Page 61 of These Fractured Bonds

He ran his hand through his hair, drawing attention to his gaunt face again. He set the platter on her lap, uncovering the bowl of soup. Her stomach growled, but she didn’t eat quite yet.

“I’m leaving in two days.” He gave the spoon in her hand a pleading look. “Endrim has called for a Council of Review after another nox attack on the Earth Court’s border.”

She begrudgingly took a bite. “Isn’t the nox threat across all of Izmari? Why is he calling a council for an attack onhisborder?”

“The number of attacks has increased exponentially recently. The mounting pressure todosomething is getting harder to ignore. However, the queen remains steadfast in her decision—defend against but do not provoke the nox creatures.”

Yareli thought back to the assault on the Keepers’ Village. The destruction had been devastating. “Why wouldn’t you attack?”

He was quiet for a moment, pensive.

“The nox are unknown entities that only made their appearance less than a century ago. We don’t know their origin, their purpose, or who is behind their attacks. I suspect the queenis being conservative to prevent escalation that we may not be equipped to handle.”

Between the nox and the potential civil war, Izmari was a mess.

“That’s fair,” she conceded. “But why are you required to go? Aren’t you the general, not the lord, of the Water Court?”

To this, August had a quick—too quick—answer. “I am to go in my elder brother’s stead, and report to him the situation.”

“And why can’thego?”

“He is in the midst of successor training and is unable to attend.”

Yareli didn’t point out that attending a council withallthe courts seemed to be an important learning opportunity for the future lord. She settled with a thoughtful hum instead. She had an inkling that she would not like his elder brother, or father, for that matter.

She finished her soup while August waited for her to recount her harrowing experience with Tuom.

She folded her hands neatly in her lap. “I’ll tell you about what happened if you answer one more question for me.”

A corner of his mouth twitched upwards, but he covered it with a fist. He cleared his throat. “Alright.”

Yareli hid her smile. She arguably had little bargaining power, but she appreciated that he had played along. It meant he had fallen for her trap. A twinge of guilt pricked at her. August had answered every single one of her questions before, so playing a trick like this seemed dirty. She clamped down on her guilt; she told herself it was an extra precaution, because she couldn’t afford it to be the one question he didn’t answer.

To alleviate her guilt a bit, she explained her confrontation with Tuom first.

“There wasn’t much to it,” she said at the end of her summary. “He was the same bigoted asshole as always, threateningto come ‘collect’ me in the future.”Well, that wasn’t true.“Actually, there was something. His magic was different, like it was twisted, poisoned by another magic. It’s hard to explain, but I felt it on him.”

August’s expression was contemplative. “Did it feel like this?”

He drew the gold-and-white pommeled dagger out from midair and floated it toward her, where it rotated in place. Almost immediately, she was assaulted by the dagger’s vile magic. She slapped her hand across her mouth, vomit rising fast, and nodded.

“It is likely you felt the residue of this dagger’s magic on Tuom. It’s quite potent.” August stored the dagger away, and once it disappeared, the nausea vanished.

“What is it?”

“I am not sure. It’s unlikely it’s a curse. We ran the diagnostics on you when we first patched you up, and nothing registered. I have Erick researching the dagger; it’s unique enough that I'm certain it has a history. Until then, we’ll be observing you, and I’d like to ask you to submit to weekly diagnostic tests.”

Yareli mulled over his words. She didn’t feel like anything was wrong with her, but it couldn’t hurt to be careful. She agreed to the weekly testing.

There was a pregnant pause as if August had more to say, but was struggling to find the words.

He ran his hand through his hair again—a habit she was starting to pick up on—and leveled his gaze at her. “I’m sorry.”

She cocked her head, confused about the sudden apology.

“I promised to keep you safe, and I failed. I should have been there to protect you from Tuom.”

His voice was hard, cut from the coldest steel, but the soft look in his eyes spoke of a different story. He was like a caramel candy, hard on the outside with a soft inside. Something about the apology made her uncomfortable, but she couldn’t put herfinger on it. A memory bobbed at the surface of her mind, and she fished for it. Her fingers brushed against it, feeling—rather than seeing—the sourness of disappointment. Then, the memory slipped between her fingers, returning to the lake of locked memories. She shook her head, clearing the remnants of the memory away, and shrugged.