“Your parents,” he said. “You’d never see them again.”
And that… well. That didn’t sit right. “Are you threatening my parents?” I asked him, my voice low.
“You’re the one that said he’d walk away.” He took a defensive stance.
“What is this?” I asked him again. “Why all the theatrics? What do you want?”
“Stay away from Ryan,” he said. “I don’t care what has happened between you. I don’t care what you think he is to you. You stay away from him.”
Ah. Because that makes sense. Unless he knew about Ryan’s position as my cornerstone, which would mean Morgan told him or someone else. Which frankly didn’t fly. Morgan was a man of secrets. Cornerstones were private business.
So the only thing that remained was my ridiculous crush on a man I would never have. And that I hadn’t been as subtle as I thought I’d been. Not-that-subtle and I were more than passing acquaintances.
“It’s not like that,” I said quietly.
“Bullshit,” Justin snarled. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. The way he looks at you.”
I laughed bitterly. “I assure you he sees me as nothing more than an annoyance. I didn’t even know he knew my name until the day I got back from the Dark Woods.”
“Trust me,” Justin said. “He’s known who you are for far longer than that.”
And before I could even begin to process what that meant, I said, “I’m leaving. For at least six months. You won’t have to see me.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve had to see the look on his face ever since you told him.”
“He’s my friend,” I said. “Nothing more.”
“He’s mine.”
“I know. Trust me. Everyone knows.”
He raised the sword again and I said, “Don’t.”
I thought fier and my fingers twitched and flexed and there was red and orange and I thought to push and push hard, but I pulled most of it back.
Justin gasped as the sword in his hand grew scalding. It fell to the ground, charring the grass underneath.
He said, “I’ll see you in the dungeon for this—” and I ignored him because the sheep began to bleat loudly among a low rumble.
I turned toward the hill where they’d been grazing.
They were running toward us, frantically calling out. I didn’t see a shepherd, unless he was on the other side of the hill.
Birds called out overhead. I looked up and they too were heading the direction of the sheep.
I felt the first ripple of something in my chest, like a pinprick of magic, dancing along my skin.
“What the hell?” Justin said, coming to stand next to me.
“Do you feel that?” I asked him, because the ground felt like it was shaking, almost like an earthquake.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It looks like—”
Then great wings appeared over the hill, rising up and falling down.
“It looks like a motherfucking dragon,” I said weakly. “We should probably run.”