46. Byron

46

BYRON

W ords failed me, leaving only a sensation of falling. Like, in an instant, I’d run straight off a cliff after suicidally concluding I didn’t need the ground after all.

And now as I stared at Ignatius, the taste of Gwyneira’s lips still on mine, I was left with only one truth—one so simple its description was worthy of Clay.

I was fucked.

“It’s not what you think,” Gwyneira said, fear and urgency in her beautiful voice. She knew what this meant, perhaps more viscerally than anyone else could, considering our shared memories. She knew what I’d just lost.

Ignatius didn’t say a word.

Never taking my eyes from the larger giant, I took Gwyneira’s arm and pulled her behind my back. It wasn’t that I actually believed she was in danger from the scholar. The reaction was instinctive, a need to protect her that transcended any rational evaluation of the threat.

No, the scholar wouldn’t harm her .

Me, he would eviscerate. Not with swords or knives, but with words and disgust. With excommunication. Because no matter what respect he may have shown me in the past few days, I’d just violated all my vows and become exactly what scholars like him had always said I was.

Weak.

Incapable of honor or integrity.

A shame to the Order.

“Please,” Gwyneira persisted, using her vampire strength to pull away from my grip and move into view of the old scholar once more. “He’s never broken his vows, and he wouldn’t?—”

Ignatius raised a hand, his eyes never leaving me, and despite the fact she was nobility and outranked him, my beautiful princess fell silent, casting an anxious glance in my direction.

It hurt. I never wanted to cause her to worry, and yet she did, all because of what I was about to endure.

Gods, I’d send her away if I thought she’d go.

“Do you believe in the Order?” Ignatius asked me, his quiet words nevertheless seeming loud in the silence of the ruined library.

I refused to tremble. To cower. “With all my heart.”

A brief chuckle left him, the corner of his lip rising. It was not a kind expression. “Do not lie, boy.”

My jaw clenched. A new feeling simmered below my worry, my dread. It was hot. Burning. It had no name, no shape. But it chewed up from my gut into my chest, scorching everything to ash.

“I don’t lie.” I bit off the words.

Ignatius was silent.

It was worse than any insult.

“I served.” Fury thickened my voice. “ Every . Single . Day . Even when I thought I might be the only scholar left in the world, I kept the rituals. The ceremonies. I held true to my vows because I believed?—”

“Enough.”

“No!”

Ignatius’s brow rose at my shout.

“No,” I repeated in a lower voice. “You spent years making my childhood hell. Denying me even the most basic respect because of how I was born. And only now that there is no one else left do you offer me the respect that should have been mine all along.” My body quivered with rage as I nodded to Gwyneira, never taking my eyes from him. “This is my treluria. We were chosen for one another by fate and the gods themselves. I love her with everything I am. But because I gave into that love for one fucking moment, you’d strip away everything I’ve fought to uphold for my entire life and disrespect me yet again. ”

Ignatius’s expression didn’t change. “One moment is all it takes for the truth to emerge.”

Outrage burned me alive from the inside, turning my voice into a snarl I barely recognized. “I could have served a thousand lifetimes, and it still wouldn’t have been enough to prove my worth to you.”

“No.”

The agreement was simple. As plain and honest as the sun in a winter sky.

And to hear it out loud…

Something snapped around my heart, falling away like the metal shards of a restraint I’d kept in place for far too long. “ You are the disgrace to the Order.” Contempt filled my voice. “Not me.”

Taking Gwyneira’s hand, I started for the door, determined to shove past him if that was what it took. I was done with this wretched old man who, like so many others, had driven me to doubt myself for so many years. I was done with the belief I only needed to work harder, do better, in order to earn something they never would have truly given.

“I agree.”

Ignatius’s even response stopped me in my tracks. I turned, staring. “What?”

“I was the disgrace. Not you.”

What was he playing at?

As if seeing my shock, his brow rose and fell with tired irony. “Twenty years in a cage will teach you a few things, son. Things about others. About yourself. I held so many ironclad beliefs before the Aneiran war that were misguided.” He paused, and chagrin crossed his face as he amended, “ Bigoted . I used my supposed learning to convince myself and others that you were lesser, when in truth, it was myself who was the lesser.”

This… this was a dream. I’d had ones like them as a child, when the pain of rejection and bullying became too much to bear, and my mind would try to comfort itself with fantasies.

But I never believed I’d experience anything like them in real life.

Old regret filled Ignatius’s expression. “Character is everything. It transcends appearance, station, and circumstances. It defines more about a person than any other factor in their lives, and yet I could not see that. I thought the outside defined the inside, when in reality, the inside holds the power. A person can be born in the lowest of circumstances and have greater integrity, honor, and trustworthiness than the highest person in the land. To judge someone on what you think they are rather than seeing them as an individual and having the humility to believe you don’t actually know everything…” He shook his head. “It is the definition of ignorance. Berinlian would be ashamed that I dared to call myself his scholar.”

I stared, utterly speechless.

“And the… the mines taught you this?” Gwyneira said as if carefully choosing her words.

Ignatius’s gaze turned briefly to the corridor as if looking past the walls to the other giants.

Or perhaps to the giants who’d lived and died here long ago.

“Over and over again, yes. In the mines I learned more than I had in decades with the Order—perhaps most importantly that I, esteemed scholar and keeper of the wisdom of Berinlian, was in reality little more than a frightened old man who had been a fool for far too long.”

He turned back to me. “And I am sorry.”

I was speechless.

“In that case,” my precious treluria began carefully, as if testing out a political opponent in court. “Once the threat of the Voidborn is gone, may he take his place with you and rebuild the Order?”

Even as my heart ached for how she so relentlessly supported me, I braced myself. Throughout my life among the scholars, I’d learned not to immediately put faith in a monk’s kind words.

They could too easily be a lure designed to make me miss a coming trap.

And as certainly as the sunrise broke the grip of night, Ignatius’s mouth tightened with misgiving. “I believe he has a new calling now.”

My heart sank. That was it, then. One brief moment, and the faith around which I’d built my life would no longer recognize me as its own.

“The most secret and precious of Berinlian’s teachings spoke of the legend of the Nine,” Ignatius said. “Of the warriors who would rise up to save our world. But the hearts of those warriors must not be divided because of their own internal conflict. For this reason, my son, your time with the Order must end.”

“But the prophecy isn’t forever,” Gwyneira protested. “Surely he could?—”

“No.” Ignatius’s brow rose in a pointed look. “But that also doesn’t mean Byron’s place with us is gone.”

My pain turned to confusion. Beside me, Gwyneira’s expression reflected the same.

“Destiny calls each of you to become the Nine,” Ignatius said. “Of that, I have no doubt. And your heart calls you to her. To fight against your heart while also fighting for the fate of the world…” He made a soft sound of disbelief. “Thus, just as I needed to change, so too does the Order’s understanding of the vows Berinlian told us to swear. After all, how true is a pursuit of knowledge if it requires us to seal ourselves away from the fullness of life itself?”

I trembled. “We seal ourselves away for the purpose of focus. Of dedication.”

Gods, I didn’t know if I was pleading for him to prove or disprove what I’d believed all my life.

A rueful smile touched Ignatius’s face. “Seal anything away for too long and it becomes weak, not strong.”

“So,” Gwyneira said as if wanting to hear it with her own ears. “Byron can explore this side of himself and stay in the Order too?”

Ignatius nodded. “He will be Berinlian’s strong sword arm in this fight, for you and for all of us.” His gray eyes met mine firmly. “You will always have a place in the Order, Byron. Our doors will always welcome you as a brother. But you are now the champion of the Order, not its monk. You and your allies are the hope of this world. Your heart need no longer be divided.”

I couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be true.

Oh gods, let it be true.

“Th-thank you.” I fought to hold my voice steady and mostly failed.

Ignatius bowed his head. “And thank you for enduring despite a foolish old man’s bigotry.”

I couldn’t speak.

Smiling a bit, he started away and then glanced back at Gwyneira. “Come find me in the morning. I have some ideas on how to reach your allies and marshal your army.”

Her mouth fell open, soundless, but before she could say anything, he walked out of the library, carefully closing the door behind him.

Barely feeling as if my body itself was real, I turned to Gwyneira.

She was smiling, the expression a mix of hope and happiness for me.

Yet questions were there too. The ones I’d seen live and die a thousand times in her eyes.

Was I okay? Did I want this? Did I want her?

I knew exactly how to respond.