“You’re the only stallion I’ll ever ride.”
His jaw flexed beneath her cheek. His hands locked hard on the reins, leather biting into his palms. Heat surged through him—wrecked, grateful, half-mad with the need to stop everything and keep her pressed against him. He swallowed it down, the horse shifting beneath him as if it felt the strain.
From ahead, Gabriel groaned. “Tell me we’re not doing this the whole ride to Westport.”
Viktor didn’t even turn. “No promises.”
The warmth lingered, the banter still humming in his chest. But then the memory struck—sudden, sharp—like an arrow through the haze.
“The Midnight told me,” he said quietly, “Father lives. The dragons retreated north.”
Amerei lifted her head, gaze scanning the trees.
“He’s here?”
Viktor laughed, soft and strange in the stillness.
“He speaks to me… in my mind.”
He nudged Ruby forward to match Faerin’s pace.
“He told me how to bring down the wall, in the Vykenraven—before I even knew who he was.”
Gabriel shook his head, a smile flickering beneath the torchlight.
“You and your brother, both touched by the strange. What kind of magic are they weaving on the Isle of Eilles…”
“Better question…” Viktor’s brow furrowed. “How did my mother end up inWestport?”
“Dask, Tory.” Gabriel grinned. “You’ve got to give your father some credit.”
Viktor huffed a laugh, low under his breath.
Issachar Seraphim. Dockhand on the Aerdanian seaport. Once the husband of a seer.
Did Eiliyah ever tell him?
Maybe she never did.
Maybe he was just as lost as Viktor, the morning she rode away.
And how would he react now—when Viktor came home not just as a son, but as a man with the Endowment?
The last time he had crossed his father’s threshold was three months ago, nearly to the day. Summoned to Rhidian. Nothing odd. Nothing unusual.
To Issachar, Viktor was only ever caught up in some mission—details he was never meant to speak of, things his father pretended not to know. On some unhurried day, he’d come home unceremoniously. Boots by the door. Scour the cupboards for stonebread. Brew a kettle of emberbrew. And just… sit. Listening to the tide roll in. Talk of elves and kings and war—things that never touched Aerdania. Never darkened its door. Until today.
Gabriel led them through the darkness, the path winding beneath a hundred elven homes swaying in the redwoods. Viktor eventually looked up. Felt the warmth of each hearth, the sigh of each elven child still fast asleep. Safe, here on the east side of the mountains. Far from the ruin that lay ahead.
But how many human children had slept in their beds when dragons befell Aerdania?
The thought twisted into Viktor like a knife.
Amerei felt it. Pressed her palm against his chest.
“It’s alright, Tory,” she whispered.
And for a heartbeat—it was.
