sword as if my attacker might be following behind me.
“It was Jareth,” I blurted out, still suffering from too much shock to think of a softer way to frame it.
Darius’s hands fell, and his face contorted with bewilderment. “My brother attacked you?”
I hesitated, truthfulness compelling me to clarify. “I didn’t see either of my attackers’ faces during the actual attack. But he was there straight after. One of them ran away, and when I turned around, he was there.”
Darius frowned. “That sounds like he came along just in time to save you.”
My eyes narrowed. “I saved myself.”
I swayed, and he caught me beneath my elbow.
“Come in and sit down if you won’t go to a healer. Explain it all to me from the beginning. I don’t understand.”
“I barely understand it myself,” I admitted, following him to the sofa he indicated and sinking onto it with a sigh of relief. “But I’ll try.”
I outlined what had happened in the attack, mentioning the way I had turned back the drain on my energy since he already knew of that part of my ability, and focusing on how my attackers had been prepared for it. I glossed over how I had escaped from the power composition, making it sound as if I had thrown the rock rather than reattached my attacker’s power to it.
“And just as I was getting ready to draw my sword, he ran,” I finished. “It was almost like he wasn’t fully committed to the fight. Not like the previous assassins.”
“Almost like he was testing your abilities,” Darius said thoughtfully, coming to the same conclusion I had just done.
I nodded. “And then Jareth was there. Right there. I haven’t even told my own family about my ability, but you told him, and there he was.”
“You haven’t told your family?” Darius asked, diverted. “After all this time?”
I looked away. “I thought they might stop me from returning,” I whispered.
Silence fell for a moment before Darius stood and strode once up the room before returning to stand in front of me.
“This is obviously a completely unacceptable situation, even if it wasn’t a true attack on your life,” he said. “And I can understand why it unnerved you to find Jareth there, right on hand at such a moment. But I’m afraid that’s my fault, not his.”
“Your fault?” I frowned at him.
“You must have noticed Jareth hanging around you,” he said, “but it’s not because he’s plotting against you. I asked him to help me watch over you, to help keep you safe. And it sounds like tonight he did just that.”
“You asked Jareth to watch me?” I cried, incensed. “You know how I feel about him.”
He sat beside me, guilt twisting his face. “I’m sorry, Verene, but I care more about your safety than anything else. And while you’re here in my kingdom, your safety is my responsibility, but—”
He broke off to rake a hand through his hair before more words burst out of him, pouring out like water from a breaking dam.
“I wish I could watch over you every moment myself, but I can’t. Not when I’m the reason you’re in danger in the first place. You don’t know how it’s been tearing me up all year. All I want is to stay near you and make sure you’re safe, and yet if I did so, I would only place you in more danger.”
“What are you talking about?” I stared at him, bewildered. “You’re not the one endangering me.”
He groaned. “But I am, Verene. It’s been my fault since the beginning. I told you that I lose control sometimes, but no one has ever made me lose control like you do. I can’t afford to ever let my true emotions show, but around you it’s too hard to contain them. I admitted at the beginning of the year that I was scared, and I was—I have been all year. I’m terrified of something happening to you, and I’m terrified of the way I can’t trust myself around you. Just being near you makes it harder for me to keep my true self under control, but every time I make a mistake and let my feelings show, you end up hurt.”
He reached for my hand before changing his mind and snatching his own back. “Ever since I broke my own rule and danced with you at the Midwinter Ball last year, you’ve been in danger. Nothing could so infuriate my father and whip up unreasoning anger and hatred than seeing his heir dancing and smiling with the daughter of the couple he blames for every one of his problems. My father would rather see the both of us dead than let you gain any hold over me.”
He laughed, a raspy sound of more desperation than humor. “I can’t imagine what he would do if he ever guessed the truth—if he even suspected how important you are to me and how I have entrusted you with everything. All year I’ve forced myself to be cold and rude in the hope that it would calm his anger toward you. I thought it was working, but…”
I gaped at him. “You said you needed to be seen to be neutral.”
He nodded quickly. “That’s also true, it just wasn’t the whole truth. I was too cowardly to admit to you that I was to blame for all of those attacks.”
I frowned. “Stop saying that. You’re not to blame. Your father carries the full blame.”
“But none of this would have happened if I hadn’t lost control and let down my guard.”
I reached out and grasped his hand myself, holding it in a firm grip when he tried to pull away.
“You can’t see how much he’s distorted your thinking. Occasionally letting others see your emotions isn’t the same as lashing out violently against your own son or seeking to assassinate someone because you hate their parents. It isn’t a fault to let down your guard every now and then or to let your true feelings show.”
His lips twisted. “I thought if I could just keep away from you for this year—just long enough to rip the crown from his head—then it would all be over. I needed my control now more than ever and that meant staying away from you as much as I could. I’d already proven I couldn’t trust myself around you. And so I asked Jareth to step in when he could and help keep you safe.”
“But if Jareth isn’t involved, how did my attackers know about my ability?” I asked, wishing I could explain more fully about how they had seemed to know only half the picture—just like Jareth himself.
“You did defend yourself during the attack in the village,” he said. “Maybe the energy mage worked out what had happened.”
I bit my lip. It was a stretch to suppose they had guessed something so impossible…but then my family was known for the impossible. I had thought for once I had real proof against Jareth, but again Darius had turned my suspicions aside.