Page 101 of Omen of ice
“Okay…” My head begins to throb. “Why does it feel like your head is about to explode?”
“Because it’s something I should have told you about. I wanted to, but, the truth is, I was worried about how you would react. I couldn’t stand the thought of lo—” He cuts off abruptly.
“You’re making me nervous.” I get to my feet, and he backs away several steps. His emotions and his thoughts are all over the place. I can’t get a solid read on anything other than that he’s terrified of what he’s about to say.
“Your people are wrong. The history they base their lives on? The bond they’ve fostered all these thousands of years? It’s all a lie.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Servis didn’t honor Aphelian. At least, not in the end. He betrayed her.”
A chill that starts at the base of my spine claws its way up, swallowing every inch of me. “You’re wrong. Servis would never betray Aphelian. What in the Goddess’s name makes you think that?”
“I found proof. I heard the truth.”
“What proof could you have possibly—”
“I found the tear, Tania. The one that Aphelian used to loan the druid magic to the Winter Court.”
What he’s saying is impossible, and I would have written it off as exhaustion if I didn’t feel the truth of it pulsing through the link. Still, to accept what he’s saying… “That’s not possible, Valen. Whatever it is you found, you must be wrong. Confused—”
“I’m not. Liani told me everything.” He frowns. “Well, not everything. There are still quite a few holes, actually. But the basic fact is there. The druid power—the tear Aphelian lent us—sits in a vault in the Winter Court estate. It was never destroyed. Isawit.”
“That’s— No.”
“It’s true. I wish it wasn’t, but it is. Servis wasn’t the man you thought he was. He betrayed the druids. He betrayed Aphelian.”
The entire mountain begins to spin.
“When I found it, I…I touched it. I think that’s how we’ve been able to tap into the druid power. I poured a small amount onto the tip of my finger. It soaked in and—”
A million tiny voices whisper inside my head, from denial to furious threats and everything in between. I lash out, grabbing the nearest tree so I don’t topple over as my vision swims. “When? When did you find this out?”
He’s quiet, and I know this isn’t a secret he uncovered right before we fled the estate. This is the thing he’s been hiding from me. He’s known for a while.
“All the guilt I’ve been feeling… It was this,” I say. I force in a breath. It feels like a million blades scraping down my throat. “How long have you known?”
He opens his mouth, but instead of answering, he shakes his head slowly.
“Answer me!” I snap, trying hard to keep my voice low. Delkin and Benj stir, and Daroose rolls onto his side, but we’re still alone. “Tell me how long you knew.”
“It was weeks. I found the tear weeks before we left the estate.” Regret swirls between us, but the anger I feel washes it away.
“You— Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
He reaches for my hand, but I swat his away.
He isn’t the one who betrayed the druids. He never even met Servis. Still, his neglecting to tell me is a betrayal in its own right. It’s a betrayal of my trust. The one person I’m supposed to be able to trust implicitly kept something world-changing from me. Something that could have shifted the existence of all my people.
“This tear—the magic—it’s at the estate?”
Not only did he know about Servis’s betrayal and the tear, but he hasn’t offered to give it back. It’s rightfully ours, and I’ll see it restored. By any means.
“Yes. In the basement. I—”
“Then when this is finished, I will bring an army to take it back.”
