Page 143 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
“Why, thank you.” He inclined his head dramatically. “You choked a bit on the compliment, didn’t you?”
“My mouth does feel a bit drier now that you mention it.” I huffed a laugh through my nose. Gods, it feltgoodto joke around, like we did before. Our world had cracked, but the shards were still there, waiting to be placed back together. Maybe a little crooked, maybe with a few pieces missing, but still possible. “I don’t want you taking any unnecessary risk. If you feel like getting those records is too dangerous–”
“If you keep warning me, I’ll start to think you don’t actually believe I’m all that brilliant.”
I sighed. “Dax, this is serious. I’d rather forget about the whole thing than have you hurt.”
“Well, now, that’s insulting.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“The fact that I care about you?” I rolled my eyes. “Yes, how awful of me, I’m such a cow.”
“That you don’t think I can pull it off.”
“You obviously can, you’ve done worse.Andmore dangerous.”
“Yes, I did. And don’t you forget that.”
I raised my brows. “You’re being strange.”
“All Veghearas are strange.”
“Yes, we are,” I said and we both nodded those Vegheara chins of ours. “But stranger than usual. What’s wrong?”
Dax leaned back in his chair and turned his head toward the window, as if he could avoid the conversation through distance alone.
I knew that look. The one he wore before he confessed something. I steeled myself for whatever he had to say.
His jaw ticked, the soft orange light dancing across his face. I knew that orange hue; if I closed my eyes, I could almost feel it on my own skin.
He was close to Aquila.
Too close.
I let him fight with his own thoughts, like I had to do with mine.
“It’s hard, you know?” he said at last, voice as faraway as he was through the portal.
My heart clenched. “I miss all of you, too. I want us to be back home and laugh at the dinner table and fight over the last bread roll.”
He huffed a laugh, but it didn’t sound the least bit amused. It cut the air like a blade.
“Not that. It’s hard to know you can do something and have to stay your hand.” He finally turned to look at me, this time with that cold, strategic gaze he kept so well hidden. But this time, it had a ferocity in it I didn’t recognize. “I want to kill Silas.”
It was my turn to lean back in my chair; only I fell back onto it. “Dax…”
“Tell me not to, Allie.” He fisted and unfisted his palms against his biceps, as if he wanted to tear flesh away from bone with all that unspent–and unwise–energy. “Every single night, I throw my daggers at the wall to keep from marching intoourstronghold. It would be so easy, too. I know three different ways to get into his room undetected. No matter how many paid mercenaries he has guarding him, I could slip past them without breaking a sweat. I’ve imagined prowling toward his bed in the blue night, while he snores up a storm with that ridiculous green nightcap he wears to protect those five remaining hairs on his head. He always cared more about protecting himself than anything and anyone else, even his own daughter. He’s moved into Alaric’s bedroom, you know?”
Just when I didn’t think Silas could stoop any lower, hedareddisrespect my father’s memory by trespassing in his room less than a year after he had died?
The books my father kept on his nightstand, the smell of bergamot and lamp oil, the simple linen sheets he preferred, the same ones I’d snuggled into whenever I had a nightmare as a child.
Now those same sheets would cradle the nightmare himself.
The image blurred, and cracked, leaving only rage behind.
My chest rose and fell furiously, lips pursing to keep the words from breaking Dax’s speech. I gave him the same freedom the Commander had given me last night, to spit it out before it festered inside too much.
But, oh, they were ugly, bitter words.
