The faintest crease appeared between my brother’s brows, but his eyes stayed level with mine. “I wasn’tchatting,” he said quietly. “I was reporting intel to my general.”
Nyssa moved closer, resting her hand lightly against my forearm. The touch was barely there, but it steadied me.
“Where is she?” I asked. “Where’s Skylar? What happened while we were sailing over the Narrow Sea for the past three days?”
Daxton’s jaw tightened, and the mask of the high king wavered under the weight of all that must have transpired over our days apart. “We, well, Skylar, saved Shaw.”
Nyssa stilled beside me, her gaze flicking toward him.
“Saved him?” I asked. The words came out too fast, too sharp. “From what exactly? I need the details, brother, and I meanallof them.”
Daxton’s shoulders rose and fell with a slow, deliberate breath. “Gilen attacked him, and then Anjani tried to kill Neera.”
The silence that followed was bone-chilling as Nyssa and I took in the news.
Nyssa’s fingers tensed against my arm before she signed softly, her movements quick and practiced, “What happened? Are Neera and Shaw alright? What about Zola?”
My wife was fond of our shadow jumper, and so was I. Her unease through our bond mirrored my own.
“Shaw’s recovering and is in Crimson City,” Daxton said before I could press further. “Neera and Zola are unharmed as well.”
I exhaled hard as relief cut through the tension in my chest, but only for a heartbeat. “Then why the silence? Why did we hear nothing for three days?”
Daxton’s eyes snapped open, meeting mine with a look that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. “Because there’s more.”
Wasn’t there always…
The air thickened with that heavy, thrumming quiet, the kind that comes before a twist of fate steps in and changes everything.
“Skylar and I went to Crimson City to inform Adohan and Idris of what happened, working to coordinate attack plans. I just returned from teleporting the bulk of our armies there.”
“Crimson City?” I repeated.
“It’s the closest point to Solace and the mainland from the Inner Kingdom. It was a strategic necessity.”
“Why?” Nyssa signed beside me.
Daxton looked to Nyssa, and something flickered in his eyes as he noticed the silver band on her left hand. His smile was a whisper on the winds, but it was all I needed to interpret his approval on the matter.
“Because what’s coming next won’t wait for us to deliberate,” he said. “And because there’s a twist in the weave of fate that not even Castor could have foreseen.”
My pulse spiked. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning,” Daxton said, his voice dropping lower, “that the balance has shifted. We’ve been given an advantage. One the enemy doesn’t yet realize we hold.”
He paused then, as if choosing whether to tell me the rest.
“Daxton,” I warned. “Don’t start with half-truths. What happened? Gods, you have me yearning for Skylar to recount this tale. She wouldn’t be so cryptic.”
His expression hardened. “You’ll understand when we reach Aelius. That’s where Skylar is now.”
I frowned. “Why Aelius? I thought you said the armies are in Crimson City?”
“After I bring Talon to the healers in Crimson City, I’m returning to Aelius,” Daxton stated firmly. “And you, brother, are coming with me. Nyssa, too, if she’ll lend her eyes.” He looked at her then, and there was no mistaking the respect in his tone. “What we’ve found… It changes things.”
Nyssa’s fingers moved swiftly, tension threading through each sign, “What did you and Skylar find?”
Daxton’s eyes darkened. “Not what,” he said, “who.”
