“Brother,” Correk says softly, and the two men clasp forearms, pulling each other into a rough embrace.
I forget how to breathe. “Brother? As in, friends? Or… blood?”
And when I look—really look—the resemblance is obvious. The same ice-blue eyes, the same rich hue of umber skin, the same hulking frames, the same dark curls just beginning to silver at the temples.How had I never seen it?
The Shield of the rebellion is Gellesk. And he’s Correk’s brother.
Kael’s smooth timbre drifts down the tether,I didn’t know, Duskae. We’ve only ever spoken by missive. Too risky.
I can feel his tension—the way he stiffens in fear that I’ll think he’s kept this from me. But I can also feel his shock. He didn’t know.
My vision swims. I can barely reconcile it.
They’re brothers.
They’re rebel leaders.
And I’m their Princess.
“How?” I breathe, desperately trying to cling to reality, to sift through the words to discern the facts.
“Your mother,” he breathes, and my stomach clenches. Aching for her. “An old friend. We trusted one another.”
He was friends with my mother.
“And your so-calledbusiness?” I scoff.
“A cover,” he admits. “A way to shield myself from the guards while we built our ranks.”
I expel a sharp breath. “Well, you were always rather shitty at it,” I choke out, forcing myself to laugh.
“The most sought after businessman in The Underbelly, thank you very much,” Gellesk jokes with a wink.
Air deserts my lungs.
My chest tightens.
But a comforting arm wraps around me. “Well, I did not seethatcoming,” Ronyn says lightly, as if he’s speaking about the weather, and the casual joke disarms me entirely.
Tears prick at my eyes—the truth fracturing my fragile hold on reality.
“You’re a fucking dragon, and Gellesk is a Starsdamned rebel leader?” I scoff, laughing through the thickness in my throat.
“A standard day for us, I’d say,” he quips nonchalantly, but he presses a kiss to the top of my head in deeper understanding.
Gellesk’s voice booms through the space, ricocheting off the stone walls and reverberating through my bones. “Everyone out! We have kingdoms to reclaim!”
As the steel door seals behind them, silence swells—thick, holy, unshakable. It is us now. The ones who will set the world alight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
KAEL
The rebels callthis a war council, but the “table” is a splintered plank balanced on barrels, maps held flat by knives and broken blades. Still, every scarred face around it watches us with the kind of hunger only war breeds. The kind of hunger born in the shadows of oppression.
I’ve sat in gilded halls with leaders who claimed to rule nations. These people are different. Harder. More hurt.And far more dangerous. Far more desperate.
The rebels rise when I approach, fists pressed to hearts, some dropping to knees in a soldier’s salute. Not reverence, not worship, but loyalty. Hard-earned over years, hard-kept via missives.
