There was no one left here to tell him so anyway. So, he spread them wide and let them taste the air. Let them remember what rapture was supposed to feel like.
Only a few places were left where he could set the weight down. The Angels’ ruined realm being one of them. He sat at the cliff’s edge, legs dangling into the endless mist, and wondered if his father would be proud of the sacrifices he’d made for their kingdom.
The truth was he didn’t care. He didn’t need pride, only needed his father to be wrong about him, about what he could become.
A sound stirred below, tiny wings flitting through the fog as he rubbed at his wrist, where two small bite marks beaded with fresh blood.
The space tightened, humming with a new scent. Ronan scorched his flesh, searing away any trace of Isolde. Better burns than her mark lingering on him. He didn’t turn when the inevitable footsteps approached.
Elysian always found him. Ronan was only disappointed it had taken so long. And disappointed he had come at all.
Smoke pulsed into the stone, the floating edge easing back toward the mountain it belonged to. Quickly, he wrapped a leather band tight around his wrist, covering the bites.
Finally, he turned. “You really are a hound.”
Elysian stepped closer, hands clasped neatly behind his back. “Aero is very concerned, Ronan. The Kaida’s numbers are dropping rapidly.” His voice carried more than burden. “Since when can we not keep them safe?”
Everyone knew the worth of the Kaida. Not only to Ryuu, but to all of Selvarra. Their essence ran too pure, too valuable, too rare, to be left untouched. And sometimes, a fortune wasn’t met in coin or gold, but lives.
Ronan rose, dusting dirt from his leathers, his stare cutting to Elysian. “The land is dying everywhere,” he said. “We’re doing what we can to save it.”
Elysian bared the cusp of his teeth, sharp against the light. “You think it’s the land? Be realistic. If it were the land, we’d find bodies. Bones.Something.” The air chilled. “But every day their numbers fall,” he spat, “with not a single trace of where they’ve gone.”
Ronan stood in silence, his face betraying nothing, though guilt seethed under the stillness.
“Ronan,” Elysian pleaded.
When he didn’t answer Ely feigned a laugh that rang flat in the charged air.
“I will make sure Ryuu stays safe,” Ronan said at last. “That is why I hunt the Viper. Why we search for the lost heir.” Elysian shook his head, eyes cutting upward, to the sky. “I will fix this,” Ronan promised. “And once the three kingdoms are reunited, the land will heal. The Kaida will replenish.”
For the briefest moment, he felt more king than prince. He meant it, the promise, to his kingdom and the friend he had freed.
Elysian’s nostrils flared as he stepped forward. “There’s a reason you aren’t as concerned as the rest of us, isn’t there?” His features shifted when the truth reached his senses. “Why I find youhere, of all places on this continent?”
Ronan moved closer, the haze peeling back for him alone. “Do you not trust your crown?”
Elysian let out a brittle laugh. “If you want to be king, Ronan, thenbe it.But don’t shut me out. Not when I’m the only one keeping Aero from rioting with the rest of Ryuu.”
Ronan stilled. He hadn’t considered that. That even Aero might crack. He asked, “What’s changed?”
“Your dragons are lost. And you keep wandering further from us.”
He pressed a hand to Elysian’s shoulder. “Stop searching for the Kaida.” Elysian drew a sharp breath, stare moving past Ronan, down toward the pale shimmer of the Sapphire Sea. “Tell Aero to shift his focus on the Bale. On what it has already destroyed.” Ronan’s hand dropped as he turned, walking into the barren expanse.
Behind him came the rasp of Ely’s breath, the crack of words torn from him. “What madness have you stirred?”
Ronan didn’t look back as he said, “I’m saving us.”
Wings unfurled, shadows tearing wide. He leapt from the cliff’s edge, swallowed whole by the clouds, Elysian’s question heavy even long after he was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Verena
THE DUSKY PINK OF DAWN BLED ACROSS THE SKY, soft as a dream.
Cobblestones, scorched and cracked, stretched ahead as the town stirred awake. Children collected onto the streets, most rushing toward the academy. Too young for labor. Too soft for soldiers.
