Storne leaned toward Amerei, elbows braced on the table.
“I know you want to escape this,” he said, his tone low, almost fatherly. “But tonight you’ll learn where you standwith Casqadia’s nobility. That knowledge cannot be bought or stolen.”
Amerei’s pulse raced, though she said nothing.
He pressed on.
“Prince Xavien works every day to secure us forces from Elváliev. If you can wrest even a fraction of Casqadia’s own strength from Zeporah’s grip, you cripple her power. That is the truth you must weigh.”
Her voice, when it came, was quiet.
“Zeporah will know Viktor is a Ruakite.”
Storne’s eyes flicked toward him, then back.
“That is why she invites only humans.”
His gaze sharpened.
“She’s hunting for him.”
His voice fell dangerously low.
“Do you fear he will betray you?”
“No,” Amerei said at once.
She shut her eyes as if it hurt to say.
“I fear what she will do to him.”
Something like a shadow crossed Storne’s face.
His gaze slid to Viktor, memories of his father’s own Endowed powers sharp in his mind.
“He is far more lethal than he knows, Amerei.”
She studied Storne then, as if trying to read the meaning in his stare.
Finally, she asked, “Where will you be if we go, Father?”
“Ready to get you out of Rhidian if it comes to that,” he answered, his voice edged in steel. “But I cannot go with you tonight.” His hand moved, unbidden, to the back of his neck. “She would twist the history between us until every ally I’ve fought for was lost.”
Amerei’s voice cracked.
“And yet I am to resist Vykenraven?”
Storne’s fingers closed over hers.
“You are not like me, my darling.” His expression softened. “Your heart is as pure as the waters of Elysium.”
His words faded, but Amerei did not answer at once. Her gaze shifted across the table until it found Viktor.
He hadn’t spoken, hadn’t moved—yet the vow was written there, plain as ink. In the hard line of his jaw. In the storm burning behind ice-blue eyes.
His long black hair was tied back with soldier’s precision, the braids at his temples pulled clean and bound at his nape—but nothing could tame the wildness in him.
Her gaze caught on the mouth she had almost kissed—still, unspeaking, yet carrying the promise all the same. Storm help her, he was devastating. Every inch the man born to bear the weight she feared would break him.
