ONE
THE CAPITAL
History does not always tell the truth. The brief glance I stole at the journal before we rushed out of the chamber felt like a mountain collapsing inside me.
Could everything we know about the Shadow Wars—perhaps even about the Shadow Clan itself—be wrong?
These were people who were already feared and ostracized, and then ultimately wiped out.
Yet, what if they were never the villains we believed them to be?
What if, all along, they were the war’s greatest victims?
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
THANE
Along the road to the capital, I feel the bond bloom in my chest, warm and fierce.
When I turn, she’s already watching me, sunlight filtering through the canopy to catch in her eyes, deep and rich as earth. The sight hits me square in the ribs.
I thought I lost her today.
When she collapsed after healing Lyra, I barely caught her before her head struck the hard stone of the cave. I wanted to do more—gods, I wanted to tear the pain from her. Stop the way her body shook while she knit Lyra back together, bone and blood and breath.
I’m grateful Lyra lived. She is a force unto herself. And for Amara’s and Garrick’s sake too. The devastation would be . . . no. I can’t go there.
Amara met death today—and defied it. Its cold fingers scraped her soul, but she refused to let it claim someone she loved.
My arm remained secure around Amara’s waist as we made our way back through the tunnels. She had told me she was fine, but I hadn’t believed her.
The color still hadn’t returned to her cheeks.
Faint shadows lingered beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there before we entered the passageway beneath the ruins, and every so often I felt her lean just a fraction more of her weight against me before catching herself, determined not to let anyone notice.
I noticed.
I always would.
My conversation with Valen as we walked back to where the escort was waiting replayed in my mind.
He’d admitted he’d never seen a creature like the one we’d fought.
The oldest records spoke of monstrous worms that burrowed beneath the earth, but even those accounts were little more than passing references.
They hadn’t been seen since before the Shadow Wars.
Most scholars believed they’d gone extinct long ago.
Long extinct.
Valen had only ever heard them mentioned in conversations with the oldest historians. Never in a context that suggested they still existed.
Yet one had.
Beneath our feet.
Waiting.
The creature itself was troubling enough.
What unsettled me more was the implication of its existence.
It hadn’t wandered into those tunnels by chance. It had survived unseen for centuries . . . or something had awakened it.
Neither possibility sat well.
My gaze finds her again. She laughed at something Garrick said, the sound carried to me on the afternoon breeze. It’s impossible to reconcile that woman with the one who had nearly died in my arms only hours earlier.
My mind wanders back to the lagoon. The night we stopped pretending duty could drown out what we wanted.
Fireflies drifted around us like stars brought to earth.
When she straddled me, her skin warm against mine and her beautiful gaze upon me, the intimacy was almost unbearable.
And when her magics burst free as she came, her eyes still held mine—fear and wonder and something holy flickering through them in the same breath.
She’s stronger now. I did the best I could to give her a foundation, and she is building a godsdamned mountain.
I’ve given her everything I have—as a warrior and as the Warlord. She’s grown so much and can now hold her own against some of the realm’s most skilled soldiers.
Since bonding with Calryx, she channels magics like no rider in any tale I’ve ever heard. She doesn’t just channel the four Elements; she merges the wild and untamed, and creates something entirely new. She steps into the unknown with the courage of a soldier charging the front line.
And yet . . . she’s still human.
Soft. Gentle.
A heart so open it terrifies me.
She has become my whole world.
Those eyes—gods, those eyes—they’ve captured my soul.
I smile.
Sitting atop her horse, Amara smiles back. And in that moment, all I want is to reach out, trace her cheek, just to make sure she’s real.
This happens to me a lot—the quiet disbelief that someone like her, someone made of light itself, could ever be mine.
It started with that first kiss at Velkar’s Descent. She bonded with Calryx . . . and then she kissed me.
She kissed me.
I almost pulled away. Almost.
But holding her—gods, feeling her in my arms like that—made it impossible.
And then the bond began to stir, ancient magics waking between us. Valen called it soul threading, a tether from the age of the first riders. And that’s what it feels like, her soul brushing mine. In every breath. Every thought. Every beat of my godsdamn heart.
The bond wouldn’t let me go. It fucking refused, alive and relentless.
For that, I’ll be grateful until my last breath.
Because she is everything. And this time, nothing in this world will make me let go—curse be damned. I’ll find a way to keep her safe from it, even if it drags me into the depths of the Shadow Realm.
I don’t know how long I stay lost in her eyes. Only that the world had narrowed to us—until the road rose beneath me again. I fill my lungs, willing my pulse to settle, shifting in the saddle. Ahead, Volcaris rises through the golden haze of late afternoon.
The Capital.
The place where I grew up, but it never truly felt like home. Not after Mother died. Not after Father began falling ill.
The strap of my satchel slips from my shoulder. I catch it, tighten the buckle. Inside are the secrets of the Shadow Wars. A buried history. A possible genocide. The eradication of my people—by my own clan.
Mother was a descendant of the Shadow Warden—the last Lord of the Shadow Clan. His blood, thinned over time by Fire Clan lineage, still carried enough power to pass on the Shadow Element.
And now, awakened by the bond . . . I can wield it.
I’ve only used it twice.
The first time was accidental—I was worried about Amara, after the Kethraki ambushed her mid-flight with Calryx. She returned to training too soon. I know she was cleared. I know she insisted. But she looked too pale. Too breakable.
I was in my study when it happened. Thoughts of her kept bleeding into my mind while I drafted letters to the other Clan Lords—updates on her progress, her bond with Calryx—when the shadows began to curl from my fingers.
I recognized them immediately. The same smoke-dark tendrils that used to unfurl from my mother’s hands . . . when the madness took hold.
I shouted, clenching my fists. The chair toppled behind me, and the shadows vanished. If anyone knew—I can’t even imagine. No history of my experience and standing could save me. I could be ostracized, stripped of my titles, rank, respect.
The second time was different.
Amara had asked me directly if I could wield it. So I did. For her.
It came easily—too easily. The magics slid from my palms like silk, curling around us in ribbons of smoke. One tendril brushed her cheek.
I froze, terror clawing through me that it had touched her.
But she didn’t flinch. She leaned into it.
And when her brown eyes found mine, calm and so open, the tightness in my chest vanished.
I glance at Amara atop her horse, watching the road ahead. Every now and then, she sneaks a look at Lyra—still pale with purple shadows under her eyes, but awake. Alert.
Garrick’s arms circle her, steadying her in front of him.
He’s always been rakish—flirting with any woman who breathes near him. Never too serious. Always loyal first to the Phoenix Ring.
My first in command. Of the Fire Clan, like me. A brother.
But when I look at him now, he’s a man possessed, captivated by Amara’s best friend. I’ve never seen him so taken.
I smile and shake my head. Who knew Garrick could be serious?
Then my eyes find Amara again. I could watch her for hours.
She surprises me constantly.
When the Shadow Element touched her, she actually closed her eyes and smiled—as if it were my hand cupping her face. It didn’t seem to be evil. Could she be changing it? Or maybe it’s different being wielded by me? Still so many questions.
She believes we can stop the curse from claiming me too—that I won’t be pulled to the Shadow Realm like my mother was.
My mother was not so lucky. The pull eventually claimed her life.
And Kastiel’s death?
That was the beginning of our family’s unraveling.
She was the heart of our family. The type of woman who was strong, opinionated and impossible to ignore.
Amara reminds me of her.
I wish my mother were alive to meet the woman who’s turned my life upside down in every way. My reason for breathing.
After Kastiel, I lived in a dark, hollow place for a long time. And on the anniversary of his death, the curse that poisoned my mother’s mind finally took her. She threw herself from the highest tower of the castle.
The guards said she was calm—that’s why they didn’t move until it was too late. My mother didn’t scream. Didn’t hesitate.
Just stepped off the edge—like she’d been waiting for that moment her whole life.
I still remember the sound the stone made beneath my boots when I ran to find her. Too late. The fall broke more than her body. It shattered what was left of our family.
Not long after, my father succumbed to sadness of the heart. Now he’s just a shadow of the man I looked up to.
And the burden of the realm?
It landed squarely on my shoulders.
I was only nineteen and suddenly Warlord of the Fire Clan. Leader of the entire godsdamned realm.
Rowena has been a pillar through all of it. I’ve been a pain in her ass more times than I can count—and still, she takes it. She never lets my temper or silence derail her, never flinches from doing what needs to be done when I’m away from Volcaris.
I would be lost without her.
I have to be a better brother. She deserves more than what I’ve given her.