Page 137 of Jeweler to the Blessed
“What I have to.”
My fists banged on Hart’s back. “I don’t want to go. Leave me here with Alaric.”
His steps didn’t slow. “He wouldn’t want that, and you know it.”
I squirmed and kicked, but Hart’s grip was like an iron vice.
“Let. Me. Go.” I banged my fist on his back again, but with his hand on my skin, whatever emotion I was feeling, he felt it too.
He could feel my anger, my fear, and my growing sorrow as he dragged me from Alaric’s unmoving body.
“I can’t do that, Chaos.”
The power flowed between us, and hiscommand of it was clear. It was useless. He whisked me away, leaving the king’s Blessed to languish in their nightmares.
41
His heart will change the tide of Kavios.
— FROM CHAMPIONS OF KAVIOS
Hart carried me from the throne room. When I next looked up from the work of clawing free from him, we were on the path headed east around the back of the castle—the one I’d used to escape to Forest’s Edge.
“Put. Me. Down!” I pounded against his back again. I had no idea if he was still using magic. There was an awareness of the place where his hand gripped my ankle, but I blocked out all else associated with it. It reminded me too much of when we’d touched for other reasons.
He dropped me.
I clambered to my feet, readying to run back to Alaric.
“He’sgone.”
I froze. A new pain struck my heart, icy and direct, like a dagger piercing flesh. It was like reliving the scene, the crack of Alaric’s head against the wall. Every part of me was taut like a bow. I needed a direction to aim toward. Then I thought of Alaric calling Sebastien’s name.
“Alaric knew who you were? What you were?”
Hart nodded.
Another piece clicked into place about Hart and Alaric’s relationship. “The thing he was helping you research, supposedly helping you find. It was Chaos’s Champion.” I clenched my teeth briefly in frustration. “It was me.”
He didn’t deny it. “We need to keep moving.”
I tried to bury my feelings. I’d been practicing this for years, but I found with this—with Hart—it wasn’t so easy anymore.
“You expect me to go with you? You’re the Cursed King. You lied to me?—”
“I left information out.”
It might have been worse, but at the moment, my anger was pushing down the pain of Alaric’s loss. I needed it.
“Only because you didn’t know what to do with me yet. That’s your curse, right? The one you never finished explaining. Your curse is that you can only take from me.”
I’d already convinced myself this was true. The way he touched me as we left the throne room was proof enough. For some goddess-forsaken reason, I just needed him to say it.
Those piercing green eyes held my glare. “I don’t have time to explain. We have to go.”
He would have known as soon as he’d touched me what I was. That was back on the night of the festival when he tried to stop me from following Macen.
“I’ll go on my own.”
