They went wide—bright, stunned, like the sky had dropped into her gaze. The realization settled there, luminous, and heavy, and for a heartbeat she looked like she couldn’t decide whether to smile or cry. Like she finally understood this wasn’t just a date.This was our love story.
Across dimensions and time, I would find her over and over again.
“Yes. Glad to see you are still good at math, Pickles,” I teased.
She nudged my shoulder playfully.
We all sat back and took in the gentle ascent of the lanterns filling the obsidian sky with a warm, romantic amber glow. The sight was so tranquil it felt like a cure for the day’s poison. The lanterns reminded me of a slow-moving constellation—like a cascade of ascending stars.
If I could, I would never go back to the castle. I would stay here on this hilltop with my mate’s head resting on my chest and the world softened by lantern light.
Relief filled my lungs when she said, “I believe you now, Titus.”
I looked at her curiously.
She continued, “I may not always understand the way you love me… but I believe it’s real.”
CHAPTER 34
The Vault
AURELIUS
Isoared back to the castle and carefully dismounted Zephyros, even though doing anything one-handed was a humiliating inconvenience. My healing abilities offered some relief, but the damage was severe; I could stabilize the bones with magic well enough to keep the wrist from collapsing, yet I couldn’t bear weight on it without sending pain spearing up my arm. I needed Gleeda—needed her fast—because whatever Titus had done was the kind of injury that could self-heal wrong if not treated immediately.
Titus was such a pompous ass, and the arrogant display of dominance burned behind my eyes like an afterimage I couldn’t blink away. He had barely acknowledged Delilah’s existence when she first arrived, as if she were an inconvenience he could ignore, until the moment I showed interest in her and suddenly he was all possessive devotion and theatrical love, as if claiming her were the same thing as caring for her. He only wanted to use her. I knew him too well to be fooled; Titus was not built to love anyone but himself, and it would always puzzle me why the Guardians entrusted someone like him with so much power when he wielded it like a weapon first and a responsibility second.
The castle was quiet and relatively empty with Titus, Delilah, Calpurnia, and Cercies away on their little outing, leaving me alone in these cavernous halls with nothing but my thoughts and the steady throb of my wrist to keep me company. It should have been me. I should have been the one taking Delilah to see the wonders of my kingdom on dragon-back, the one teaching her the skies, the currents, and the way the world looks when you stop walking through it and start flying above it; I should have been the one courting her, even if I could never officially make her mine. I had wanted her first, and I knew she would have run away with me if he hadn’t stolen her from me and tempted her with his title.
I should have killed him that night at the SkyGuard feast. I’d had the perfect opportunity, the cleanest moment, until Delilah warned him, and ever since then I’d been turning that betrayal over in my head like a blade I couldn’t stop testing against my thumb. Why was her loyalty to him so strong? It had to be his power, his title, his throne— because there was no other explanation that didn’t make me feel like an idiot for believing she could ever choose something gentler when the world rewarded brutality.
My boots echoed through the dim corridors as shadows from the hearths crawled along the stone walls, and the silence pressed in until it felt suffocating, until I could practically hear my own thoughts ricocheting off the vaulted ceilings. An emptiness overtook me—an old, familiar ache—because my so-called brothers had mocked me for being “sensitive” as if emotion were a flaw instead of a blade. Fools. They had never understood that feeling deeply didn’t make me weak; it made me dangerous, because there are certain emotions that sharpen into something lethal if you carry them long enough.
I turned down the eastern corridor toward Gleeda’s quarters when I nearly collided with an unexpected figure.
“Ah, Dragon Master. Good evening. Do you know when Lord Titus will return?”
Folliade.
The mention of Titus’s name felt like salt ground into an open wound, as if I were his keeper, as if my purpose were to orbit him and answer for him, but diplomacy was a habit carved into my bones. I straightened my posture, placed my hands behind my back to hide the tremor in my injured wrist, and painted a calm expression across my face.
“Apologies, Lord Folliade. I have no knowledge of his return. I would imagine he will join you for breakfast in the main hall.”
I resumed walking—because I didn’t owe him anything more— until he called after me again.
“Perhapsyoucould help me?”
I suppressed my annoyance and turned back, forcing the scowl off my face before it could settle in.
“Of course. How can I assist?”
“My guards and I have searched your archives for new citizen records from the year my mother went missing. We found nothing. Titus mentioned a restricted vault. I do not require access to sensitive material—but perhaps you could check whether those records were misplaced?”
My brows furrowed before I could stop them. “You’re asking me to access the vault?”
“I do not need to enter. Simply check. Surely the Kingdom of Flame would not hide something as mundane as new citizen records.”
Something in me tightened at the wordvault, because Titus had barred him from it, and yet here was a loophole—thin enough to slide through, clean enough to pretend it wasn’t defiance—because sending me instead of letting Folliade in wasn’t quite treason. It was… flexible.
