A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)(86)

For the first time since arriving here, hope blooms in my chest. “Wait. Really?”

“He has a regiment already stationed at the border,” Grey says. “We would need a small team of soldiers, because she is expecting a full assault, and not for another few days. Captain Solt, choose from your company. No more than ten. We will need to leave at full dark.”

“Grey,” I whisper, my voice full of wonder. “You’ll do it? You’ll save him?”

“I will stop Lilith,” he says, and his voice is cold and dark. “I will protect Syhl Shallow.” He pauses. “Rhen’s life is not my concern.”

He turns away, but he may as well have stabbed me with the dagger before leaving. I have to press a hand to my abdomen.

“Come,” says Lia Mara. She takes my hand. “I will see to it that you have a room.”



I don’t want to like anything here, but the palace really is magnificent. I’m given a massive room with huge windows that look out over sprawling fields and the mountainside. I hoped Jake would come sit with me for a bit, but I haven’t seen him. I haven’t seen anyone. Food is brought, but for the most part, I’m left alone. The sun appears to be setting over the mountains, spilling pink and purple streaks across the glittering city.

I don’t even know if they’re taking me with them. Will they leave me here? Will I be some kind of prisoner in case things go south with Rhen? I hadn’t considered that. Grey was so cold when he turned away and began issuing orders.

I once begged him for mercy.

He did beg. I remember. But is that all that matters? They spent an eternity together, enduring the most terrible things I can imagine, but their relationship will boil down to one poor choice? And even as I think that, was the poor choice Rhen’s, when he ordered his guards to find some whips, or was the poor choice Grey’s, when he decided to run, when he chose to keep his birthright a secret?

I don’t know who I’m kidding. They were both wrong. Sometimes we make such poor choices that the good ones pale in comparison.

A hand raps at the door, and I nearly jump. “Enter,” I call. I hope for my brother.

Instead, I get Grey. He’s alone.

I’m so surprised that I stare at him for a long moment before scraping myself out of the chair to stand. “Grey.”

“I will have armor brought,” he says without preamble. “You will not be allowed to carry a weapon.”

“I’m going?” I say in surprise.

“There is worry that this is a trap.”

My mouth flattens into a line. “So I’m your hostage.”

His expression gives nothing away. “In truth, I was hoping you would serve as an advisor. My soldiers will not know what to expect as we head into Emberfall.” He pauses. “It would go a long way toward establishing goodwill.”

“If I have a chance at rescuing Rhen, I’ll do whatever you need.”

He says nothing to that. He glances at my leg. “You are still injured. I can heal the damage.”

I freeze in place. “With magic.”

“It would be better if you were not a burden on the journey.”

“Well.” I drop into the chair. “I wouldn’t want to be a burden.”

Grey isn’t one to be baited. He draws a low stool close and drops to sit in front of me, wasting no time in reaching for the laces of my boots. Noah has stitched up the back of his hand, a tiny row of black knots. Grey is so clinical, so efficient, but I shiver anyway. I have so many memories of him, all rooted in my first days in Emberfall. The way he caught my arm and showed me how to hold a dagger. The way he stood at my back and taught me how to throw a knife. How he’d catch my fist when he taught me to throw a punch, or the way he’d adjust my stance when I first began learning swordplay.

The way he was hurt and terrified in my apartment after Noah stitched him up, how his eyes kept seeking mine for reassurance.

How he unbuckled his bracers in the filthy alley in Washington, DC, buckling them onto my forearms.

I have no coins or jewels to leave you with, he said. But I do have weapons.

The way he saved me from the Syhl Shallow soldiers on the battlefield, how he pulled me into his arms. I will keep her safe, he said to Rhen.

Oh, Grey. I can understand why he’s mad at Rhen, but I never truly thought about what it would mean for me and Grey to be on opposite sides of this war. Maybe I could have played fate’s cards differently anywhere along the line and we could have been more than friends, but I didn’t. He didn’t. I think about that moment in the courtyard behind the Crooked Boar, when he went with Lia Mara and I went back to Rhen. I wonder where we’d be now if I had made a different choice. If he had. I wonder what it would be like to look on Rhen as an enemy, as someone on the other side of a battlefield, and the thought makes my heart stutter.

Whatever Grey and I are, I don’t want to be enemies. I don’t want him and Rhen to be enemies. My throat tightens. I can’t breathe.

I must make a sound or a motion that catches his attention, because he looks up in alarm. “My lady,” he says softly.

My lady. I can’t take it. I throw myself forward and wrap my arms around his neck. “Please, Grey,” I say, pressing my tear-streaked face into his shoulder. “You were my friend. Please don’t be like this.”