A profound sense of peace settled upon him as he trailed his gaze over her halo of golden curls, the chunky knit blanket wrapped around her delicate shoulders, the smooth skin of her thighs above her wool stockings.
Thosefuckingstockings.
“I can’t even imagine,” Xenia said around a bite. “But it sounds completely barbaric, what your father has done to her. Keeping a creature like that locked up, only allowing her out to fly for a short time each day.”
“I need to figure out how my father forged his bond with her. How he not only used her for the war, but how he’s managed to keep her captive. She doesn’t even try to escape when they let her out to fly. As if her spirit is that broken. I’m going back in a few days to observe her for a longer period of time. It was… It was strange. While I was there, I said something to her in my mind and I could’ve sworn she heard me. I want to try again.”
Xenia’s lips thinned. “What do the Teles Chrysos have planned for her?”
“As far as they’ve told me, they’ll be using her against Eamon. Flying her to Delos to take the Imperial capital.”
Xenia scoffed. “So she’ll be just another weapon again? Same story, different masters?”
“Iwill be her master,” Cael said softly, and Xenia’s brows rose. “It’ll be a stipulation of my helping them. That I’ll be responsible for her care and that she’ll only be used when I allow it. At least until I can figure out how to free her from the bond altogether.”
“Why, Cael Zephyrus, are you telling me that you want to try to heal a broken thing?”
Cael scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to hide his grin. “Someone is wearing me down.”
The smile she aimed at him stole his breath. He buckled beneath its force, changing the subject. “What did you learn in the library today?”
She placed her plate on the table, then plucked up the glass of Nephian red he’d brought up with her meal. She swirled the glass, the liquid casting ruby shadows across her collarbone.
“It was allfascinating.” Her emerald eyes glittered with excited curiosity. He knew reading, consuming new knowledge, was her favorite thing in the world. If there was a happily ever after waiting for them, he’d get her a house and fill every room with books. Well, every room besides the bedroom.
He shifted in his seat, adjusting his pants and trying to stop his natural pessimism from crushing his fragile dreams. For a future where he’d be lucky enough to bed this gorgeous woman every night.
“How much do you know about how your father came to be the High Councilor of Brachos?” she asked.
Cael picked at the fabric on his armrest. “Not much. In case you haven’t noticed, my father’s not really one for friendly family chats around the dinner table.”
Xenia snorted. “There’s a whole section of that library dedicated to his rise to power. What the territory was like before the Empire. You were never even the tiniest bit curious?”
Cael shrugged. “Reading’s not my thing.”
Xenia playfully slapped her forehead. “Right! You’re more into brooding and fighting and fucking.”
The wordfuckingfalling from those lips had his pants growing tighter.
Her gaze darted to his lap, as if she knew. Little tease. “Well, good thing you’ve got me to do your research for you.”
“Delegation is the key to any successful venture,” Cael crooned.
Xenia let out a breathy little laugh that wrapped delicate fingers around his heart before she plowed forward. “Before your father was declared High Councilor of Brachos, the land was ruled by disparate clans of Fae—some Beastrunners, some Deathstalkers, some Windriders—each led by their own warrior-king. The clan that controlled Typhon Mountain and the surrounding hills were called the Cynn Drakan. Their leader was a Windrider male named Aedelmar Burkhardt. They worshiped the mountain itself, which, according to them, was the most powerful source of divine magic on Ethyrios. They made sacrifices to the fire and the resulting Typhon steel was seen as a gift from their gods by way of the dragon.”
Cael jolted. “I thought my family invented that steel. At least, that’s what Arran has always claimed.”
Xenia shook her head. “It was the Cynn Drakan. In the century preceding the war, when Leonin Erabis was campaigning to solidify his power, he tasked your father with uniting the clans in the northwest corner of the continent.Leonin wanted Arran to consolidate them into a single territory, hold dominion over it in the name of his burgeoning Empire. Most of the clans went along with it, didn’t want to risk slaughter by Arran and his Imperial-backed forces. But the Cynn Drakan held out. They were a proud, militant people, and they clung to their land fiercely.”
Cael grunted. Of course, Arran had never told him any of this.
Xenia continued, “Arran was relentless. Fought the Cynn Drakan for years. Not only for his precious Empire, but because Leonin had promised that if Arran could defeat them, he could take control of the mountain and oversee the booming Typhon steel business. Reap its profits.”
“Thatcertainly sounds like my father,” he grumbled.
“But in order to do so, he’d need to defeat the Cynn Drakan and gain control over the dragon. Leonin gave your father that flute, claimed he could use it to summon the dragon away from the Cynn Drakan.” Xenia rubbed at her nose. “But the flute can’t be the only part of the equation. If it was, your father never would have sold it.”
Cael jerked upright. “Hesoldit?”
