A Dawn of Onyx (The Sacred Stones, #1)(107)

“As a young man, he was my kingsguard for many years in the Fae Realm until the rebellion. When we came to Onyx he retired. But there is nobody better on the continent to train you, both with your sword and your lighte.”

The way Dagan had known about my abilities, and where I could draw power from. He too had lied to me. Anger and humiliation and hopelessness warred inside of me. How had I been so blind all along? Amelia had been right. I had been such a fool.

“You told me you had never lied to me. You promised you had told me everything.” I couldn’t help turning to face him. I studied his slate-gray eyes, as they welled with anguish. “I deserved to know, Kane.”

He looked a moment away from breaking. He reached for me, but thought better of it and tucked his hand back into his pocket. “I couldn’t risk anyone else knowing. Anyone having another reason to hurt you. Lazarus’ entire army has been looking for the last full-blooded fae that could spell his death for nearly a century.”

“Bullshit. You needed to use me as a weapon. You knew if you told me all of this—what defeating Lazarus meant for me, for my…” I swallowed. “My fate—that I would never help you achieve your vengeance.”

The word was bitter on my tongue. Kane had the audacity to look shaken, but said nothing.

Hatred funneled through me. He would not see me cry.

I tucked my shaking hands into fists.

“How long did you know what I was before I did?” I asked, my voice rough and low.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Bert realized you were who we had been looking for the night you healed Barney. When I flew you to my keep, there was a light in you that couldn’t be anything but Fae.” I remembered the ride. The strange connection I had felt with him in his dragon form.

“For almost a hundred years I have woken up each morning with one thought. Just one. Find the last full-blooded Fae. Fulfill the prophecy. Kill my father. I lost the people that meant the most to me at his hand. So did Dagan and Griffin. The day we rallied against him, I let them down and we all suffered for it.”

My heart skipped two beats. Dagan’s family? Lazarus was the one who killed them?

“If I don’t finish what we started, none of their sacrifices are worth anything. Still to this day, millions live enslaved in a wasteland because of him. You thought you knew what a cruel king looked like, but you have no idea, Arwen. None. Every mortal on this continent will die a senseless death if he isn’t stopped.

“And yet, even knowing all of that. That day we raced,” a sorrowful smile crossed his face, “you were like a gazelle. I was so enchanted by you. I had never met anyone like you. The night you were attacked—” I faced him, unable to look away any longer. “I knew I couldn’t go through with it. Not even for the good of all of Evendell. I brought you and your family here to live the rest of your lives in safety.”

My heart was shattering.

“Do you hear me?” Unable to hold himself back a minute longer, Kane finally reached a frantic hand toward me. “I was willing to sacrifice the entire world to keep you alive!”

“Don’t touch me.” I pulled away and turned back to the relentless ocean beneath us. Despite my promise to myself, a single tear slipped down my cheek.

“I tried to take the choice away from you, and for that I am sorry. But I will die before I let him have you. You have to know that.”

Power rippled off him in waves at his oath. But I wasn’t afraid of him. I was afraid of myself. I was afraid to die. Afraid to live. Afraid of the power that roiled inside of me. A thick fog of despair invaded every sense—suffocating me. Trapping me within this new reality.

Because of him.

I could have lived my whole life and never known of my fate. I didn’t have to die.

But now I knew I was the only one that could kill Lazarus, and if he died, I would as well. It was all information I could have gone my whole life without.

And now, there was no other choice.

“I will help you end this war. We can find the Blade of the Sun, and I’ll plunge it through his heart. We will save all of the people Lazarus intends to kill, save the Fae realm, avenge those you lost, Dagan, Griffin, everyone. We’ll finish what you started, Kane.”

“No,” he said, his voice breaking. “I refuse to lose you. I—”

“It’s not your choice.”

“Arwen—”

“You’ve made enough choices for me.”

A bluster blew his hair across his chiseled face—vulnerable in a way I had never seen before. I almost folded into him. Almost.

But instead, I stepped back.

And took a deep breath of saltwater and rain-soaked air.

“Maybe before, I would have caved. Forgiven you out of fear of being alone. Done whatever you told me I should. I would have felt that I needed you, especially knowing what horrors were to come. But now… You lied to me. Used me. You—” I steeled myself. “I can’t be with you like that, Kane. Not anymore.”

“Please,” he said. It was almost a whisper.

I shook my head. I was breaking, twisting apart. My mother was gone, the man I—

It didn’t matter now.

He wiped his eyes. “As you wish.” And with that, he crossed the deck and slipped below to the galley.

I turned my attention back to the waves ahead of me. The rough blue water was a tempo I couldn’t follow, chaotic and choppy—swaying in a strange dance under the ship’s bow. The sight was more beautiful than I had realized.