chapter forty - six - The worst kind of surprise

**Authors notes - hey everyone! Before you go onto read the chapter I want to inform anyone who isn't following me on socials that I am having a quiz on A City of Flames and whoever gets the majority right will be featured as a cameo in book two of A City of Flames as a fantasy character and will also get a choice of asking me for any bonus they would like to read. This can be anyones pov (Darius, Freya, the brothers etc.) My instagram is @rina.vasq**

I walk back to the barracks numbly. Some of it feels like a dream or a nightmare that I can never wake up from. It's a familiar thought to when my father died—my mother and brothers crying except for Idris and me. We looked at each other as I held my arm, the blood, so much blood I couldn't even see my skin.

Stopping just outside Lorcan's chambers, I stare at the door. I don't care if it's late or if he's asleep. I need to know.

I barge in without so much as a knock, sconces on the walls lighten half his room, and for the first few seconds, I feel... nothing. Lorcan idly walks out of the bath chambers, his chest drips with water droplets, and his copper hair almost looks brown when damp.

He pauses when he sees me and furrows his brows, glancing between the door and me. It's then my heart splits. I slowly drag my eyes down to the scar on his chest, and he says my name, but I concentrate on that scar.

He'd mentioned it was Darius that caused it. A spear that pierced through him. Idris had also shot an arrow, hitting the creature in the exact spot Lorcan has his scar.

"How did you get that scar?" I can't say it any quieter than this as I glance up to meet his eyes and his frown deepens.

"*How* did you get that scar, Lorcan?" I repeat, my voice firm this time. It's not even a question anymore. It's an accusation.

He looks at it for so long that it grows too quiet, but every word the General told me sounds loud and clear in my head. When his eyes are on my face again, his expression is torn, yet his silence tells me everything.

He knows.

I erupt.

A yell rasps from my lips as I charge at him with my fist in the air, but he clutches my wrist and twists me, so my back is to his front. "Nara," he warns. "Don't."

"You lied to me," I say. A slice of anguish tears at me as I yank myself free and whirl to him. "You murdered my father, and yet here you stand, having known since the beginning what you'd done."

He lowers his gaze, and I think back to our conversation the other day, to every other moment I had spent saying how despicable it was of me to lie to him when he'd done worse. So much worse.

"Why?" My voice betrays me with a cracking whisper. "Why did you take an interest in me when you knew who I was? When you knew what you'd done to my family."

His stare doesn't leave the ground. He's afraid to look at me. "I didn't want to."

My hands clutch the crescent so tight; I don't care if it cuts through skin and bone.

"But when I saw you that day in your village," he inhales, shutting his eyes. "There was an aura about you that made me feel content. You intrigued me too much just to leave you behind."

*Intrigued.*

That word, that damn word I'd come to adore, turns to poison as soon as he utters it.

And as if he's built the courage, he draws his gaze to me. A dimness of bleakness and pain mixes. "I just wanted to be near you so I could always feel that way, but every time I looked at your arm, I couldn't stand it because I was reminded how easily you would hate me if you found out what I'd done."

I shake my head and don't stop as I speak, "No. There's a difference there. You hoped I would never find out. You wanted me at your worst moments and plotted to get Darius without telling me for an act of petty revenge. He might have killed your father, but you also killed mine!" My heart twists in every direction, and what I want is to forget. Turn back to the times I knew nothing and had only my brothers. "You're a coward and a hypocrite, Lorcan."

Those two words land like a blow to him. His throat tightens as he swallows and says, "I didn't have a choice with your father. Sometimes my urges are impulsive, and I turn, the only one who has kept me sane enough is the General, I owe him."

"So, when he ordered you to kill my father, you agreed?"

"I was just seventeen. I didn't know what I was doing—"

"And Adriel? Did you know what you were doing then? Did you know what you were doing, turning all those people into what you are? Did you know you were the one who attacked me that night in the forests?"

"You weren't supposed to get harmed," he says quietly as if it will help me think differently.

My eyes begin to water, and I bite my lower lip, holding back my tears. I don't like crying in front of people, I always try everything to hide it, but it never gets easier. Lorcan reaches for me, and I shake my head, retreating backward. His hand fists, and he lowers it before sighing.

"Nara, please," he says. "I love you too much for this to ruin everything."

Love, a funny word that holds no value when they're saying it to save themselves.

It's the first time hearing it from him, but the circumstances are something I wish was not true. "No, you don't," I whisper, unable to say it any louder. "You don't love me."

How close I was to giving him my all, how I wanted him to be my first and that maybe... just maybe I could have thought it to be love myself. But now? Honed daggers pick and stab at my naïve heart. "You used me," I say in realization, the words an echo past my lips. "Just how everyone else seems to."

"That's not true." Determination rings in his tone. "All this time, I've been trying to protect you, but finding out you were helping a shifter hurt me—"

"Hurt you?" I repeat with such disbelief. "You found out I knew more about Darius than most people did. You waited to see if he would appear, and then you planned it all out, you the queen, the general. I was always going to be the bait for him."

"And do you wonder why that is?" He snaps, but I don't answer him, and his gaze hardens. "He's always tried to one-up me. He saw us together and wanted to anger me, to mess with me like he's done since we were kids—"

I let out a pathetic laugh at how wrong he is, but he ignores me and continues, each time getting closer until there's no room left for me except the dresser.

"If anyone used you, it's him. He's the one who isn't a good person, he doesn't care for you, he doesn't care for humans, he steals because that's his fun, his mockery to all of us, he kills, he seduces anyone that comes his way and tosses them aside once he's bored. You're nothing to him, Nara. None of us are."

By the time he finishes, he's breathing down on me. He's not the Lorcan I once met. He's what took my father away from us. He's who gave me a scar I could not even look at without remembering that day. He's who I'd first felt something for once in my damn life. "You're right. He's not your brother," I say; not a single emotion comes from my voice. "I would never treat mine like you do." I take a step now toward him, confident enough not to show any weakness. "And maybe I'm nothing to him." Whether I'm lying, telling the truth, or just wanting to get it out of my system, I couldn't care less. "But you, the Venators, the queen gave him a reason for him to feel that way about us all. If only I had that mentality when it came to you."

His jaw tenses, and those green eyes take on a shade darker than any forest. He opens his mouth, and I prepare myself for whatever lies he will feed me again, but he's quick to shut them when his gaze travels down to my hand. "What about the carving?"

Realizing that I'm still clutching onto it, I lift my palm and open it, staring at Darius's dried blood seeping through the wood. It's never brought me good luck. It's harbored the opposite.

I muster all the control I have within me before I slam it against his chest, and he stumbles back as his hands grab onto it. "Take it," I say. "It was yours, to begin with." I storm out of his room, slam the door shut and press the heels of my hands to my eyes.

A beat goes by, and then I flinch as I hear something smash against the walls from inside his chambers. I squeeze my eyes shut, hearing him break more things, and choose to walk away this time, heading towards what is my room.

I make it to my door, slowly turning the nob, and see Freya leaning against the window, playing with her obsidian curls. She turns her head as soon as I enter and widens her eyes, springing toward me with question after question. She asks why I'm here, how worried she's been that she couldn't go to sleep.

I look at her, taking the keys I'd grabbed off Erion from my sheath pocket and hold them out in front of her. She stares at them, frowning, and grabs both my hands in hers. I still look at her at the distress grasping onto her features as she slowly takes them from me and sets them on the bed. After that, she gently touches my shoulders, sitting me down. She then settles opposite me and says my name repeatedly in a distant echo. I don't know where to start. I don't know how to say it to her.

The floor blurs, and I blink to focus as I lift my gaze to Freya's. With any strength I have left in me, I try and explain what I can without falling apart, but that doesn't mean I don't see the moment she does.

She's silent for so long, without any sort of expression to tell what she is thinking, but I know she's feeling too much, all at once.

She rises, taking in a deep breath as she starts nodding with intense resolve. "I can help him."

It hurts seeing her like this. "Freya—"

"Before my mother's death, he—he used to smile at me, I remember he'd bring me back lilac pearls that I wanted, he—"

"Freya," I whisper, gaining her attention when she looks straight at me, her shoulders begin to shake, and she cries.

I stand as she runs and wraps her arms around me. "I'm sorry," she says, but I don't know why she's the one saying that when it's not her fault. "I said I wouldn't cry for him, but I am." Her breaths heave out of her in short bursts, and I try and hold in mine again. "Why?" She whispers. "Why do I still care for him?"

I don't think she's saying it to me; I think she's saying it to herself. Still, I pull back and shake my head. "Because you are not him."

Her nose reddens from tears, and she tucks her bottom lip between her teeth, nodding. I hug her once more before she whispers into my hair, "You should have left with Darius. It's not safe here."

"I know," I say and look at her. "Which is why I need you to listen to what I'm going to ask of you next."

She nods adamantly, and I exhale, looking at the keys. "But first, I want to ask you something." When I look back at her, she wipes her tears and nods again.

"I know... being a witch means a bond with a dragon," I say and recall the moment I was with Darius, his wounds, how they'd healed. "Is it the same for other creatures?"

Freya mulls my question over. I'm not a witch, that I know but healing Darius and the way all animals come to me like I'm there to protect them? It just makes no sense at all.

"I don't really get anything when it comes to creatures," Freya says, her voice raspy from crying. "They barely register me if I ever come across one. The only thing for me is that I've always hated any fight or capture that dealt with dragons, but I've only ever gotten a strange feeling like—like I could help someone a few times, such as when I met your brothers in Chrysos or the ball, even the arena fight the other day." Her eyes drift to the beds pensively before looking at me. "Why do you ask?"

I shrug, seeing I'm left with more questions than answers. "I was just wondering," I say, causing Freya to not look so convinced, but I change subjects and tell her what has to be done before I leave.

***

Neither Freya nor I sleep the entire night. We talk for hours and make plans that we never realize how sunrise casts rosy hues into our room.

She helps me pack whatever necessity I need into my satchel and rushes me toward the window when rapid knocks sound on the door. We freeze until hearing 'Ambrose?" and let out a breath, knowing it's just Rydan.

He knocks again, and Freya grimaces, twisting around as she drawls, "She's not here, remember?"

"Well, how do you plan on informing her that her brothers have arrived already and are downstairs!"

My whole body locks.

The satchel in my hand falls, and everything I have in it scurries across the floor, carving tools, bread, clothes.

Freya turns to me just as I start to pass her, and I fling the door open. "What?" I say, and Rydan's brows narrow, pointing one finger at me, then the other at Freya.

"Frey-Frey, was I just lied to—"

I barge past him, rushing through the corridors, not even noticing how Freya is right behind me. I make it down the stairs, and all the air sucks out of me as I look at the three of my brothers standing there, glancing around as if careful not to touch or move anything.

Illias is the first to notice me, and he smiles, then Idris and Iker spin to face me.

No, they shouldn't be here, not yet. They were supposed to come on the day of the trials. I was going to come back to make sure that I'd take them with me.

I hardly move my feet as I slowly walk to them. My panicked expression makes Idris frown, and he studies me with concern.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, gazing between the three, and the nerves practically ooze out of me.

Iker snorts. "We wanted to surprise you. Your friend Lorcan sent out a carriage for us a few days ago, but Idris was too stubborn to come here back then."

"You don't seem happy to see us?" Illias makes a face as I cut my anxious gaze to him, and he leans into Iker, whispering, "This feels like the time we tried surprising her when she turned fifteen."

Iker's brows rise at that, rubbing the back of his head with a wince. "I'm still recovering from that."

"What's wrong?" Idris goes straight to the point, his eyes narrowing as he looks at my fingers still covered in dried blood, he scans me whole before glancing over my shoulder at Freya, and they stay on her as I stammer to get my words out. But then, a familiar voice grips me at my throat with wild fury.

I look to my left as the General clasps his hands in front. It's as if nothing happened last night. He looks the same except for his strained smile. "Miss Ambrose, there you are."

Defensively I move nearer to my brothers, putting a barrier of protection as Erion's gaze shifts to them and hardly greets them before saying to me, "The queen has requested your presence... now."