“I don’t know how, but as soon as we get to Tempeste, I’m convincing the queen to let you keep the Triune.” I told him, breath exploding through my lips as I paced away, then right back. “I wasn’t lying when I said Anaria doesn’t have the authority to take them away. If anything, you should beking of this whole godsdamned realm, given you’re the oldest bloodline.”
And that, right there, was why this whole situation was fucked.
I didn’t know how, but I had to convince Anaria—Kaden Rooke was not a threat.
Rooke, who now dragged a mantle of power with him everywhere he went, magic drifting off his shoulders in choking waves, a glitter of gold to his eyes, like he’d been kissed by the stars, a reminder that he had fifteen millennia of power standing behind him.
Rooke, with his arrogance and inability to be humble, who Anaria would take one look at and decide…he was more than just a threat.
He was the rightful heir to the Fae throne.
“What if I don’t want to be king of the whole godsdamned realm?” Rooke lifted a dark brow, strands of hair blowing around his beautiful face. “Do you know how badly I want to kiss you right now?”
“Focus, Rooke.”
“Oh, trust me, I am.” Those soft-as-sin lips curled up into a lazy smile and I rolled my eyes.
“I mean focus on thefuture. I was sent here to confiscate the Triune, take it back to the Citadelle so Torin—she’s our seer—can lock them away forever. In fact, I swore a godsdamned oath to my queen to do exactly that. We both know they should remain here, with you, and you’re not even fighting for your birthright,” my voice broke.
“You’re notfighting, Rooke. Why?”
He dragged his knuckles down my cheek, slow, like time wasn’t running out. Slow enough to make my heart ache. “Why am I not fighting to hang onto some old relics?” hemused, with a hint of that cold arrogance. “That’s an excellent question, commander.”
Rooke had landed us up on the ramparts. He’d shed the Crown hours ago—but he still looked exhausted, dark circles beneath his eyes, though something about him seemed lighter, too. “Why do you think I’m not fighting to keep them, Lyrae?”
I knew what I wanted the reason to be, staring into his eyes.
I knew the words my thundering heart wanted to hear, with his scent curling around me like we were wrapped in a storm cloud.
“No idea,” I said flatly, rejecting the future I wanted with every cell of my being…because people like me…didn’t deserve a happy ending.
I stepped away as Ryland, Ari, and Var landed on the shore below us and we suddenly had a rapt audience of three, and my time had run out to convince him of…I didn’t know what, exactly, but I just felt like some important opportunity had just passed us by.
We watchedthe gray clouds swallow up the black dragon and golden wyvern, the small trio of forms clinging to their backs.
“Let’s hope this works,” Rooke murmured. “Picture your favorite place in the city, somewhere you go all the time, and wish you were there again. If this doesn’t work, I suppose I’ll end up looking like a fool, and I’ll never hear the fucking end of it.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him no one would ever mistake him for a fool. Not with the way power coiled around him like a serpent, waiting to strike. Not when his fingers closed around mine—warm, callused, steady—and the world answered his call.
This wasn’t like flying with Varian, that grand sweep of cold air, a lurch in my chest, the world turning into a smear of gray.
His power didn’t ask permission.
Rooke’s magic simply took reality by the throat and folded it in half.
Light snapped to a thin silver thread. Sound vanished, as if someone had plunged my head underwater. For one brutal heartbeat, there was nothing but the pressure of his palm against my skin and the sensation of falling down a glassy well, all of Frostveil Keep bending into strange, distorted shapes around us.
Then—
Familiar stone beneath my boots.
The smell of fresh-baked bread in my lungs from my favorite bakery.
Cold, clean wind knifing down narrow city streets off Mount Sylvan.
I pitched forward into Rooke’s arms; he caught me with the same hands that had dragged me across the world like a shooting star.
Strong, capable hands I wanted to feel on my body…
