House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(8)

Not yet. Not. Yet. Out loud, Lore says, “Imogen overheard Dante’s soldiers chatter about the commander’s miraculous return. Although we’ve yet to set eyes on him, we’re to believe he’s made it back to Isolacuori alive.”





Four





Both my stomach and my heart harden at the news of Silvius’s survival. “Good,” I end up saying.

“Good?” Lorcan pops out the word as though it tastes vile.

“Yes. Good.” I squeeze my mug to test if it’s malleable; it’s not. “Because I wish to be the one to pierce his heart with an iron blade.”

My father draws in a ragged breath. “What has the man done to you, ínon?”

Eenon?

It means daughter in Crow.

Lorcan’s translation doesn’t make the title any less jarring. Jarring but also . . . nice. I have a father. He’s real. He isn’t exactly what I expected, but he cares. Or at least, he seems to care.

Cathal cares deeply about his family.

I side-eye Lorcan, my anger dwindling a fraction. “Silvius Dargento is a detestable man who’s threatened to kill everyone I love.”

My father still clasps his misshapen tankard, which buckles some more beneath his talon-tipped fingers. “Has the man ever . . . harmed you?”

“No. He never dared because he feared there’d be consequences. Up until a few days ago, I was the general’s granddaughter and the prince’s friend.”

A dark look stains Lorcan’s expression, and although I don’t catch any of his thoughts, I sense they have to do with one, or both of the aforementioned Fae.

My father speaks some words in Crow, and Lorcan answers, golden eyes flashing behind intermittent wisps of black smoke. How I wish I understood their tongue.

Lorcan slides his still-tapered gaze toward me. I’ll send a tutor in the morning.

I said I wished. I didn’t say I wanted.

Lorcan rolls his shoulders forward and drops his forearms onto the table. Am I to understand that you do not want to kill Silvius?

How did you arrive at that conclusion?

You said you wished to be the one to score his heart.

I gnash my molars because there’s little I hate more than people using my own words against me.

My father misses our quiet exchange because his eyes are pinned to the spilled wine surrounding his warped tankard.

How do you say Pappa in Crow? I ask.

Dádhi.

“Daji?” The title feels odd upon my tongue, but not altogether unsavory.

Kahol’s blackened eyes jolt off the tinted puddle and perch on my face.

“What were you and Lorcan discussing?”

For a full minute, he stays quiet, either still perplexed about the title I tossed upon him or busy dissecting what to share with me. He releases the mug and seizes a balled napkin.

As he wipes his hands dry, he says, “I suggested bringing the commander up here to grant you your wish, but Lorcan has opposed himself to my idea.”

I stare around me at the stone and lanterns. I may consider these grottos my prison walls, but to everyone else, this place is a safe haven. “Silvius shouldn’t be allowed inside the Sky Kingdom; however, I should be allowed out.”

Lorcan’s nails spring out and gouge the ebony wood. “Well, you are not.”

“Why? Why are you keeping me locked up here? I’ve set you free. I’ve brought you back.”

“Until the wards fall, you are the only Shabbin capable of removing obsidian from my skin if Dante fails to control his subjects. Or himself.” Lore’s dark cuirass creaks from his deep inhales and deeper exhales. “I will not risk cursing my people thrice.”

I may still detest my situation but at least, now, I understand the reason I’m caged. “So once the wards fall, I’ll be free?”

The two males exchange a loaded look that makes my vertebrae click into a straight line.

Don’t keep me in the dark. Not after all I’ve done. Not only is it unfair but it’s also unkind.

“Once you’ve undone my curse for good, you’ll be . . . free.”

His hesitation makes me wonder what type of freedom he’s alluding to. FYI, I don’t consider death a form of freedom.

There’ll be no dying. Lorcan’s sullen mood gentles the slightest bit. I promise, Behach ?an.

I nod, somewhat appeased. There’s still the subject of curses and breakers of curses—aka, me. “What did you mean by, for good?”

My father is still toweling his fingers even though I suspect no wine lingers. “Before you were born—before you were even conceived—Bronwen foresaw Daya and I having a daughter who’d possess the power to break the Crows’ obsidian curse forever.”

I gape. “That’s why you called me the curse-breaker? Not because I unstaked you.”

Correct.

Wow. So much for believing myself powerless and useless. “And do tell, how will I swing this curse-breaking?”

Lorcan sighs. “Bronwen hasn’t yet seen how you’ll do it.”

“Let me get this straight. You plan on keeping me in the Sky Kingdom until Bronwen gets a vision?”

Yes.

“What if she only sees how I break your curse in like, six decades from now?”