JustWhispen.
“You have green hair.” Tears build in my chest.
The thorns under my skin bloom. Not defensively. Not the way they do when magic threatens or the courts push. They bloom the way they did in the forest when the Wild Court soil recognized my blood. Reaching. Seeking. Finding something that matches.
Because Iknow.
I know before I ask. I’ve always known. In the way you know a song from the first three notes, the way you know home before you see it. I just need to hear him say it. I need to know the bond I feel between us is real.
Real in the way that the one freckle behind his ear matches my own. That moon-shaped crescent. Real in the way that both our noses button at the tip. Real in the way I love him deeper than anyone else in this world.
Love I haven’t felt since I lazed in a hammock with Morrigan and…him.
Orion goes still beside me.
“I do.” His green eyes widen, not blue. Not gold.
Green.
Pure green.
He tugs a strand of hair out and stands, rushing to me too fast. Far too fast.
He trips over his feet and I catch him. We both tumble to the ground. He’s laughing, happiness pours from him as he sits up to stare down at me.
“Whispen.” I know the answer. It burns inside me, a truth yet to be spoken.
I just need to find the courage to speak it.
“I have green hair,” he says, blinking rapidly.
“You have green eyes.” I swallow thickly. “What’s your true name, Whispen?”
His needle-point teeth are all I see as he smiles. “Now that is the right question.” Blooms surface under his skin as he answers. “Whispen Moonshadow.”
This time I launch myself at him, hugging him so tightly to me as tears of silver fall from my eyes. He laughs. I cry. Family. I have blood family.
“No way.” I pull him back, staring at him. “Whispen. What… How…what?”
“Oh, little sister, I have much to say.” He looks at his body. “Look at me. I’m alive.” He smiles. “A real boy.”
Letting that one slide, “How?”
“It’s a sad story,” Whispen says.
“I don’t know which story I need to hear right now.” Orion falls to his knees beside us, the ground quaking underneath. “This or how she got that crown.”
“The Trial of Survival, Orion,” Whispen, my fucking brother, snarks. “Your mates tried to kill me. Multiple times.” He instantly tells on all three of them.
“I believe that.” I sniffle. Because I have a brother.
“I, ah.” Orion rubs the back of his neck and glances at me. “Won’t do that now.”
“I don’t want to die again.”
“You said that before,” Orion says.
“I did.” Whispen nods. “Mother and Father knew Amarantha was hunting them. And the courts. I was just rounding my thirteenth birthday.”
