Page 79 of Throne of Ice and Blood
Once again, she frowns deeply in what looks like genuine confusion. “What do you mean all of you?”
I just stare back at her, equally bewildered. “How did they manage to conquer us when our ancestors controlled them all with dragon steel?”
For another few seconds, we only stare at each other. A strong fall wind sweeps past on the lawn outside, making the tree branches rattle and scrape against the window.
“Malachi’s balls,” she says at last, a curse using the name of our Goddess Mabona’s dark counterpart, Malachi, the King of Hell and Mabona’s former lover. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
“What?” I demand, my heart now beating even harder.
She leans back in her seat again and watches me, as if she’s seeing me with new eyes. “Yes, most of the Seelie fae were dragon riders. But only a small portion of them used dragon steel to bend the shifters to their will. The rest were voluntary and mutually beneficial partnerships between fae and dragon shifters.”
I think my ears are ringing. “What… what are you saying?”
“Only a small minority used dragon steel. Mostly the disgruntled and entitled ones who had been deemed unworthy by the dragon shifters and been rejected when they asked them about a partnership the traditional way.”
“A small minority…” It feels as if someone set off an explosion right next to me, and I was just hit with the massive shock wave.
“Yes.”
“A small minority,” I repeat. My heart is pounding. It feels like my whole world is tilting on its axis, turning everything upside down, and I have to grip the edge of the table so that I don’t fall off the chair. “They have spent millennia punishingeveryonein the Seelie Court because of something that a few entitled assholes did?”
“Well, to be fair, dragon shifters are among the most fierce and proud races, and they did not take kindly to being mind-controlled. And they have very long memories. If anyone can hold a grudge longer than an Unseelie fae, it’s a dragon shifter.”
But I can barely hear her over the sound of my own pounding heart and the shattering of my whole world view.
A sob rips from my chest. “I have suffered my entire life because of something that my ancestors might not even have done?”
All my life, people have been telling me things about myself. Telling me that I will only ever be able to have one child. That I am a descendant of wicked people. That all fae are inherently evil. ThatIam evil.
And I just… believed them.
I believed them when they told me all of that. I believed them when they told me that we broke a treaty and betrayed all the dragon shifters when we found the dragon steel. That the dragon shifters did the right thing when they punished all of our wicked ancestors.
Gripping the edge of the table harder, I suck in desperate breaths. But it barely feels as if any oxygen is making it into my lungs.
Every day, I find out something else that turns my world upside down. Every day, I learn that everything I thought I knew is false. That the world is different from what I have been taught.
Goddess above, I can’t breathe. I can’t?—
Loud pounding comes from the front door.
My heart leaps into my throat, and I jump up from the chair.
With great effort, I shove all of my panic and confusion and heartbreak over what Nysara has told me to the back of my mind. I can’t afford to think about that right now. I need to focus on what I came here to do. Isera, Lavendera, Alistair, and I need a way out of the city. That is what is most important right now. Not all the lies that I have been told about myself.
“Nysara,” a male voice calls from the other side of the door. He sounds worried rather than angry. “Are you there?”
“Malachi’s balls,” Nysara curses, annoyance flitting across her beautiful features as she gets to her feet. “It’s my neighbor. My overly worried and very much in love with me neighbor.” Raising a slender arm, she points towards the other side of the house while she strides back into the hallway. “Go out the back door.”
I scramble after her into the hallway. “But my request. Will you help us?—”
“Yes. If you can get here after you escape the castle, I can cast a temporary glamour to make you all look like dragon shifters so that you can get out of the city.”
Skidding to a halt on the floor of the hallway, I jerk back in shock as I find the blond dragon shifter woman from before standing there in front of me instead of Nysara.
However, her voice is still the same when she demands, “When are you escaping?”
“Nysara,” the man outside calls again. He sounds on the verge of hysteria. “Please say something. Are you injured? Do I need to break the door down?”
