An unknown passage of time, a long, quiet moment suspended in the salt-laced air, went by before Orion's focus returned from the abyss of his thoughts.
"You are wrong."
The words were spoken calmly, cutting through the sound of Vorluk's weeping.
"I may be the devil you name me, but I am not the root of this calamity."
Orion's gaze was hard as forged steel. "Think, Vorluk. If Marina had never met me, what fate awaited her? Handed from one master to another like a treasured cup, her beauty a curse that would have invited endless humiliation. She would have been broken by a thousand cruelties or driven to take her own life."
He spoke with absolute certainty. She had already been offered up as a gift by the dragons; her path was never destined for a happy end.
