Unleash it,his mind screamed.Unleash it or it will devour you!
He did not hear his brother’s next words to Brutus.
He did not hear anything but the cracklinghissof his fire...his magic...
As he uncoiled his fist and let it all go.
A ball of fire erupted from his hand. He held back his scream as ittoreitself away from him, all the heat leaving his body in a rush. It soared across the group, through the narrow gap between bodies, until it landed home with awhoosh.
Right against the dagger in Kinlear’s grip.
It clattered to the floor as Kinlear yelped and turned, dark curls in his eyes, to find Arawn standing there.
Arawn....
Who had finally found hismagic.
Smoke still trailed from his fingertips, morphing the space between them. And every eye was on him now, but he was not afraid.
He stared right at his brother, still kneeling on top of Brutus, as something deep within him seemed to spark to life.
“We do not harm our own,” Arawn said.
There was heat in his voice, heat on his tongue. Everything tasted like smoke.
He glared at Brutus, fire in his gaze as the boy scrambled out from beneath Kinlear, and then it felt like it was just the two of them.
One prince who had Settled. And the other...who had not.
“We donottreat each other with violence,” Arawn continued. He sounded like a prince.No,his mind whispered.A king.
And it was Vivorr’s power that thrummed inside of him as he looked at Kinlear.
Vivorr’s heatthat spurred him on, as he uttered words meant for his brother...because Kinlear had darkness inside of him. Arawn saw it, in the way he held that small, wooden blade. In the way Kinlear’s eyes had narrowed, and heknew,it if were real...
Kinlear would have killed Brutus.
So Arawn added, “We certainly don’t lower ourselves to the standards of the darksouls. We rise to glory and honor the Five.”
The room cheered, but he hardly heard it.
Instead, there was a new phrase thrumming in him and through him, one he felt like he’d been waiting for his entire life. It burned itself into him, left a mark upon his heart as it settled right there in his chest, beside the steps he would someday have to take when he took his father’s place. Beside the power of his pillared god.
I am Arawn Laroux.
Crown Prince.
Future King.
Firemage.
5
When the boys turned twelve, Kinlear’s illness became too much for the cold, frigid air of the north, and he was sent away.
He went south, to Touvre, to breathe in the warmth of their mother’s summer palace. Arawn stayed behind...the only Laroux prince that remained.
Those first days without his brother felt empty, his soul strangely disjointed, for Kinlear had always been Arawn’s soft landing place.
