Blood Oath (Darkest Drae #1)(81)

Worse than dead.

He’d never existed.

Tears poured down my cheeks. Salty, disbelieving, excruciating, tears. There was no word for this kind of pain.

“He wasn’t real,” I said, staring at the Drae. My heart was shredded and the coward wouldn’t even face me. Snarling with disgust, I snapped, “None of it was real.”

Only then did a tear escape his soulless, empty eyes and trickle down over his sculpted cheekbones and clenched jaw. But still, Lord Tyrrik said nothing.

I turned away and told myself I felt nothing inside, either.





33





I left then. I walked out of the castle through the front door, once I found it, with nothing but the clothes on my back and Ty’s dagger. After I remembered the blade and aketon were his, I scrambled out of the blue uniform and threw it and the dagger away with as much strength as I could muster.

No one tried to stop me. Not Cal, not Dyter, not . . . him.

As I walked into the night, I vowed I’d never step foot inside that castle again. Even though the monster who had ruled it was dead and gone, it would always be the place where I was broken and put back together again and again for the sadistic pleasure of others. Those men had once been more powerful than I was. I didn’t care that I was stronger for it. I didn’t care that I would be powerful. I didn’t care that I was powerful now. I didn’t care.

“I don’t care,” I screamed at the pitch sky, at the stars of those I loved. Then I bowed my head and walked. My throat was raw from crying. My feet took me on familiar paths, until I stared at the blackened ground that had once been my home. Zone Seven. Where I’d had a mother, a best friend, and an uncertain but hopeful future.

Yet even my memories of that were now tainted by the truth I hadn’t known at the time.

Lies. Ty, Tyr, Tyrrik . . . my own mother.

Everywhere I turned. My entire life. Lies.

I wanted something to be real. I needed something . . .

Tears fell from my eyes to the charred ground. My blue scales erupted, climbing up my arms as my heart began to race. I sank to my knees as racking sobs tore through me, again. Only this time, I cried for me. For my losses. For the girl who once was and never could be the same.

I closed my eyes from the starlight twinkling off my vibrant-blue scales as if reminding me of the truth. I hated them. I hated what they represented.

A truth that everyone knew but me.

I was already barefoot and filthy from my night spent mourning in the middle of the blackened and desolate Harvest Zone. I bowed low and sank my hands into the ground, digging my toes into the ash, too. My tears poured freely, dripping onto the char, and I shared my pain with the soil underneath. I shared with it my losses. I unfolded my heartbreak. I divulged my fears. I told the warm ground underneath my hands everything.

For hours I stayed this way, pouring my heart out to something that could never betray me, never report to another, something that could never spin my words to mean something that would break my heart anew. The soil would never judge me for how I’d changed, or shy away from the hardness in my heart now. I told Harvest Zone Seven all of who I was and could never be again. And when I’d shared everything, when I was empty and my tears had dried up, I collapsed to the ground and let the dirt embrace me.

It felt like an eternity when footsteps crunched toward me. I remained still, lost in memories of Tyr’s wry smile and sure hands.

“Rynnie,” Dyter whispered, tears choking his voice.

I felt his presence crouched by my head. My eyes were swollen, and I could hardly move in my exhaustion.

“I’m so sorry, Rynnie,” he cried. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

Nothing else could have roused me except the tears of the man I considered my father. I moved my head to look at him.

“I went down to the dungeons.” He gasped, his scarred face twisted in agony. “I saw—” He broke, his body shaking as he cried silently.

“Help me up?” I asked.

He hurried to do so. Pulling me to him as he sat, he propped me up next to him. He wiped his face, and together we surveyed what was left of our home.

“I can’t believe it’s all gone. It doesn’t seem real, does it?” he asked.

I didn’t reply.

He hesitated. “I’m sorry about the man you loved . . . Tyr.”

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the memories that rushed at me. “Please, don’t speak his name. He wasn’t real.”

Dyter sighed.

When I opened my eyes, he was still staring at the endless black.

He turned and looked me in the eye as he said, “But what you felt was real, and I’m sorry your heart was broken.”

Not just my heart. It seemed deeper. I blinked away burning tears.

He spoke again. “Your mother . . .” He paused. “You know she only kept those things from you to protect you, don’t you, my girl?”

I remained mute.

He nodded after a time. “You’ll see it in time. But I hope you know she loved you with all her heart and soul. You were her reason for waking each day.”

A tear slipped over my cheek. “I know,” I managed. “I miss her, Dyter. So much.”

A sob escaped the older man beside me. “I do, too, Rynnie. She was a good friend to me. Helped me when no one else would. I’ll tell you just how one day.”