The chair was wreckage. Torn to its bones, blackened, and split where fire had eaten through the fabric.
He used to sleep there, safely, when he was small. Listening to the steady scratch of his father’s pen at this same desk. The fire’s crackle, the sea crashing below the cliffs. That sound had been his comfort once. His peace long, long ago.
Now it was nothing but another defiled memory.
“You know what it symbolizes,” Ronan reminded him.
He brushed a hand over what remained of the nostalgia. Ash clung to him, staining his skin, and stayed.
Aero inhaled, the streaks in his blond hair darkening more toward onyx than crimson. “The longer you suppress it, the more unhinged it becomes. We’ve talked about this.”
It wasn’t a reprimand, barely even a warning. Only a reminder. That even kings could burn on what they refused to release.
“Ronan, what if Aelora had been here? What if you were in the courtyard, surrounded by younglings?” Aero’s voice lowered as he studied Ronan, sensing the things left unsaid. “If that power is not released when due, it will find its own way out.”
He knew that. Heknewit. Why did Aero keep reminding him?
Ronan growled, “I would never let that happen.”
Aero lifted his arms. “Oh? Then I’ll take offense to what just occurred whileIwas standing here.” His stare rose to the portrait above the hearth, where the wings of painted dragons came to life in the glow. “Where were you?” he asked. “Just now?”
Ronan’s eyes followed, to cliffs once alive with wings and thunder. Where younglings learned to soar. Where legacy was rooted in stone.
But those cliffs were haunted now. It was there the memory had dragged him. Not the cliff, but the day. The moment.
“Nowhere,” he lied, a yawn slipping through as if it were nothing. He stretched while a wave shattered itself against the veil of glass behind him.
Aero inclined his head, reading the dismissal for what it was. His hands clasped behind his back, eyes sliding to the letter surprisingly unburned and still abandoned on the desk.
“If you don’t attend, you’re not only sending a message to Ryuu,” he let the pause linger, “but also to Luamis. King Obrann does not fear me the way he fears you. It is no secret his aim is to evade the Dark Kingdom. How long until he turns his sights toward the dragons as well?”
Ronan’s canines glinted in the light as he met Aero’s eyes at last. “I willnever allowthat to happen.”
Aero forced a thin smile. “Then you’d better show them that.”
He turned, boots pounding against the stone as he left the chamber, the door shutting with a final thud.
Ronan stared where the memory had dredged up from, debate churning in his skull. Coming back had been a mistake. He should leave Ryuu tonight, fly until the sky shredded his wings clean.
But Elysian wouldn’t return from searching for the Kaida until tomorrow. Then they’d head for Csolenia, where Ronan would threaten the king into calling off his hunt for the lost dark heir.
And try not to reduce him to dust.The commander had yet to clarify what would happen if he failed at that last bit.
He collapsed, sinking into his father’s chair, head tipping back, eyes shutting hard. His mind didn’t even give him a chance of deciding where to go, her image was already there waiting for him.
The Viper.
The blood-oath tugged tight, invisible but biting. Gooseflesh rippled over his arms at the thought of what his prophecy promised.
A knock rasped at the door, fading into the hollow of his mind. All he could see was her, walking Csolenia’s crooked streets as if she ruled the dusk itself, the remaining sunlight brushing her skin. The sway of her steps was unhurried, dangerous.
She stopped, rubbing the back of her neck, head moving, barely, to the side. Like she felt him watching.
His eyes snapped open as the knock came again against the door. Three strikes, a pause, silence—then heels clicking against stone growing fainter and fainter.
The pull yanked harder, this time dragging him upright.
He let his eyes close again. She was walking the same street, under the same setting sun.
