He half turns so he’s facing me and Brekken and Marcus and Sal, and pitches his voice to carry. “I’m sorry. For showing up here unannounced, and for the rest of it.”
“You betrayed us,” Brekken says.
I’ve never heard his voice like this, colder than ice and sharper than an arctic wind. I’ve never seen him like this, absolutely still and coiled like a snake set to strike. It’s scarier than watching him fight the Silver Prince’s guards and the guards in Winterkill. It’s one thing to know someone is a soldier and another to see that side take over. In this moment, Brekken seems like a stranger, the gentle boy I love so much gone and someone else stepped into his skin.
“You used us to get to the phoenix flame armor, and you stole it.”
Nahteran doesn’t argue. “I did.”
Silence covers us all, deep and dense despite the normal summer sounds, the chirping of birds and the buzzing of insects in the trees. Those sounds feel muffled, distant. Someone might have dropped a globe over the six of us.
Then Taya pivots and quietly heads back toward the car. My heart plummets, and I want to run after her, but I don’t dare move when there are weapons drawn. I don’t want Nahteran to get hurt, regardless of what he’s done or not done, yet we feel balanced on a knife’s edge.
But Taya doesn’t leave. Instead she opens the door to the back seat and leans in to retrieve something. When she comes out, the silence seems to deepen even further. She has the chest piece of the phoenix flame armor in one hand, a backpack in the other, inside which I can see the two gauntlets glittering.
He didn’t give it to the Silver Prince.
“Nahteran found me,” Taya says, and though everyone is looking at us, her eyes are on me. She’s speaking to me alone. “Maddie, he used the armor to come find me in Solaria.”
He found Taya. A profound relief fills me as her words sink in. Nahteran didn’t betray us. He stole the armor, but not out of malice. Not to give it to the Silver Prince. He stole it to do what I couldn’t find a way to do. He found Taya. He brought her back.
But …
Taya’s expression isn’t right. Her eyes are fixed downward on the armor—careful not to let the pieces touch. Her shoulders tense, and her mouth is pressed in a flat line. She looks like she’s dreading something. And even though I wish Brekken would put his damn sword away, I know there’s something I’m missing. With a jolt of queasy unease, I remember those last moments in Winterkill’s fortress. How when Nahteran took Mom’s gauntlet from me and joined it with the rest of the armor, that’s when he was able to open the door using my blood.
“What else?” I blurt out.
Everyone looks at me in confusion. I go over to Taya. The gravel crunching under my feet feels ten times heavier than normal, like her dread is contagious. As I approach, she holds the armor out for me to take, but I don’t want that. I want to tilt her face up to the light, to look into her eyes and understand.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Taya doesn’t speak. She just looks over at Nahteran, and he’s the one who answers.
“I just got a message from the Silver Prince,” he says, slowly and quietly, like each word is painful to get out. “Maddie … he has Mom.”
17
Everything becomes kind of a blur for a while. Later, I’ll remember standing out on the road, all of us frozen with horror while Mirror Lake glitters serenely in the background. I’ll remember sitting with Nahteran and Taya and Marcus and Graylin in Marcus’s office, listening to Nahteran explain, while Brekken and Sal guard the door.
But I’ll recall nothing of the in-between, except for Brekken pulling me aside for a second before we all went downstairs. Whispering to me.
Maddie, don’t trust him.
Now, we’ve all pulled up chairs around Marcus’s big oak desk. My brother—can I still call him that?—insisted on a private place to show us the Silver Prince’s message.
It stings. All of it. Nahteran came back, didn’t he? But why didn’t he tell us what he was going to do? Why make us think he betrayed us? And why do I want to trust him now, even after what’s happened?
While all of this is running through my head, another drama is silently unfolding at the table.