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Torran, the Smoke Phoenix Rider, prince of the Northlands—the Nomad—was leaning against the door, dressed all in black. The last time I had seen that face up close, I was thirteen, and he was locking the cage door on my cousins and me.

The dagger was in my hand in an instant.

I’d make sure he died this time.

16

The sitting room in the Chief’s house was deathly quiet. No one moved. No one spoke. Only Torran remained relaxed, shrouded in shadows, leaning against the door. I stepped forward. I might never have another chance, no matter how deadly his skin was.

“Sit back down. You’re not royalty here,” said Bronwen.

A hand circled my wrist as fingertips dug into the raw skin and bruises the earlier restraints had caused, and I swept around to see Aster’s grim gaze fixed on me.

“Let go.” Trying to twist out of his grip sent a shocking lightning bolt of pain up my arm. He knew exactly what he was doing. Giving me physical pain to distract from the emotional one. “Get off me! Now!” I tried to pull away again as Bronwen slid in front of me with an eyebrow raised.

“There’s a fire in you that needs putting out.” She hummed. “Your defiance might have saved you in the Barren, but it’ll get you killed in the Ruckus. Torran is part of us, and you won’t touch him.”

“An Earthworld land has a Rider? I thought he was a pathetic Northlander through and through.”

Torran’s fire-flecked eyes swept over me in amusement and then turned to Bronwen. “She’s a lot more than just a princess. Her father was made to abdicate because he had gotten her witch mother pregnant. It was a genius play by the old King, her uncle, to throw a beautiful commoner, an Earthworld witch no less, in her father’s way. He wanted to publicly shame him. Instead, her father packed up and moved south with Lex and her in the witch’s belly. It became known as the first act of love the kingdoms had ever seen, and the nobles hated him for it. And so Lex would’ve been king if…”

His gaze flashed back to Aster, and a silent argument passed between them. One that told me they had become well acquainted over the last three years, or perhaps Aster had lied to me all along. Perhaps they had never fallen out after the Riders betrayed Lex.

Torran smirked. “Lex could’ve challenged the imposter king for the throne if he hadn’t given it all up to be a Rider.” The scorn in his voice was palpable when he turned to me. “So, you’re out to claim your birthright, Aliwen of Annatalia, isn’t that right?”

The question hung in the silence, and Aster shifted toward me. But I didn’t care what Torran thought my family’s history was—what the court gossip spread throughout the lands had been. Lex had chosen nothing… Aster knew the truth. My cousins knew the truth. My uncle put him under guard and practically dragged him to the mountains, and he had to be dragged because his beatings had been brutal. Then the curse took hold of him far faster than the others, slipping into madness and melancholy.

The memories twisted in my chest, and the only thing that would push them back down was my vengeance. “My brother never wanted the throne, and neither do I. But I’ll take it back before another man seeks power over my people rather than provide them protection.” Before I moved back to my seat, I let my gaze drag over him—the bandage on his left wrist, the tension in his shoulders. “You’re no better. You’re the eldest son, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be the one preparing for the greatness of dictatorship? And yet here you are, a Rider. And no Riders can rule. So what did you do to disappoint daddy so very much—or did you think bonding with cursed monsters would give you greater power?” I tilted my head.

He’d tricked me in the library. If he’d shown his face, I never would have gone near him. Lex had met Torran on the road to the mountains to claim their phoenixes, before the Northlands turned on us. Instant friends. And every bit of it had been a lie so he could get invited into our world and learn how to destroy it. Which he’d done with unblinking efficiency.

I made my heart-pounding hatred fire from my eyes as my gaze locked onto him. Then I pulled myself up straight, ignoring the sting of the wounds on my neck—the ones Torran and his smoke had all but caused.

“You looked better with your face covered,” I said, “cowering on your knees in pain, Betrayer.”

“Lies,” he whispered. “You didn’t hate the way I looked when Lex was still around.”

Memories twisted inside me—an image of him that I refused to allow to surface—but I didn’t let it show.

He strode toward me and deliberately lifted his ungloved hand between us. A warning to stay back, but I stepped closer.

“You’re alive because of me,” he said. “I helped you. I. Let. You. Go.” The scorching heat emanating from him pressed too close to my skin, and one wrong movement would have ended me, but I refused to care. “And still you tried to kill me.”

“Would you have let me go if you recognised me?” I asked, because I suspected he would have captured me if he’d known the truth.

For the first time, he hesitated. “There’s a bounty on your head, and a lot of people want you captured and burned.” He lived in his Phoenix Tower, totally removed from reality.

“Princess or not, I’m Annatalian. We play cat and mouse with death every fucking day in the Barren.” To prove my point, I took another step with no idea of what I would do if he didn’t back down, considering all he had to do was touch his skin to mine.

Hatred radiated through space between us, so palpable that the room heated, but I would not recoil in front of my enemy. One day I would find a way to be his downfall.

I was about to take another step until Aster’s arm slid around my back, pulling me against him. His hand spread out over my hip—not forcefully, but with an intimacy that told everyone what we had once been to each other.

“Enough,” he said quietly, his cheek touching mine as his breath brushed the shell of my ear. “Don’t let him drag you back there.” Aster’s voice held a warmth that scraped down my senses. But I wasn’t back there. I was very much in the present, plotting a murder. For a second I took in a long breath, and I let myself lean back against him as if he could calm me as he once had. Then I remembered he’d left us, and had been here with them. And what had Kit said in the library? That they would get the antidote from Aster?

I craned my neck and narrowed my glare on him.

“You’re friends with them? Even after what they did to Lex, you’re healing them?” I elbowed him in his gut, and he groaned.