One who should have been dead.
After all this time, Kyros had found me.
Chapter 34
Everly
Irealized my mistake half a second too late. Only when Draven’s mana surged toward the winged fae on a cloud of rage, when the Skaldwing raised his hands with all the humility his brother had never shown, did reason catch up to my thundering heartbeat.
Not Kyros. Hadn’t Draven told me the sociopath who tortured me was dead by his hand?
Draven and I never talked about my time with the Skaldwings, so he didn’t know Kyros had a twin. Though, even if he had known, I wasn’t sure it would have stopped him when a Skaldwing snuck up on us in the place where they had slaughtered his parents.
Don’t.I hurled the word into his mind with all the force I could muster, and Draven shifted his mana at the last second, waves of ice careening around Kaelen without quite touching him.
It’s not him,I thought toward my furious husband, trying to quell down the visceral memory of that same face taunting me while a blade sliced into my skin.It’s his twin.
You aren’t making a case to keep him alive.
“I’m not here to hurt you… like he did.” Kaelen’s voice sounded pained at the mention of his brother, or at the frigid gale that swept through the pass. “I just want to talk. I have soldiers with me, but I’ve instructed them to stay back.”
He cocked his head toward the treeline where shapes were hovering just above the pines, intentionally visible. They were out of earshot… and out of the reach of Draven’s mana, a tenuous balance of trust and a warning.
I didn’t come here alone, but I’m not trying to trick you into believing I did, either.
And he had acknowledged what his brother did. Had my mother told him the truth about what happened? Or had he put it together, his brother’s hatred and subsequent disappearance on the night I vanished as well?
I could feel the suspicion emanating from Draven’s side of the bond, along with the fury he couldn’t quite quell at seeing the face of the male he had found standing over my broken body, wielding the knife that had brought me to the brink of death.
We are not our family, Draven. And if he wanted to hurt us, he wouldn’t have let us hear him approach.
Kaelen was a warrior in his own right. He could move silently, or he could have flown instead of crunching across the ice.
Regardless, we don’t have time. Nevara is dying and we still haven’t found the Korythid.
So we hurry, but we need to hear what he has to say. What if he knows about my mother?
Besides…I thought of Kaelen’s words, all those months ago around a campfire.
The treatment of Seelie here in the Wilds is nothing but filth masquerading as tradition. A misguided and disgusting attempt at vengeance directed at the least deserving… there ismore to the Skaldwings than you seem to remember. We can change it.
I realized a heartbeat too late that adding the last part was a mistake, since it didn’t take a genius to know how Kaelen had been proposing that we change things. Still, I hoped his feelings on the slaves would be enough to stay my husband’s hand.
Draven arched an eyebrow, surveying Kaelen with a mix of interest and disdain. Finally, he let out an impatient huff.
Very well, but I can’t promise my mana won’t slip if he refers to the two of you as a ‘we’ ever again.
I might have smiled, if I weren’t still fighting to breathe in the presence of the male who looked so, so much like my tormentor. I studied him, trying to find subtle differences. His ears were free of adornment, and his eyes held a warmth, a life, that his brother’s had lacked.
More than that, he looked… older than I remembered either him or Kyros looking. Or maybe just more tired. His skin was wan, and purple half-moons hung underneath his golden eyes. The shadows cast by his marbled wings highlighted the worry lines creasing his tanned skin.
“What do you want?” Draven didn’t go off his guard, but he withdrew his mana enough that Kaelen slowly lowered his hands, fixing his attention on me.
“Your mother sent me.”
My lips parted. She was alive… and this was the first time she had made contact.
Warring feelings swirled in my gut. Relief that she was alive, hurt that once again, she had let me doubt that for reasons only she understood.
