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“Fuck you,” Azriel breathed.

Rhys paused. “I used to be proud to call you brother.” The words tore something low and deep in Az’s chest.

Rhys vanished into a wisp of night.

And even as Azriel’s shadows pressed close, murmuring in his ear like the lover whose honey-sweet scent still lingered in his nose, he’d never felt more alone.

CHAPTER

7

Azriel

The sun had barely crested above the horizon when Az summoned Nuala and Cerridwen to the river house. He hadn’t slept in the long hours since Rhys had found him and Elain. But he hadn’t dared venture to that bedroom down the hall, to where he knew Elain was probably awake as well. The Mother knew how he’d find the words to speak to her—even be in the same room as her—after last night. His shadows, of course, would be of no use where she was concerned. They currently lounged at his feet, as if dozing.

Worse than Elain . . . the Mother knew how he’d deal with Rhys. He didn’t feel like seeing his brother for a damn long while.

But he still had duties to perform. Obligations to this court and the people he loved.

Seated on the couch before the unlit fire, tethering his Siphons to his scarred hands once more, he found himself staring into the depths of the ocean-blue stone atop his right hand. Its cabochon-cut surface, smooth and flawless, seemed to mock the scarred mess of his skin. And gazing at the stone now, one of the seven he wore, he could almost see himself, still bruised and battered and half-alive after the Blood Rite, reaching into the ancient brazier of flames—a nod to the Cauldron—from which all initiated warriors attempted to draw stones. Only those Illyrians who possessed powerful magic would ever be able to summon a Siphon from the flames.

As it was every year, it had been carried by seven warriors from its sacred resting place in the Illyrian Steppes all the way to Windhaven, the closest war-camp to Ramiel, for the occasion. Illyrians from across the territory had come to witness who emerged alive from the Blood Rite, and who didn’t; who had made it to the foot of the mountain itself, and who had the strength left to begin its climb. And who might have miraculously, impossibly, scaled its summit. The answer to that last one was usually no one. But Az, Rhys, and Cassian had done it. Together. Against all odds, they’d done it. And now only this final step of the Rite remained.

He’d known that attempting to draw a stone from the inferno forever burning in that holy brazier required reaching into the flames with his bare hands. He had prepared himself, talked himself through it over and over. Watched countless newly minted warriors reach into those flames seeking to pull out a stone, skin unscathed thanks to its sacred magic. Once a powerful novice had completed the Blood Rite, whatever magic flowed through Illyria allowed the male—now a true warrior—to grab their Siphon at last.

And yet Azriel had hesitated. It didn’t matter what he told himself, how much his mind screamed at his body to move, to put his hand into the flames. For a moment, he was still in that keep, still listening to his half brothers laughing as he screamed, as his flesh melted—

Rhys had known. Somehow, in that way Rhys had always been able to read him, despite their physical and mental exhaustion threatening to send them all into unconsciousness, Rhys knew. Az’s brother had said into his mind, We’re here.

Rhys was at one side, Cassian at his other. His brothers, his true brothers, were with him. So Az had at last reached into the flames.

One stone was usually enough to control any power in an Illyrian’s veins, sloppy and dangerous otherwise. Illyrian lore didn’t say anything about why the Mother had built the Illyrians that way. Maybe it had just been a curse. That wouldn’t have surprised him at all.

Az had closed his hand around the first stone, that flame licking harmlessly up his bloodied forearm, and known it wasn’t enough.

Someone had gasped—in horror, in disgust—when he’d reached in to draw a second.

More his magic had ordered. So he drew a third.

The dismayed crowd of Illyrians had started stirring. Demon, someone had whispered. The word he’d heard his entire life. Nothing had improved since arriving at Windhaven a decade ago. Their fear of him had only grown as he’d gone deeper into his shadowsinger training, surpassing even what Devlon—who had trained the last one centuries ago—could teach him as he’d learned to spy, to kill, to carve up.

A fourth stone, then a fifth. A sixth.

By the time he drew the seventh from the flames, the females had left, clutching their children to them as they fled Windhaven. Only the males, hard-faced, seething, remained. But there was nothing they could do. Nothing anyone could do. Illyrians, pieces of shit that they were, were so blindly faithful to their traditions that they could not deny him this. Everything else, yes, but this—never.

That the stones were all the same hue of blue, a cobalt bordering on turquoise, made no difference. But it was odd—and remained something he’d never puzzled out, even now.

He turned his hand this way and that, watching the faint light catch within the stone, setting it aglow like the Sidra under the sun. Whatever shock the Illyrians had felt when Az drew his seven stones was nothing compared to their outrage when Cassian, a bastard-born brute, had drawn seven red stones a moment later. Each of the stones so vibrant it was as if Cassian had drawn out the very heart of the flame itself. Cassian had been grinning with each stone, daring the other males to try to stop him.

Az had glared at them all, already planning how he’d use the Siphons now weighing down his pockets to destroy each and every one of them. By the time Cassian was done, Az had decided he’d start with his sire and half brothers.

He followed through on that decision not a decade later.

Az lowered his hand into his lap, shutting out the memory. Not from disgust—quite the opposite. Which he supposed made him as much of a piece of shit as the Illyrians he’d unleashed vengeance upon so many centuries ago.

It required a mere thought before Nuala and Cerridwen were standing before him. The half-wraith twin sisters were both yawning, both clad in their usual black-on-black silk blouses and pants, similar to the style Amren preferred. Az’s shadows stirred, swirling like small eddies in welcome, and then settled back at his feet.

“Late night?” he asked the twins by way of greeting. He never had to bother with pleasantries with them—never had to suffer through small talk.