Chapter thirty - nine - Their greatest wish

I graze my thumb over the crescent carving as Darius, and I walk through the forest. It'd become nightfall by the time we left the den. Tibith had ventured back to the cottage while Darius knew my silence and a wandering mind meant it was time for me to head to the city.

He offered to walk me until we reached the area where I'd seen the creature and mentioned he'd stand watch in case it did appear, but... Gus's words over Darius kept echoing the entire time. And the longer I'd spent my time with the shifters, the stranger I felt.

There were kids, families, and they welcomed me despite me being a mortal.

Gazing at Darius to my side, I put the carving away and study him. The shadow covering his jaw, a breeze in his hair, the short strands curling at the neck. Trust clouds my mind; he trusts me. He'd taken me to the den, a human who is supposed to become a Venator.

"Staring for so long can make someone very uncomfortable, Goldie." The corner of his lip lifts into a smile as he sends me a sideways glance.

I scoff, staring at the clearing up ahead. The same clearing that creature had attacked us. "I'm sure it boosts your ego more like," I mutter, and he chuckles without a word.

Slowing down my steps, I gaze at the darkened grass, no blood, no bodies like that night. Darius stops a few meters away from me and turns as I look at the broken branch on the other side. My hand traces my abdomen, already healed. No one would guess I'd suffered an injury or a significant loss of blood.

"I think I have my first question," I say, but I don't, not really. I have too many. Some that make no sense, others that I'm not sure how to phrase.

"Ask away, Goldie."

I look at the faint smile on his lips as glowing fireflies drift among us. Blues, greens, all colors combine that if it weren't for the sudden question dawning on me as I watch them, I'd love to catch some. "Why is it—why is it that you can't fly?"

A beat of silence, and then Darius sighs, nodding at the ground. "Do you want the long version or the short?"

"Surprise me." I raise my hand in the air and wait for a firefly to land on my index finger. Its wings buzz vibrantly, and I can hear Darius release a short chuckle.

"When I was five years old," he says, and when I glance at him, he's pensive. "My powers were uncontrollable. Barely even knew I held three types of power, let alone one." He chuckles. "I had nowhere to go, so I went around the streets looking for food—for shelter until venators saw me accidentally wield fire."

My hand falls to the side, and numbness takes over it, already imagining the worst at the mention of Venators.

"I remember them chasing me, mortals blocking pathways so I wouldn't get through." He's avoiding my gaze like he's reliving every detail. "I'd never once shifted before then, but at that moment, I did only for one Venator to catch my wing and sever the top part. I still managed to escape but... haven't been able to fly since."

I swallow, covering my wince. He was five, and they were ruthless enough to sever part of his wing. If he hadn't escaped, they'd likely have slaughtered him in front of everyone. And people would cheer because that's what we've grown to loathe. Shifters, dragons.

"What about your parents?" My voice is a mere whisper; I'm surprised he hears me as he lifts his eyes and narrows them. A speck of humor glistens in them though I know it's a front. I can tell because Iker had reacted the same way if someone mentioned mother or father to him.

"That counts as your second question Goldie." He saunters over, tilting his head as he looks at my shoulder and extends his hand before retracting it with a firefly on his finger.

I exhale a chuckle. "It's a good thing I have three left."

The firefly flies off his hand, and he glances up at the sky, heaving a sigh. "You just had to pick the hard ones."

"You don't have to answer it, I just thought—"

"I never met my father," he says, and my mouth is left half-open. He rubs at his forehead. "My mother only told me he left when I was born and failed to ever utter his name. Whether she despised him or still loved him, I couldn't tell, and I never was able to find out because she died protecting me."

Something cold settles in my stomach at his admission.

"And after my wing was torn, I was taken in by someone else, that happened to be a mortal obsessed with dragons, so there was that." He waves his hand like it's nothing, but I think of what Gus told me. Darius's drunken nights, his distrust with everyone else, how he's dealt with too much.

I do the unexpected.

I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him.

He's deadly still, and the side of my face rests by his chest. Rosewood and something familiar fill my lungs as I breathe it in. His hand then spans across the back fabric of my shirt, hesitant at first before his other arm comes around me.

"Your mother died a hero," I say and slowly pull away. His eyes stay glued to mine for minutes like he's not sure what to make of the hug or what I said. Noting I must have made things awkward, I clear my throat and add a little pointedly, "I know I didn't say it earlier, but I am grateful that you saved me. And I'm not one to embrace someone so easily, especially a dragon, so consider this a one-off."

His head rears back in mock surprise. "Is that—" His brows furrow, and he points at me, almost smiling. "Is that you being nice to me, Goldie?" He places a hand on his chest. "I'm touched."

My brows lift in complete disapproval. "And now I'm reminded why it is that you anger me so much."

He's back to laughing brightly, the mischievous glint in everything he says or does. I huff a breath and glance at all the fireflies that disappear from the clearing. "I can't believe I've been out for this long and with a shifter too."

"Is that such a crime?" He snickers, and my brow flickers upward because it is exactly that—a crime. "Kidding, Goldie."

Shooting him a sharp look, I say, "Goodbye, Darius." And head past him, remembering the route back to the city when his hand grips mine.

"Wait," he says, and fingertips graze my skin that I turn to him. He's not smiling. In fact, any trace of amusement is long gone. "Are you really going to return to them?"

Did he want me to stay with him? "I—" A sigh. "I have friends there who most likely think I've perished." I glance at the ground and shake my head. "I have my brothers thinking I'm going to follow in my father's footsteps and become a Venator, then I have Lorc—" Wincing at the name, I stop before I can finish it. Still, I'd said enough, and as I drag my eyes up to Darius, he's nodding. A distant expression on his features.

I might not be the person Lorcan thought I was, to begin with, but I care for him too much to leave what we've shared behind. Closing my eyes, I reach for the crescent again and then stare at it.

"You seem awfully fond of that carving," Darius says, his voice a soft caress with the wind.

I drag a breath in, the carving warming under my palm. "It's been my source of luck for years now. It belongs to—"

"Lorcan."

My eyes dart up to Darius. He's staring at my hand while I frown at how he'd guessed that. After I'd almost said Lorcan's name, he must have assumed.

And he's not wrong as he gestures a finger to it. "One of their greatest wishes was to unite and dance among the stars." His focus goes back on me. "Solaris and Crello, it's what my mother used to say."

A smile tickles my lips, but I don't show it as I let my eyes roam the crescent, the polished oak that, even after years it looks like it'd been carved yesterday. "For no love greater shared than the moon and the sun," I echo my own mother's words and shove the carving in my sheath.

My shoulders lift as I inhale, and the next few seconds go by so silently until he asks, "Is a Venator what you truly want to be?"

I still. Years ago, anyone could have asked me that, and my answer would always be yes. I'd begged Idris to the point he'd gain headaches from just hearing me speak of it.

And now it's the hardest answer I can give.

"I don't want to discuss this right now. I've been gone long enough." My eyes flit to the left.

"When then?" Frustration suddenly taints his voice. "Every second points to you not trusting Sarilyn, not even your own people, and I know the person I first met at the Jewelers wouldn't give up so easily. She would fight to win."

I flinch at his words, not because I'd be offended but because he is right. "I don't give up." My head snaps to him, and the defensive walls barricade me once again. Before he can say something, I'm already raising my arms in the air and slamming it down at the sides. "Did you expect we'd get here, and I'd tell you to take me back to yours? Play pretend dead for a little while longer? I mean, why does it matter if I become one or not? You were more than happy to tell me I was just an asset to you. You're supposed to hate me just how I was supposed to hate your kind for killing my father, yet it turns out they never did."

Stop, stop, stop.

I don't.

"I've spent so long believing your kind is what killed him, and all my life I remember, the only thing I wanted to be was someone who could fight off dragons, protect the city and help my brothers. I dreamed of becoming a warrior for years, yet it took a few months for everything I'd ever thought to change."

Darius just looks at me, processing my rant, my outburst at the aggravation I have over this, over everything. I find myself pinching my lips together and my brows furrowing the more he stays quiet. He always has something to joke about, to tease, to flirt, to annoy.

Joke, tease, flirt, annoy me for Solaris's sake.

I run my hands over my face. "I don't know what I'm doing here. I shouldn't even be with you right now or ever! Every day is leading up to those trials, and I just—"

"Then complete them," at last, he speaks up, and I freeze. His words shoot me like an arrow to the chest.

"What?" I breathe.

"Complete the trials and become a Venator," he says it tight enough that I'm convinced his jaw will break. "You keep hesitating to make a decision, so make it easier for yourself, choose the one thing you've always wanted to be."

I shake my head. "It's not so simple—"

"After all, you're right. I do think of you only as an asset to me. Maybe I thought for one moment you had it in you to help us. A way for shifters to go free without risking myself."

I bite back my immediate vexation as he lifts a shoulder haphazardly. "Liar," I whisper just like he'd done to me back at the den, except I can't contain how I grit my teeth at him. "You're lying. You can't even look at me."

His eyes flicker up and bore into me. Even against the dark skies, the moon manages to flash through the gold of them. He reaches for my hand and lays it flat on his chest. "You're just an asset to me," He repeats carefully, and I watch his expression never change as the beats of his heart are slow and steady under my palm. "Am I lying now, Goldie?"

I yank my hand away from his grip, the phrase hurts more than I can admit, but I was the first to mention it, to remember that day in Chrysos when he'd first said it. "I will never understand your desperate need to be hated by so many," I spit.

He smirks without a glimmer of amusement in his gaze. "Don't act like you ever stopped."

My groan is nothing but frustration and anger built into one. "You know for one moment, I thought you were a decent person. Helping me pay off my debt, protecting those creatures? Instead, you're confusing, arrogant, deceitful—"

"Selfish?" He whispers, and it takes one single step for him to be looking down at me, his breathing to fan across my forehead and his eyes to pierce through mine.

I wonder if he can hear the raging thump of my heart forcing its way out of my chest or the tightening of my fists at the need to add more to that list. But I can't, I can't seem to speak, I can't seem to think, I can't seem to breathe.

"Go, on, say it," his voice low and enticing as his gaze wanders to my lips.

I want to, I badly want to, but after a second his head whips to the side. A frown forms as he focuses on his hearing, his scent.

"What—" It goes too fast for me to comprehend as a hiss echoes the air, and Darius pushes me out of the way. My side thumps onto the grass, and I squeeze my eyes shut, holding my breath for a few seconds before I lift myself onto my elbows and look over my shoulder.

My heart pounds as Darius stumbles back, clutching onto a shaft of an arrow in the middle of his chest. He tears it out as fluorescent red pours from the arrowhead and stares at it just as his legs buckle and he collapses to his knees.

"Darius!" His name falls from my lips in a gasp. Fluorescent red... the blood from the Neoma tree.

No, no, no, this can't be happening—

I sit up, trying to rush to Darius, but the hollow hooves of horses' sound as Venators approach us from the woods, getting off them and reaching Darius before I can. Two men grab him by each arm, lifting him up as he winces.

"Wait!" I rasp, staggering to my feet. My stomach plummets as more Venators surround the clearing, and I spin to face each one until Lorcan barges through.

He's here. They're all here. How—how did they know?

He slides off his horse, running towards me. His hands grab the sides of my arms, but my vision is warped in a haze. "Were you hit?"

I shake my head, swallowing as I look at Darius, still conscious yet unable to fend off the Venators.

"I told you to wait for my signal before we were to shoot at him," Lorcan says roughly at someone behind him and I'm left gaping.

It's my fault. I should have left long before, warned Darius enough; instead, I'd pushed it all to the back of my head, dancing, drinking, and freeing myself with shifters. "How did—"

"Glad to see that even after years you kept your promise of one day capturing me," Darius cuts me off, directing his words to Lorcan with a breathless laugh.

My brows knit together as I glance at Lorcan. He keeps quiet, rage pouring off him like silken blood before I shift my gaze to Darius, and my veins turn to ice as he adds, "Brother."