“It is easy for Kastalya to consider such things,” he murmured, “from Gearíya.”
Amerei inhaled slowly, the dagger’s weight secret against her ribs.
“Do you love her?”
A lesser prince might have laughed. Xavien did not. He realigned the knife by a hair, watching the blade’s reflection.
“I didn’t even know her the day we married.”
A breath.
“Had your mother not encouraged the alliance, I would have sailed anywhere.”
He smiled—brief humor, then shadow.
“And then I saw her. Kastalya.” The name left him like remembered heat. “Older. Every inch the sun. I was…madfor her.”
His finger tapped the goblet—once, once, once—then stilled.
“But boys do not stay clay. I grew. She… did not grow with me. When I would not be molded, she ran home to Gearíya. At first she came back often.” His voice dimmed. He aligned a spoon. “The children have stopped asking.”
Silence stretched.
Jasmine looked away, softened despite herself.
Evander watched as one watches a cliff for cracks.
“I am sorry for them,” Amerei said at last.
Xavien’s gaze slipped to the archway, voice dropping so only she could hear. “When they wake from bad dreams, they run to me. I am grateful—and terrified I’m not enough.”
Her chest ached. She thought of Viktor, of love fierce enough to cradle the world yet still fearing it might slip. Against her will, kinship stirred—a tie she did not want.
The moment threatened to linger—
then broke as a shadow spilled across the grass, swift and long, a blade of omen.
The elf in scholar’s robes bowed at the arbor’s edge, silhouette sharp against the firelit lawn.
“Highness.” His voice cut, too loud, severing the stillness. “You are needed. At once.”
Xavien rose, beads in his braids rattling like chains. He looked down at Amerei. “Walk with me.”
Her heart thundered.
“Evander,” she called, eyes still on Xavien.
Steel whispered as Evander came to her side. Xavien did not refuse him.
He led them beneath the archway, sconces flaring at his passing. Servants pressed flat to the walls, breath caught in their throats. At the consort’s turn he did not slow. He crossed into the prince’s wing, the robed elf waiting like a shadow given flesh.
“Master Deglan,” Xavien said, voice taut.
Then to the Sagittarii: “Open.”
Steel lifted in unison.
He paused at the threshold, letting Deglan vanish into the scrying chamber. He drew a measured breath, every motion precise, as if aligning to an inescapable fate. Then he entered.
