The new king grinned. “Ryn, you’re more powerful than you know.” He sobered and looked me in the eye, all traces of humor gone. “When you turn eighteen, you will be unstoppable.”
The thought made me uncomfortable. Despite Irrik’s theory, I wasn’t really sure he was right. I didn’t feel like a Drae or someone who would soon become a Drae. Though . . . I hadn’t believed I was Phaetyn at first either.
Cal released my hand and stood, casting a look at Irrik.
The Drae had been watching our exchange with sharp eyes, and he shifted his gaze from me to the king.
King Caltevyn smiled. “Lord Irrik, you are no longer tied to my father’s house. I release you from your blood oath to the house of Ir. You are no longer to be called Irrik . . .”
Irrik’s eyes widened, and he flinched as he turned back to me. The color drained from his face as the king finished speaking.
“You revert to your own house now, Lord Tyrrik.”
Lord . . . Tyrrik.
The stunned silence gave me ample time to put it together. I turned toward Tyr’s decapitated head again, taking two steps toward it before clutching the sides of my head and whirling back.
“Tyrrik,” I shrieked. “No.” I chanted my denial over and over again, pressing my knuckles into my mouth with bruising force. “No,” I gasped again.
Black agony filled my chest, and I looked up to Irrik, willing him to assure me that I’d misunderstood. Certainly, he wouldn’t have deceived me, betrayed me, like that.
His face was a smooth canvas, blank of all emotion. Void of everything.
“You,” I choked, unable to articulate the storming thoughts in my head through the ripping hurt inside.
Something torn flashed in his dark eyes, and then I watched as the darkness came to him, wrapping around him, shrouding him. My throat constricted as he became a hooded figure, slightly shorter, with light stubble lining his jaw. His eyes and most of his nose were beneath a shadowed mask. I looked down at his hands, but he had no reason to change them. His fingers were long, and my eyes burned with tears as I remembered their gentle touch.
His lips on mine.
His tender treatment and whispers of love.
“Tyr,” I said, choking on my sob. Through my tears, I glared at the Drae, my heart freshly shredded by his betrayal. “You were pretending. You were Tyr this whole time.”
A loud whining noise filled my head, and a blinding-white light exploded across my vision. I clutched my chest, feeling as if, at any moment, my ribs would shatter from the hurt.
“Yes,” the Drae spoke.
Except it wasn’t in his voice.
It was Ty’s voice. My dungeon buddy’s. Not raspy because acid had been poured down his throat or because he was a Druman spy. Raspy because it came from the partially shifted throat of Lord Irrik. “You were Ty, too?” I choked.
Ty. Tyr. Tyrrik. He’d lied to me this entire time.
He stepped closer. “The king ordered me to get information out of you by posing as a prisoner.”
“You told him the rebels were coming? You betrayed us?”
“I didn’t have a choice. I did what I could to get around the blood oath. I did what I could to be there for you and help you without endangering you. But as soon as the king’s life was placed in danger, my oath compelled me to tell him.”
“Then why ask me to contact Cal in the first place?” I shouted at the unmoving Drae.
His body vibrated. “Because I needed to get you out, but not while I was still under Irdelron’s control. He would’ve sent me to retrieve you. I had to find a way to break the oath so you could be truly free, and you were the only way to do that. Drae cannot kill Drae. I thought I could play both sides and manipulate the oath without too many people getting hurt.”
I snorted. He’d killed hundreds because of his game.
“You were wasting away before my eyes,” he said hoarsely. “I couldn’t bear it.”
“That whole time I thought Jotun was hurting Ty, and you’re telling me that was all one huge lie? Do you know how much time I spent worrying he would never come back?”
He dropped his gaze to the floor.
“Do you?” I choked. Irrik had been Ty. Ty hadn’t been a Druman at all. He wasn’t real. The thought pierced through the cloud of disbelief inside me.
And if Ty wasn’t real . . . My eyes landed on the head I’d assumed was Tyr’s. I let out a hollow sound.
Tyr isn’t real, either.
I fell to my knees. “Why would you do this?” When he didn’t answer, I screamed, “Why did you do it?”
I sobbed, digging my nails into my skin as though clawing to reach my heart.
“Ticho teraz, moja láska. Ste v bezpe?í,” the Drae said in his language. Then he placed his hand on my arm, and in my mind Tyr spoke, I will always keep you safe, my love.
Safe? His words were a slap, and anger surged within me hot and swift.
“Keep me safe?” I asked shrilly, pushing him away from me.
Cal and Dyter stood back, watching the exchange with matching expressions of bafflement, but I had no time or inclination to explain anything right then.
I turned on the Drae and continued my verbal assault. “You manipulated me,” I shouted, my body burning with rage. A heartbroken cry escaped my lips, and I pressed my trembling fingers against them. “You used me. Y-y—”
I stared up at Irrik and marveled that his expression was still smooth. Uncaring. How was I so affected and he felt nothing?
I crossed to him, lifting my hand, and slapped him before I knew what I was doing. But I did know he could have moved if he’d wished. He kept his face averted after the slap, but I wasn’t done. My chest heaved, and I hurled my whispered accusation at him, my voice breaking, “You made me fall in love with him. How could you?”
He stayed turned away. Unflinching. Unmoving. Unfeeling. How could he have played Tyr? How could he be Ty, too? They were figments of his imagination. There would be no saving my dungeon buddy. Whoever that head belonged to, it wasn’t my Tyr. But he was still dead.
Worse than dead.
He’d never existed.
Tears poured down my cheeks. Salty, disbelieving, excruciating, tears. There was no word for this kind of pain.
“He wasn’t real,” I said, staring at the Drae. My heart was shredded and the coward wouldn’t even face me. Snarling with disgust, I snapped, “None of it was real.”
Only then did a tear escape his soulless, empty eyes and trickle down over his sculpted cheekbones and clenched jaw. But still, Lord Tyrrik said nothing.
I turned away and told myself I felt nothing inside, either.
33
I left then. I walked out of the castle through the front door, once I found it, with nothing but the clothes on my back and Ty’s dagger. After I remembered the blade and aketon were his, I scrambled out of the blue uniform and threw it and the dagger away with as much strength as I could muster.