Page 136 of Clash of Storms
"Technically, you're dreki now—"
"You don't understand."A part of him never would."I will always be drekling in my heart. I will always know what it feels like to yearn to take to the skies, and not be able to. I know what it is to be seen as lesser. Let me give them some hope. Let us give them a celebration."
"I knew it,"he growled."You're trying to torture me."
Malin smiled."I promise I shall make it up to you."
Then she turned to look at Árdís.
"I will agree to this on one condition," Malin insisted, meeting the princess's eyes. If she was going to have to wait another day to be one with her prince, then she might as well use the princess's hardheaded tenaciousness in her favor. She reached for the princess with a fumbling attempt at linking, and Árdís thankfully caught her link."Prince Rurik will pardon Sirius of all his past crimes in front of the court. There will be no exile."
She knew the thought had bothered him, though he'd accepted it. But Rurik's forgiveness could mend some of the damage the queen had wrought when she used Sirius as a murderer.
Árdís's eyes narrowed."My brother is stubborn, and there are many years of anger between them."
"Take the offer or leave it,"Malin replied."Considering you failed to mention what the queen would do to Sirius if he betrayed her at Krafla, and used me to nudge him in that direction, I feel you owe me a debt."
Árdís glanced at Haakon. Then winced. "Consider it done."
"Consider what done?" Sirius asked suspiciously.
Malin smiled and cupped his face with one hand. "Let me have this one surprise, please?"
* * *
The throne roomwas filled withdrekiand drekling alike.
Rurik stared at Sirius. "Will you bend knee?"
They'd never seen eye to eye. His arrogant, perfect cousin, so beloved by king and people. Rurik had never been able to do any wrong. Though barely a hundred years separated them, every time Rurik opened his mouth Sirius had wanted to spray those perfect, white teeth all across the floor.
He'd wanted thisdreki'sthrone once.
He'd wanted power. He'd wanted everything Rurik had so effortlessly.
And none of it meant a damn thing to him anymore.
For, with Malin by his side, none of it could compare. What was power compared to waking up beside her every day of his life? What was a throne? He would never earn the respect of the court the way Rurik could.Drekiand drekling would always fear him. He wasn't the hero of the story.
But he also wasn't the villain.
"You do realize I was barely able to walk yesterday," Sirius drawled. "You're asking a lot of me."
But he made the first move, sinking slowly to his knee on the dais and bending his head. "My king."
Gasps flooded through the court. Drekling craned their necks to see.
Boots came into his field of vision. "Your hand brought about the death of my father," Rurik called out, his voice ringing through the court, and Sirius tensed in misery. "Yet you were under the control of my mother, Queen Amadea. It was her will that saw him dead. You were the weapon she wielded, using her magic to control you."
Sirius head remained bowed, as whispers filled the court. His mouth tasted like ash. Rurik had promised him mercy, as well as exile from the court, but it was the condemnation he felt that burned the most.
He would forever be known as Reynar's murderer, and Malin would be tarred with the same brush if she came with him.
"And yet, you stood against your father and the queen at Krafla, and saved the life of my sister's mate when my mother plotted treachery against him. In doing so, you saved my life on the battlefield, for if Haakon and Árdís fell, then so did I." Rurik's voice roughened, and the king laid a hand on his head. "You surrendered yourself to my mother in order to spare the life of my beloved cousin, Andri, and bear the marks of her torture forever. And you fought for us on the battlefield outside Hekla.
"Many years ago my father wished to take you as his page, and I spoke against it. My father told me the fractures within the court could not be healed by distrust and isolation. If you mistrust a being and offer him nothing but condemnation, then you create a self-fulfilling destiny. He said a wise king reached out to his subjects, and offered those who might make something of themselves a chance to rise above the circumstances of their birth. I did not listen. I did not understand.
"You are my cousin. I have long considered youZilittu, and the enemy, but your actions on the battlefield name youZini. I absolve you of your part in the queen's plot against my father. I absolve you of his death. I name the Blackfrost a true friend of theZinicourt and offer you a place within it. I intend to follow my father's example."
