Page 43 of Between Fear and Favor

“I’m sure she didn’t hate it,” he said, leading us around the stable and toward the clearing. He stopped just at the edge of it, probably looking for any hidden dangers. It was a good thing I’d coerced him into coming with me; I was thoughtless, and I could have gotten into trouble on my own. Sure enough, I watched as his shadows slithered outward, poking through the clearing and into our house through the crack in a window.

Faxon had slammed the window shut after I got stung by a bee that had wandered inside. It hadn’t hurt too badly, though I’d yelped in pain, and he’d torn into a rage over it. He’d just returned from Mira, and I knew now what had caused his anger. He’d been plotting during that trip, planning to sell me to Folterra. Regardless of the fact that he’d raised me my entire life, Faxon had ceased to view me as his daughter from that point onward. The crack in the window remained as a testament to his abandonment.

Perhaps it would be best if Mama let this place rot.

“I don’t know how she couldn’t hate it. She didn’t love Faxon, and she was forced away from her friends and family—because of me. I’m lucky she didn’t hateme.”

“You’re her daughter,” Cyran asserted, and for whatever reason, his surety irritated me.

“You’re Dryul’s son. Do you claim he loved you?” I snapped.

Cyran blinked as if he’d been slapped, and I regretted my harshness. I’d wanted to start anew with him, and I was already making a mess of it.

“Love isn’t something which comes naturally to an Umbroth, I think,” he said, and he looked away.

If this is what it is like, then I am ruined.

The words he’d scribbled in the margins of my book, when the dragon prince had made his declaration of love for the main character, were forced to the forefront of my mind. Cyran certainly had thought he was capable of love when he’d written them. But was it natural? Did he have to work for it?

Did he have to work for it because it was me or because of how he’d been raised?

I hadn’t been enough for Faxon, when he found out who my true sire was. How could I be enough for Cyran? After what he’d done to me, it was clear he hadn’t thought much of me back then. But had that changed?

Why was I thinking about being enough for him?

“It’s a wonder she hasn’t sent someone to burn the place down,” I murmured, hiding my shame over my callous words and silly imaginings.

“She probably didn’t want to anger you any further,” Cyran retorted. Long-legged, his gait was difficult to keep up with as he took the porch steps three at a time.

“I doubt that’s even possible,” I laughed.

“Oh, I don’t. The past few weeks, I’ve found your fury for your mother to be limitless.”

“And you think I have no right to feel it?” I demanded, putting my palm against the door as Cyran’s shadows turned the knob from the other side.

“I never said that,” Cyran replied as he gently pried my hand from the sun-bleached wood. “I don’t think feelings care much if we deserve to have them. They’ll do as they please, won’t they?”

Despite my desire for one, I didn’t have a scathing retort. I wondered if he felt as if he couldn’t be sad over his brother. Or perhaps he wasn’t sad at all, and instead felt guilty. For the first time, I wondered if he was angry with me for killing the man who had helped raise him. I was certain his feelings on the matter were rather complex.

Cyran was tall, and as he stepped through the doorway, he had to dip his head. There was no hesitation as he crossed the threshold, and he walked straight to the hearth. He knelt before it, and I was bewitched. Moonlight streamed through the window, kissing the outline of his nose. Cyran was many things that I was not. Calm and quiet, he could be quite reserved. But in his handsomeness, he was not understated whatsoever. His nose was perfectly formed, and his lips were distractingly full. As he adjusted logs left in the hearth, I couldn’t help but watch his hands. Even they were beautiful—with golden jewelry and clean fingernails, he was every bit the royal I was one day expected to be.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said. “I have never done this before.”

Stupidly, I stared at him with my mouth agape. “You’ve neverlit a fire?”

He stood, crossing his arms over his body. Without the moon lighting his face, I couldn’t see his features even as he stepped closer. “Elora, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I was raised a prince. Do you know what servants are?”

“Be quiet,” I said, shoving past him toward the hearth. When I grabbed the iron poker, I had an intense urge to jab him with it, but I didn’t allow myself the satisfaction.

“All you do is strike this against the flint—wait. No. No fire. We aren’t staying, and I don’t want anyone seeing the smoke. You’re not a very good sneak, either, are you?”

“Ismene and I often did whatever we wanted. There was no need to engage in such cunning,” he said, before moving toward the window.

“I’m sorry,” I said, regretting making him think of his sister. I was certain it hurt him, just as the thought of Theo hurt me. I wondered if he felt as responsible for her death as I did for my friend’s.

He didn’t respond, and I struggled not to fill the silence. Instead, I turned to look at my home. It was fitting that we came at night. The place I’d grown up in was shrouded in shadows; everything I knew and loved about it was now tainted by my mother’s secret history. The man who had carved my height into the doorframe over the years was dead, and once again, I was reminded that my old life was over.

A large part of me wished Mama had burnt it down. I knew she had stopped here on the way to Ravemont, but she hadn’t made any significant changes to the house. It was the same as the morning I’d left.

---