“We’re family. I’m yours, and you’re mine,” I said.
“Hold on. Does this mean you’re going to try to tell me what to do like with Tempest?” Rising, Reyla started pacing back and forth across the small room. “Because I’m not putting up with shit like that.”
“I’m not sure what I plan to ask of you,” I said with a huff. “It hasn’t occurred to me.” Since I didn’t like that she loomed over me, I also stood, though I didn’t pace.
“I’m sure it will.” Stopping in front of me, she looked me up and down. “Why’s your hair black when mine’s light red?”
“Our mother had red hair, though hers was darker than yours.”
“And you get your hair color from our . . . Fuck!” Her eyes—our mother’s eyes—widened. “Please don’t tell me we share the same father. Tell me our mother was with someone else.Anyonebut him.”
“Wecontrol who we are now.” If I’d learned nothing through my years of torture, it was that I had the final say in my actions and behavior. Never him. “But yes, he’d claim you as his if he knew.”
Ivenrail kept asking me whereshewas, and I’d assumed he meant my fated mate, that a witch or foreteller had told himthat my mate was a serious threat to his existence. All that time, he was looking for Reyla. One more child to mold. I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t bothered with Zayde, unless that same witch told him to leave my half-brother alone.
She started pacing again. “Why in all the fates was she with him?”
“They grew up together. She adored him. She didn’t see who he truly was until it was too late.”
“He’s horrible. How could she miss something like that?”
“He can be charming when he chooses. Lately, he chooses to be the person you know today.”
“I don’t care how he’s related to us. We’re going to kill him.”
I nodded.
“I had another mother,” she sighed, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I don’t know anything about her, and that sucks. One more thing that monster took from me. From us.Us, Vexxion.” Her long sigh rang out. “He also stole the parents who raised me. His cursed dregs slashed through my village and killed them. My mother put me up in a tree and told me to stay there. Hide among the leaves. I remember clutching the trunk and wailing, begging her to come back. A rider came across me and took me to the fortress. I found a new family there with Tempest and Brodine.” Her face cratered with pain. “Beast that Bro was. And . . . Kinart.” Her shoulders slumped, all her energy sucked away by grief. “My Kinart.”
If only I’d known who she was back then, though it wouldn’t have made a difference for the man she’d love. But I could’ve held her, been there for her.
Or would I? Back then, the hardness I’d formed at Bledmirehad started to sink into my bones. My fury saved me in more ways than one. She’d drawn out the man I was meant to be and made him better.
“I’m sorry about Kinart,” I said.
“You didn’t do it. He learned what the king is doing, and he was eliminated before he could act.”
I wasn’t sure what a dragon rider from a fortress town could’ve done about someone as powerful as Ivenrail, but that didn’t matter. “I still regret that I . . .” Pain made my voice hoarse. “That I haven’t done more. Stopped him in some way.”
She spun around and strode over to me, jumping up to swipe her fingertip across my neck. “You were as manipulated by him as the rest of us. If anything, you were the last person who could kill him. He collared you! I understand why you didn’t do it.”
“I was willing to die as long as he did.”
The softening of her face struck through me like a blade, making my chest hurt in a good way. “If you’d died, I would never have learned you’re my brother. I’m not sure what that means to me yet, but . . .” She grunted and her eyes darkened, her fierceness restored. “From what I’ve seen and heard, you’ve delivered one lie after another, but that needs to stop. If we’re going to be true siblings, we need complete honesty between us.”
“You have it.”
Her eyebrows lifted, and I was hit anew with her resemblance to my mother. They had the same chin. The same high cheekbones and brow. “No more tiny secrets held back because you don’t dare share them?”
“None. Who you see is who I am.” Would that be enough? My childish memory of my adored little sister was scrambled up with my thoughts of this strong young woman before me now. I wasn’t sure how to mash them together to form someone new, but I’d try.
“I just realized that I—we—have a half-brother.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “We need to tell Zayde. And . . . wow. I havetwobrothers. Our cursed father sure was prolific. I don’t suppose you know if there are any other siblings lurking around?”
“None have come forward.”
“If they’re wise, they won’t. He killed our mother because she wouldn’t tell him where she hid me, didn’t he? I owe Vera a huge debt.”
“Vera didn’t tell Mother where she hid you, which was wise. I’m not sure our mother could’ve held that information back.”
