Their Fireheart

Chapter Ten

Aedion had risen, and made his way over to stand at my side in a silent show of support. When Chaol's eyes met mine again, I saw it again. That flicker of accusation, of disgust.

Softly, I said, "This is my fault, I suppose?"

Chaol sneered, a muscle flickering in his jaw. "It wasn't an accident that the king ordered their slaughter by fire."

I breathed out slowly through my nose, trying to quell the roiling storm of rage his words invoked. Next to me, Aedion had gone impossibly still.

Aedion growled, low and threatening. "Are you suggesting," he seethed, "that this attack was the fault of my Queen?"

"I'm not suggesting anything," Chaol said tightly, not even sparing a glance towards my cousin, intent on fixing his piercing glare on me. "You risked everything for one man, and now what? The rest of the city and its citizens are expendable?"

Aedion snarled, but I merely narrowed my eyes at the man I had once happily called mine. Fury and indignation licked a fiery path up my spine.

"Need I remind you, Captain, that this is the work of your king?" I hissed. "The king who has enslaved thousands and thousands of people at his salt mines over the years as a part of the war he started? That you yourself went to Endovier and did not blink at those slaves, or at the mass graves of the ones who came before them? You watched Duke Perrington force me to the ground and did nothing, not for me, and not for those people. After all that, you have the nerve to accuse me of not caring?"

Chaol blanched, but did not waver in his glare. The irony of it all was grating, pulling at the ragged edges of my soul. This man had called me a monster, still thought of me as one, yet now it was apparently my responsibility to care for a city that has only ever sought to destroy me.

"How dare you," I said softly. "You don't get to blame me. Not for the Shadow Market, not for the choices of your king - not for any of it."

"The city still needs protecting," Chaol snapped.

I smiled, a dark, serpentine thing. "Even if that protection comes from a monster like me?"

Finally, Chaol had the decency to look away - not that I believed he was actually ashamed.

I scoffed at him. "If I were truly a monster, I'd set this entire vile, festering city ablaze - and dance in the fucking flames."

Without another word, I turned on my heel, stalking off the rooftop and pretending I didn't hear Aedion snarling threats at the captain as I left.

- - -

I was drawn out of my musings by my cousin's next snarled complaint.

"Do you not understand what it's like for me to sit on my ass while you're out doing gods knows what?" Aedion snapped.

"I get it. I do. Probably more than you think," I murmured darkly.

A flash of a memory danced through my mind - of sitting on this same couch, pacing these same carpets, desperately watching the clock for a man who should have returned hours earlier - clinging to the barest thread of hope to rationalize why he was late.

Aedion's voice softened. "What is it that you're doing that's so important it can't wait a day or two, when I'm able to join you?"

"Scouting," I said as calmly as I could. "Testing defenses. Once you're in fighting shape, we will need to move quickly - I need to be prepared."