Now, he didn’t mind them. He got to fall through the black sky again and again, seeing the same visions his power promised. Seeing ones that had happened already...and ones that still hadn’t come true yet.
Until now,Kinlear thought, as a smile crept across his lips.I captured a raphon.
It had taken months of work. Months of research and conversations and in some cases, bribery, to get other Sacred to agree with what he saw fit. Gods, he was pleased, when the tortured darksouls revealed information heknewto be true because of his dreams.
They needed a raphon to get to the other side.
They’d captured one, so now, the very best of his visions could finally take shape for him.
“Sir! Take the horse,please!”
He ignored the young servant trailing behind him on horseback—his father, damn the stubborn king, never let Kinlear go anywhere alone outside the Citadel’s cold halls.
Not because he cared for Kinlear’ssafety.
No, the King of Lordach sent a shadow at Kinlear’s back because he found the spare prince to be an embarrassment.
The latest Sacred servant, truly no larger than Kinlear’s pinky finger, would be there to scoop him up, should Kinlear’s sickness send him to his knees.
Sometimes, he swore he was back in Touvre. Young and weak and so unaware of the Veilborne power lurking inside his veins, until the gods sent Magus to him.
He still carried the Veilblade on his hip like a lifeline.
An anchor.
A promise.
“Sir, you’ll catch your death out here!”
“I don’t know that it’s me we should be worried about,” Kinlear said to no one, and tossed a smug look over his shoulder as the youngling struggled to guide the pony beneath him.
Gods, did his father truly think this boy could lift even a book, let alone a lifeless Laroux?
Not that it mattered.
Kinlear wouldn’t die tonight. He knewthatwith certainty. He’d seen far past this moment, and it would not be his end.
You didn’t see Soraya,his conscious hissed.
Ah.
Thatwas a thought that often stung him. His shoulders sank a bit. His grip on his cane tightened.
To be a Veilborne was not to seeeverything.He’d learned that the hard way and quickly paid his own penance for it more times than he cared to admit, becausehe missed it.
Not just the large-scale facts, but the close-up ones. The details that truly mattered. If he’d paid better attention, if he’d just looked a little bit closer...
Maybe he would have noticed thatSorayawas the distant shadow Arawn chased after in his dreams.
He hated his brother for not getting to her on time. For not saving her before she died.
It was easier that way.
Easier to place blame on someone else, tohatethem for it...when the person most at fault washim.
Kinlear crested the hill and found himself in the shadow of the Sacred Circle. He shivered as the wind whistled between the towering obelisks. It bit at him, despite the warming runes he’d marked on his cloak with his Veilblade just hours ago.
He glanced to the right, where the battle went on. Where the Sawteeth stood beneath the shadowstorm...and the only way to see it was to look upon the Expanse. The place that brought about Soraya’s death.
