Fury swirled in my gut as I flew with Kaden toward Dorthus, mixing with a blinding sense of awe at the prince’s diabolical strategy.
Soldiers in black fighting leathers soared around us, their iridescent wings gleaming in the slivers of sunlight that cut through the thick clouds. Every so often, a glimmer of blue would glint at the head of the formation as the princess led her troops across the Drathen Sea.
The wind howled in my ears, and Kaden’s grip on me tightened, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. As the leagues flew by beneath us, my mind churned with questions.
How long had Kaden known that the sire bond linked his life to his father’s?
He couldn’t have been aware when we’d first met. His anger at my acceptance of Caladwyn’s bargain had been genuine, which meant he must have thought he could still be king.
Unless he hadn’t believed that I would agree to kill his father.
Had the sire bond factored into Gninou’s declaration that Kaden couldn’t have his throneandhave me? The deity wasn’t omniscient. If he were, he would have known about the bargain I’d struck with Kaden the night before he was captured.
If I had no choice but to kill Semphrys and Kaden died too, then he would never be king of Anvalyn, regardless of our relationship.
Then I thought back to something Kaden had said to Sorsha the first time we’d visited the Great Oak.
If something should happen to me, you are Anvalyn’s only hope.
My stomach twisted. Had he said thatknowingthat the sire bond would lead to his death?
My head hurt.
There was only one thing of which I was absolutely certain: Kaden hadn’t planned on winning over the soldiers when he’d made that rousing speech. He’d wanted them to unite behind his sister all along.
Wretched, noble male.
Sorsha had even tried to warn me the first day that we’d met.
Kaden always has his reasons.
A sick feeling twisted my insides, and I felt a soft tug on the mating bond. I ignored it, glancing everywhere but at my mate.
If Kaden didn’t see fit to tell me his plans, then I sure as fuck wasn’t going to include him in mine.
“You’re not so good at blocking your emotions when so many are aimed at me,” he rumbled, a silken lock ofmidnight hair brushing my temple as he brought his lips to my ear. “Would you like to share?”
“No,” I growled, still avoiding his gaze.
Perhaps it was childish, but I knew that if I looked into those fathomless gray eyes, I’d see the male I loved beyond all reason staring back at me, and my resolve would crumble.
I couldn’t risk Kaden interfering when I told him what I’d done — what Istillplanned to do. Not when so much was at stake.
As messed up as it was, his stupid plan to sacrifice himself to save Anvalyn and put his sister on the throne only made me love him more. But that didn’t mean I trusted him not to screw everything up to protect me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” Kaden murmured.
Tell me about what?I wanted to snap.About your plan to die with your father, or your plan to crown Sorsha queen?
But instead, I held my tongue and kept my mental shields firmly in place.
“My sister is more fit to be queen than I ever was to be king,” he confessed. “It just took me two hundred years to see it.”
Something in me softened at his words, and I remembered that the fae couldn’t lie. Kaden hadn’t been planning for Sorsha to take the throne for long. I wanted to ask when he’d decided, but the princess had begun her descent.
The horde of Drathen soldiers followed — hundreds of males dipping beneath the clouds like a flock of deadly birds, armed to the teeth with Drathen steel and rowan-wood arrows to shred demon wings.
My stomach clenched as Mount Dorthus came intoview — a single point looming over the endless stretch of Barrens cloaked in ash and mist.
