I shook my head, trying and failing to process the revelation. In all my conversations with Cindrissian he’d never once mentioned it. “I guess I never thought about it. You two don’t look alike.”
“Different mothers,” Fenric explained with a shrug. “But the same sharp mind. He’ll be invaluable in preparing you for this meeting.”
“Did you grow up together?”
“For a time,” Fenric said, nodding. “Our father raised us both.”
That wasn’t the answer I’d expected.
“Cindrissian was… sent to Nyxaria at thirteen,” Fenric added quietly.
My heart clenched at the thought. At the memory of Cindrissian explaining exactly why that had been done to him.
“Tomorrow evening.” Fenric cut off any chance of further questioning. “My chambers. We’ll go over everything.”
I nodded, shelving my curiosity for later. “When is the meeting?”
Darian and Fenric exchanged a glance, a silent message passing between them.
“We didn’t discuss that yet,” Fenric admitted, his tone measured. “We needed to confirm with Varyth first.”
“But I suspect no more than a fortnight,” Darian added. “Gives both sides enough time to arrange themselves.”
Two weeks.
I exhaled, the weight of it settling on my shoulders. I nodded, trying to keep my expression neutral. “Alright. I’ll be ready.”
Varyth’s eyes raked over me. “You will be.” He nodded. “We’ll make sure of it.”
A thread of unease curled through me, but I ignored it as I inclined my head. “I should leave you to discuss the rest.”
Fenric barely glanced at me, already turning toward Varyth with some logistical concern. Darian, at least, gave me a quick grin, as if to saygood luck, though whether he meant it sincerely or in amusement, I wasn’t sure.
Varyth’s gaze caught mine across the room, and something flickered in those eyes—frustration, heat, whatever it was, made my pulse kick against my throat like a caged thing.
“We’ll finish this conversation later,” he said, and the words were casual enough on the surface, but underneath there was steel. A promise. A threat. Something that made my skin prickle even as my mind screamed at me to run. “When we’re not beinginterrupted.”
The emphasis on that last word was directed at Darian and Fenric, both of whom had the grace to look somewhat apologetic. Somewhat.
I didn’t trust my voice, so I just nodded and fled.
The corridor outside was blessedly empty, the pre-dawn stillness wrapping around me like a shroud. My bare feet made no sound against the floor as I moved away from Varyth’s chambers, away from the heat of him and the memory of hishands on my skin, away from the catastrophic mess I’d somehow created in the space of a few hours.
My mind was a riot of competing disasters, each one screaming for attention.
The meeting. Gods, themeeting. I’d opened my mouth and inserted myself directly into the middle of a political nightmare. What the fuck had I been thinking? I didn’t know anything about court politics or diplomacy or how to sit in a room with a High Lord who’d spent gods knew how long trying to kill everyone I’d come to care about.
The Shadow Drask. Even the title sent ice down my spine. Whatever history lay between Varyth and Nyxaria’s ruler, it was ugly enough that just mentioning him had turned the room into a minefield of tension and unspoken violence.
And I’d volunteered to walk into a room with him. Brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it.
The worst of it was the guilt currently eating through my chest like acid, carving out spaces where air should be and filling them with the memory of Navaire’s face. The way he’d smiled when he handed me a new blade, still warm from the forge. The soot perpetually staining his hands. The rough scrape of his voice when he’d whispered my name in the dark.
I love you,he’d said.Whatever happens, remember that.
And what had I done? Let another man’s hands map my body. Let myself melt into Varyth’s touch like I was made for it. Let myselfwantit, crave it, with an intensity that made me want to claw my own skin off.
