“It feels impossible.”
“It feels inevitable.”
He pressed kisses to her brow, each one a benediction.
“If I’d brought you home to Aerdania,” he said, “I’d have built you a house by the sea. Small, but strong. Wildflowers in the fence, a hearth that never goes cold. Every night I’d hold you like this while the tide sang us to sleep.”
Her voice trembled.
“I would like that… very much.”
He kissed her crown, his breath breaking.
“I know, my love. Me, too.”
His hand smoothed over her hair, slow and steady.
“Sleep now, Ami. My love. My wife. Mine.”
She hummed, drowsy and unguarded.
“My husband. My… Tory.”
He exhaled, the sound deep, quiet, content. Her soft laugh warmed the space between them.
Sleep claimed her quickly. But Viktor’s mind would not still. He had married the future queen of Casqadia, and war waited beyond their door. His Endowment burned in his veins—fierce, restless, as though hungering for something more.
A cold stirring rose beneath his skin, a whisper of wings. He swore he heard it—the dark flutter of a raven overhead.
Dragons were rising.
And they wanted his blood.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Forgotten Things
Forgotten things do not sleep forever.
They wait. They hunger.
Leolis approached Zeporah’s chamber door, unfastening the straps of his armor as he climbed the steps.
“Let him in,” Zeporah’s voice cut from the other side.
The guards obeyed, and Leolis pushed through, tossing a glove aside. He tore the laces of his cuirass, ripping it off in a single violent pull. The black breastplate struck stone with a hollow thud.
“He’s healed himself,” he growled. “Who betrays us in Elváliev?”
“Saecily Evryn…” Zeporah breathed the name like venom. She leaned against her scrying table, clad only in a shift of dark red silk.
Leolis threw his head back in a jagged laugh.
“She’s been warming Masten’s bed for years.”
Zeporah’s glance could have seared flesh from bone.
“You didn’t know?” His grin split wide.
