Page 162 of Feralheart

She held them out between us. The red lines glowed faintly even now, serpentine patterns that crawled up past her wrists. In the dim light they looked like veins of fire under her skin.

“How long have you had magic?” I asked.

“Since I was a child. My mother had it too. She taught me to hide it. Said the elite would take me if they knew. Use me or kill me, depending on what fit their mood.”

“She wasn’t wrong. The council would want to study you. Determine where the magic came from. Whether there are others.”

“There aren’t. There’s just me now. She’s dead.”

“I saw in your mind. I’m sorry.”

“Ah, yes. We both saw. Don’t be sorry. You didn’t kill her.” She met my eyes. “Poverty did, the kind the court creates and calls natural.”

The old me would defend the system, explain how it worked and why it was necessary. Told her it had brought stability for generations.

I couldn’t make myself do it.

“You’re right,” I said. “About the court and me. I’ve been complicit.”

“I don’t know what to do with you,” she said.

“Me either.”

Servants started setting up camps to my right, while Boren erected something for the commons. Yet I couldn’t look away from Eradin. The exhaustion in her eyes matched my own.

“When the next trial starts tomorrow, stay near me,” I said. “Our dragons want to be together, and if the magic connects us again, we’ll handle it together. I know it’s not smart. I know it’s complicated, but if our magic can do what it did today, and if the trials test bonds the way this one did, we stand a better chance of getting through it with each other.”

She stared at me.

“I’m not asking you to trust me,” I said. “I’m asking you to let me protect you.”

Her throat worked. “That’s not how this works. We’re competing for the same prize.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should,” she said quietly.

“Probably. But I don’t.”

More survivors arrived, spit out by the trial.

Lyndie and Reece talked near the stream meandering along the side of the meadow. They’d survived. Three commons were still alive, plus however many elite riders had made it through.

My mother would call this a severe lapse in judgment on my part. Vella would call it contamination. The council would call it a security risk that needed to be eliminated.

For the first time in my life, I had no urge to perform for an audience that would never be satisfied.

I was just…here. Standing in grass that smelled like spring, watching a woman who’d seen the worst parts of me and chosen to save the best part anyway.

Like when she’d first passed me the pearl, it felt like finally being able to breathe.

Eradin tucked her hands into her pockets.

A strand of hair fell across her cheek. I brushed it behind her ear. She went absolutely still. My hand lingered, my thumb resting on her cheek.

“We need to rest,” she said. “Tomorrow’s going to be worse.”

She turned and walked toward Lyndie and Reece, leaving me with my entire worldview cracking open.