Going to the door, I tugged it open, only to find Kythel already on the other side of it, filling the space of the entire doorway.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my adrenaline still pumping. “I thought…”
He was in a foul mood. That much was clear to me when I examined his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, watching him stride inside. At the threshold of the door, he had to turn slightly to account for his wings.
His gaze was pinned on me, and the intensity in those blue eyes should’ve sent me running.
“Millie Seren. Who are you really?” he asked, voice gruff. Perplexed.
Bewildered, I laughed. “What?”
He shook his head, but I got the sense it was to clear his mind. He looked as exhausted as I felt. Looking beyond me, he inspected the interior of the cottage. It didn’t look like much, and yet…I’d been working every waking moment I wasn’t at thedyaan.
Every moment I spent here, I knew I was meant to be here. I’d cleaned out its insides. I’d scraped the fungus off the walls, washing them repeatedly withgaanyelpaste so it killed the spores. I’d polished the metal posts on the bed upstairs. I’d swept and mopped and cleaned the floors until I could eat off of them.
And yes…there were larger issues. The roof needed patching in a few places. There was a terrible draft that funneled its way from the upstairs windows. Not only that but all the frames on the windows were beginning to rot and would need replacement. The pathway leading to the house needed repair. The fence bracketing the cottage was crumbling. The table and chairs and rug might not’ve been salvageable, though I would try.
It was the kitchen, however, that I loved best. It was the kitchen that told me all I needed to know: That my father had been here, hadlivedhere. That he’d perhaps—as Kythel had said—even helped build this cottage.
The kiln oven was modest since the room was cozy and small, but as I’d been cleaning out the black muck inside, I’d found something stamped into the left wall. A familiar swirling design made up of three intertwined circles. I recognized it immediately. It was the design on the signet ring my father had never taken off. It was a symbol he’d used almost as much as his signature—for business, for contracts.
He’d used the ring to make the stamp inside the oven when he’d constructed it. Just like the one he’d built when we’d lived on Rupon.
“I can’t seem to stay away from you,” came Kythel’s quiet confession. Tingles ran down my arms. “It’s quite infuriating. I’m at a loss of what to do about it.”
I should’ve been flattered. A powerfulKyzaireof the Kaalium was admitting that I was a weakness. A tender place in his thick armor. What female wouldn’t be thrilled?
Me.
In his words, this was what I’d heard:We are too different, you and me, and our friendship is too strange to be believable.Because I was just a girl who’d been abandoned on a space port as a baby, who’d lived in too many places that I couldn’t even begin to remember, who’d never truly had a home except in her father, who was now dead.
He was an heir to the Kaalium, one of the greatest legacies the universe had ever seen.
Yet he was here. And he couldn’t understand why. Because I was so beneath him in my dirtied clothes and unwashed hair when he was in a pressed vest that looked as fresh as it had that afternoon. With my unknown bloodline, when he could trace his back multiple generations. When my only concern was reaching my father before his body was burned, and his was running an entire province.
We couldn’t be more different.
But he likes that you know Ver Teracer. He likes that you know about Drovos wine.He likes the way you smell and the food you prepared him,I thought next.He likes your sharp tongue, but he might even like your smile more.
“Are you not perplexed by this?” he asked, seemingly irritated, prowling deeper inside as I closed the door behind him. “Or am I the only one?”
“I’ve met enough people to know that nothing makes sense in this universe,” I informed him, shrugging a shoulder. “I don’t question it. So no. I’m only perplexed by your resistance. Are there rules on who you can be friends with? Unspoken rules that you’ve learned since you were born?”
He scowled. “Of course not.”
My lips quirked. “I’ve always heard you were the logical brother. The cold one.”
Thatmade him still.
“I’ve seen traces of him,” I admitted softly, approaching him, close enough to make his eyes flicker back and forth between mine. “But I’ve also heard it’s your twin who is known for his impulsiveness. His fiery temperament. To me, you resemblethatmale more.”
“You think I have a temper like Azur?” he asked.
“Yes, I see it now,” I answered. “Don’t we all? We had a little tiff earlier, didn’t we?”
A sharp laugh barked from him, entirely unexpected. “Ah, yes. Your little claws came out. How I enjoyed them.”
