Page 25 of A Bond of Ice and Glass
That would just make it worse. The fact he’d wait for me to leave before killing them is more sickening than if he’d done it in front of me. The Lochlan I knew wasn’t capable of killing. He certainly wasn’t capable of sounding so blasé about it. And the Lochlan I knew? He’d never have gone back on this word like that…
But he didn’t go back on it.
“I said I’d end your suffering, which I’m doing.”
He just tricked the soldiers into thinking he’d put an end to their suffering, not their lives.
And the magic? That wasn’t ordinary magic. That was dark ether magic, the kind that rotted you from the inside the more you used it. Unless…
“Was it Nymala?” I stop and turn to Noble, who hasn’t moved from the doorway, his eyes on me. “Did she use her magic to kill them?”
The slow shake of his head makes my stomach clench.
I start moving again, my steps growing more frantic with my panic. What more is Lochlan keeping from me? What more did he lie to me about?
“Did he get this power after the convent?” I ask, pausing again.
Another shake, and I dig my nails deeper, cutting through skin. So, he’s had this power all along and never told me? I start pacing again.
“I’d rather you didn’t wreck my new floor with all your pacing,” Noble says after a moment, nodding to the sofas. “Come sit.”
I shake my head at him, as if my pacing will make sense of everything. As if it will drive the fear out of my body. Did we both gain power at the same time?
“Sit, Maelena, or I’ll make you.”
I stop, not to obey him, but to glare at him. “Do you have magic, too?”
“No. But I have other ways.” He nods to the sofa again. “Just sit down and I’ll make you a drink. It’ll help.”
“I don’t need one.”
More like, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep one down.
“Yeah, you do.” Noble walks over to a cabinet and opens it. Several glass bottles reflect the light. “You look like you’re about to be sick. And frankly, you’re making me feel that way with all the bloody pacing. Just sit for a moment, alright?”
I watch him open a half-empty bottle and pour amber liquid into a small glass. My legs shake as a sudden fatigue sweeps over me. From my power or from what Lochlan did, I don’t know. But Noble is right. Idoneed to sit for a moment. I settle down onto the sofa nearest the fire, hoping the warmth will erase some of the chill from my bones.
“Is this your study?” I ask, looking around the room again.
Above the fireplace sits a nook in the wall, filled with books, and above that rests a giant stag’s head. The fur is as white as the snow outside, and its eyes are gold, as if they’d been glowing when they were alive.
Noble follows my gaze for a moment. “My father’s,” he says. “I don’t come here often. This was the nearest room.”
He hands me the glass. I don’t sip it immediately, like he does. I keep my eyes on the stag, but I’m aware of him droppingdown next to me, with his arm draped over the back of the sofa, close to my neck. It feels weirdly comforting.
“You saw him do it too, didn’t you?” My voice cracks the silence. “The way he just… killed those soldiers… like they were nothing.”
“They weren’t nothing. They were criminals,” Noble counters. “Even if they weren’t the ones who gave the orders, they followed them. Burned a village to the ground, like Lochlan said, without caring of the people inside. Loch wasn’t lying about that.”
I sip the drink. The liquid burns down my throat.
“Did following orders mean they deserved to die so cruelly?”
“Depends on the orders,” Noble says. He runs a hand through his blond hair and shrugs. “They would’ve died soon, anyway. If we let them go—which we couldn’t—they would’ve frozen out in the snow. In a way, Lochlan spared them a slower death.”
“So it was mercy?” I shake my head at that, laughing bitterly. “Lochlan lied to them.”
He lied tome. Noble doesn’t say anything about that though.
