‘He did,’ Kai replied. ‘There were three brothers. But something happened, years ago, and they stopped speaking. My uncle—the thirdborn—lives in the north now, in a small castle he rarely leaves. He spends his days reading scrolls and books, buried in words.’
‘And the other?’
Kai’s jaw tightened. ‘Being secondborn is more complicated than it seems. If you fail in your duty to protect your monarch, it’s a disgrace. A stain on your bloodline. My other uncle... He was stripped of his title. No one knows where he is now.’
‘What happened to him?’
Kai shrugged, the movement heavy with disinterest. ‘I’ve no idea. I never asked.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because my duty is to protect, witch,’ he said, meeting her gaze, voice edged with steel. ‘Not to ask so many bloody questions.’
Dawn chuckled, the sound light yet cutting, enough to make Kai tense. ‘I think you don’t ask because you’re afraid.’
Kai scoffed. ‘Afraid? Of what, exactly?’
‘Of the truth,’ she said simply. Her voice was calm, but laced with quiet challenge. ‘You’re afraid that if you ever discovered what really happened, the truth behind their quarrel, the reason your uncle was cast out, you might agree with him. And that frightens you, doesn’t it?’ She leaned in slightly, her stare unwavering. ‘Because perhaps, one day, you’ll find yourself in the same place, standing alone, judged by those you once called your own. Cast out for making a choice you believed was right.’
‘I already have been,’ Kai muttered. He turned his face from the surprise in hers. ‘My sister died. I was meant to protect her. That alone is enough to strip me of my title.’
‘But it wasn’t your fault.’
‘I knowthat.’ His voice trembled with restraint, the anger thick beneath it. He tried to keep it at bay, but it clawed at the edges. ‘It wasyourpeople’s fault,’ he said bitterly. ‘But to wyverians, that doesn’t matter. I failed in my duty. I didn’t protect her. That’s all they see. And for that, I deserve to be banished.’
He heard the shift in her breath, the quiet inhale, the soft sigh that followed. There was something reluctant in it, something heavy.
When he looked back at her, she wasn’t watching him anymore. She was staring into the fire, but her eyes—gods, those eyes—held a grief so raw and fathomless that it stole the breath from his lungs.
‘No one deserves to be banished, Kai,’ she said softly, almost to the flames.
Kai watched her in silence, the weight in his chest tightening, unnameable. He couldn’t say what it was. Grief, perhaps. Or guilt. Or something far more dangerous.
And just for a moment, he wondered if there was something more behind her words. Something meant for him alone.
…
‘Kai!’
The scream ripped through the night and tore him from sleep in an instant. Dawn’s voice rang in his mind like a bell struck too hard, too sudden. A sound that could only ever herald disaster. His eyes flew open, dark and sharp, scanning the clearing as his heart thundered in his chest.
But she wasn’t there.
The place by the fire where she’d lain only hours, no, moments ago was empty.
Gone.
Kai was on his feet before breath could fill his lungs.
Hook swords drawn in a flash of steel, he scanned the shadowed trees, every muscle taut with purpose. He lifted his head, inhaled.There. He moved like a whisper on the wind, silent and swift, his boots barely kissing the earth.
Then he saw them.
Just ahead, through the trees, five drakonian men were dragging Dawn, her limbs flailing, her mouth gagged by panic, her eyes wide with terror.
She had fallen asleep in her true form.
A savage curse escaped him under his breath, fury igniting through every vein. He should have made her cloak herselfin glamour, should have insisted she wear the mask of a wyverian. But he hadn’t. Because he knew how much she loathed it, how each time she was forced to wear a face that wasn’t her own, a little more of her soul splintered.
