“Her fate was decided with the trumpet of war,” Ajali said.
A hiss escaped Gavyn, and he scrubbed a hand over his face. “She is radiant, and so damned beautiful each time I see her I fall a little bit more into her spell. Princess Xian is sharp, clever, spirited and possesses the heart of a warrior. She deserves to be a general in your army. That is how she wants to stand by your side.”
“I wish it could be different. My sister deserves the world. Gavyn, you must know that Xian is not like me,” Ajali continued. “Her heart is softer, yet at the same time, she is more unforgiving when she is wounded. She would never have accepted you once she learned your secret.”
It felt as if waves and massive boulders crashed against Gavyn’s chest, pushing him toward the earth. He stood, resting the goblet by the side table, and stared at the man who had been one of his closest friends for the past two hundred years. “You know?”
“Yes.”
Gavyn jerked as if he had been punched.
They stared at each other. There was a deadly watchfulness in the emerald eyes of his king, and something disturbingly vicious stirred in Gavyn. “How long have you known I am…different?”
“Only since Tehdra revealed herself as a Darkan a few days ago. There is something inside of her, a power that is brutal and dark. There had always been an oddness about your chakra, darkness to your life energy which I did not understand. I sense that same darkness inside of her, and it was then since I realize what it meant for you, my friend. I asked Tehdra if she sensed a demon within you, and she said no. But the first time she met you…she thought you smelled like death.”
“Will I be stripped of my lands, my home, and my inheritance?” He braced against the answer even though he knew what must be done.
“No,” Ajali said.
Shock and relief pierced him in equal measure. That had been one of the fears of his father, losing the Westk’arr massive holdings and wealth. “Darkans have been sworn enemies of Nuria for years. By the laws of our lands, I should be exiled.”
“I know your loyalty is to this realm and to me. And I have seen you wield your power of fire. You are not a pure blooded dark one.”
Gavyn was a half-blood, a half breed. His mother…his mother, had been a Darkan. And there was nothing the woman he loved more than life itself despised more than a Darkan. That he was of that cursed race was a secret he had hoarded deep inside and had never told another soul. Whenever the cursed marks appeared on his skin: swirling marks of an inked demon, fighting to break through his skin, he would disappear for months, roaming the covens of witches to give him the necessary potions to dampen the rage he could feel writhing through his veins.
“How long have you known you were a half-blood?” Ajali asked.
“Since my one-hundredth year. Something awakened in me, vile and ruthless, a power which I denied once I learned its origin.”
“Will you tell my sister?”
“I’d plan to tell her tonight…even knowing she might revile me.”
“She would hate that part of you, yes,” Ajali murmured.
Gavyn closed his eyes. There had been a chance to tell her. A moment of indecision had led to years of regret, Gavyn realized. He should have told her that night in the cave years ago, the first time he had ever kissed her. She’d unburdened her fears of the unstable power inside her to him and had peered up at him with such trust and aching hunger. And instead of sharing his darkest secret, he had kissed her endlessly. Knowing that if she knew she touched a half-blooded Darkan, she would have pierced his heart with her sword before incinerating him with her flames.
Would she genuinely hate him if she knew? It was a question that still plagued him in the dark of the night. Yet he did not truly believe it of the generous and loyal woman he knew. Xian was accepting of Tehdra whom she met only a few weeks past. Surely, she would be just as accepting of Gavyn’s half-blood with the dark ones. But would she want to marry him, be the mother of a hybrid Darkan? Tonight before the trumpet of war, before falling into bed with her, he had planned to reveal everything to her and asked for her hand in marriage. Loss clutched at his throat and gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. “Will you tell her?”
Ajali glanced at him. “No.”
They stood in a silence fraught with an unknown peril, staring into the roaring flames. “My mother…my mother was a Darkan,” he said roughly.
“A closely guarded secret by the house of Westk’arr. No one in our kingdom seems to know,” Ajali said.
“That is because my father slaughtered everyone in our household who knew.”
Ajali stilled for several moments, his thoughts shifting through the bloody history of the house of Westk’arr. “Including your mother.”
Gavyn tipped his head to the sky. “Including her.” Shrugging away the harsh memories, he said, “You are afraid I have mated your sister.”
“Have you?”
"That feral and primal nature of the dark ones had never manifested in me, not even when I kissed her. I seemed to have escaped that madness of my tainted legacy." The sorrow inside him deepened, burning the back of his throat until the emotions reached inside and stirred the slumbering beast. “You plan to…to use her to cement an alliance.” Say no, he silently demanded.
“It must be done.”
“You know she is precious to me,” he murmured, fighting the need to bellow his rage. Tonight he had touched a piece of her he had longed for, there had been a promise of much more, and now it was slipping away like ashes in the wind.