Sylvara’s auburn hair spilled long, riddled with blossoms and ivy that seemed to grow from her scalp. Her green eyes carried a watchful gentleness, freckles warm across sunlit skin above a gown of deep greens and gold-shot leaves.
Kaerani burned brightest—hair a living blaze of red to molten gold, eyes rimmed in embers. Bronze skin glowed beneath crimson and black robes that flared like fire, her smile edged with danger as her flame-crowned staff lit the air.
They stood with the town leaders—old men whose hands had held their stations for a lifetime.
I pushed through the crowd of clamoring people until Malachi’s hand closed at my wrist. “Stay behind me,” he murmured, low enough so only I heard. A polite instruction, or a shield—my chest couldn’t tell which.
“Step back,” he told the crowd in the even voice of a man used to being obeyed. Hayat stepped forward into the open space, planting himself between the crowd and the leaders—broad shoulders squared, an unmovable wall. For a moment, it worked; the press of bodies faltered.
Then a voice slid into the back of my skull, smooth and certain, all silk and blade.“What a beautiful town you have, my nýchta.”
The world narrowed to the sound of his voice. I turned and saw him at the fringe, the crowd parted to let him through. He wore black fighting leathers, the surface stitched with steel studs and fastenings that caught the light like faint stars. A cloak hung from his shoulders, heavy and dark, its edges whispering against the stone. The hood shadowed his face, but when he lifted it, his smile didn’t reach his eyes. He moved with the slow confidence of someone who had never needed to push through a crowd; they parted for him instead, opening like the sea.
My hand went to my temple. A jolt of pain shot behind my eyes. His voice was there again, intimate as a lover’s whisper, threaded into the center of my thoughts. And then I saw him.
On the altar, Aeryn was wrapped in a ceremonial cloak, eyes wide and bewildered. He stood by the carved stone and did not move.
“Aeryn,” I called, urgency raw. I needed to get to him. “Come down—please.”
My legs felt weak. I wanted to cross the circle, pull him down, and never let anyone near him again.
“King Kaelith,” Hayat said, holding his ground at my side. He met Kaelith’s gaze and did not drop his eyes, even as he tilted his head in what would look like respect to anyone watching. For that, I was grateful, and proud in a way that made my chest ache.
Seeing him and Kaelith side by side, I caught the faint resemblance: eye to eye in height, two men cut from the same shape. But where Kaelith was cold, Hayat was warmth. Moon and sun—alike only in their outline of men.
Kaelith’s smile widened as if savoring something rich. “You must be thefriend,” he said, his gaze sliding over Hayat. “This isan important day for my new brother.” His eyes sharpened, hard as glass. “And you are in my way.”
From the altar, Draven’s voice carried thin. “King Kaelith is a guest. Let him pass.”
Hayat did not move. He tilted his head, but his feet stayed planted.
Kaelith stepped forward anyway, climbing the altar’s steps one by one, his voice carrying as he rose.
“There are rules. Oaths forged in blood. But there are older rules still. Old blood. I inherited more than a crown from my father. Everything he owned, everything he touched, his memory—it falls to me.” Kaelith stopped before Sylvara. Ivy stirred through her auburn hair, blossoms trembling as if ready to strike. Kaelith lifted a hand and cupped her face. His thumb brushed across her lips.
“Not much to say?” he murmured, almost tender. “Pity. I had hoped to hear your real voice, not just the pretty lies you whispered for my father.”
A hiss rippled through the crowd. Sylvara’s green eyes flashed, and a branch whipped from her hair, coiling his wrist.
Kaelith’s smile never faltered.
Flame crawled lazily across his skin, the branch in Sylvara’s grip blackening, smoke curling upward. He leaned closer as it crumbled to ash. Sylvara flinched, then snarled back at him, baring her teeth.
“You see?” Kaelith said, turning so all could hear. “You claim order, oaths, vows,” Kaelith said, his gaze sweeping the goddesses. “But you forget—your laws do not touch me. Vampyres were forged from the part of your mother you could not command. We were born outside your reach.”
His smile curved, slow and cutting. “So spare me your rules. They were never made for me.”
Kaerani stepped forward, fire shuddering through her hair. “Enough, Kaelith.” Her voice rang like a struck blade. “You may stand beyond our law—but not beyondalllaw. Blood remembers. And so do old oaths.”
She lifted her chin, eyes blazing. “This talk of a bride already chosen—what game is this? You know what was bound long before today.”
Kaelith laughed, but the sound rang hollow.
Nerissa’s moon-pale hair drifted in unseen currents. “You reach for what was never yours to alter,” she said. “The tide set its course ages ago. It will not shift for you.”
Sylvara said nothing, only watched, green eyes steady.
Kaelith inclined his head, as if humoring children. “I’m not entirely sure you heard me. Let’s try listening to understand instead of just listening to respond, shall we?”