36. Chapter 36
R en stretched, each movement loosening the knots in her sore muscles.
Birds trilled overhead in the cypress trees, their songs high and bright against the hush of solitude. She flowed through the stretches with practiced grace, her body remembering even when her mind wandered back to the night before.
“Maybe I’m not your friend. Maybe I never will be. But does that mean I don’t care whether you survive?”
Kaelin’s voice had been a low murmur in the space between them, a sense of what seemed like honesty laced in her tone. And that was what confounded Ren most. Kaelin didn’t extend warmth lightly. Every word from her mouth was calculated, deliberate.
So why waste it on Ren?
Ren knew how the world worked. She wasn’t the kind of woman invited to courtly luncheons or afternoon strolls through royal gardens. She wasn’t the daughter of a house with a name embroidered in history.
She was a weapon someone else had sharpened out of desperation. She had no use for crowns, no desire for thrones. All she had ever wanted was a life that belonged to her, unshaped by duty or legacy. A life where bloodlines didn’t dictate worth – where her name was enough .
Gripping a training sword from the rack, she shifted into sparring form, every movement crisp and purposeful. The burn in her muscles grounded her, gave her control. But the heat in her gut only grew, flaring each time Kaelin’s words resurfaced in her mind.
“...I am particularly coming to understand you.”
Ren swung the blade in a wide arc, the air parting with a whistle. Her strikes came faster now, clean, efficient, ruthless. She welcomed the sting in her palms, the ache in her shoulders. Pain was easier to manage than whatever the hell Kaelin was doing to her.
Because what irritated her more than Kaelin’s sharp tongue or unreadable glances was the maddening possibility behind them.
The possibility that Kaelin wasn’t playing some political game.
That maybe, for reasons Ren couldn’t begin to fathom, Kaelin actually meant it.
And wasn’t that the most dangerous thing of all?
Her movements were sharper now, her breath quickening as her body pushed harder, faster, chasing distraction.
Then—
Clap… clap… clap.
Talen descended the stone steps like he had all the time in the world.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Ren asked.
Talen clicked his tongue, strolling toward the weapons rack. “Can’t a prince enjoy a quiet morning without being interrogated?” He selected a sword and twirled it once. He grinned. “Care for a spar?”
Amber eyes slid to his, holding his gaze. “Only if you’re ready to lose.”
Steel clashed against steel as they met in the center of the ring, blades singing with each impact.
“You’ve been practicing,” he managed, dodging a feint that nearly took his ear off.
“I don’t need practice to beat you,” she teased sweetly.
He laughed. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“I thought I was your bad side.”
“Oh, no,” he panted, blocking a vicious strike. “You’re far more dangerous than that.”
They circled each other, eyes locked. His grin turned wicked. “Is this how you flirt? Because it’s working. ”
She rolled her eyes. “You’d flirt with a blade if it was pointed at your throat.”
“ Especially then.”
Ren used his momentary surprise to twist, pivot, and sweep his legs out from under him. He went down hard, flat on his back with a grunt, sword skidding across the stone.
Ren straddled him, breath coming in soft pants, their lips barely inches apart. She could feel the heat of him, the tautness of muscle beneath her knees, the unguarded grin stretching across his face.
“You keep surprising me,” he murmured.
Before Ren could fire back, a smooth voice cut through the air.
“She has a talent for that.”
Both their heads turned. Kaelin stood at the edge of the ring.
Ren rose, brushing dust from her trousers. Talen sat up with a groan, shaking his head. “Come to supervise, sister?”
Kaelin descended the steps. “Oh, I do enjoy watching you lose, dear brother. But mostly I was curious to see if your ego could survive another bruising.” She glanced down at him. “She had you on your back in under three minutes.”
Talen raised a brow. “Jealous?”
Kaelin’s smile curled into a sneer. “Not in the slightest.”
Ren’s stomach did something traitorous. Her tongue fumbled for a retort, but all she managed was a scoff and a quick turn to retrieve her blade, anything to avoid the heat creeping up her neck.
Kaelin stepped closer. “If you’re going to leave a man breathless, at least make sure he’s worth the effort.”
Ren turned to Talen with a grin and shrugged. “Let’s just say you’re not my type.”
He pressed a hand to his chest in mock injury. “Saints, you wound me. Do you know how rare it is for someone to resist,” he gestured to his body, “all of this ?”
Ren patted his shoulder. “Don’t take it personally. You’re lovely. If only you were a woman.”
Talen raised his hands in mock defeat. “Noted.”
Kaelin’s voice followed Ren like a trailing ribbon as she turned to leave. “We should spar sometime. It was so easy to knock you to the ground your first day here, I almost felt guilty. ”
“Oh, right,” Ren retorted. “That time you blindsided me mid conversation? Truly inspiring combat prowess, Your Royal Highness.” Ren added sweetly, “Next time, try sparring someone who’s actually ready. Might make for a fair fight.”
“If you need to be ready to keep up with me, we have bigger problems than fairness.”
Kaelin stroke out of the ring with all the poise of a queen, her shadow stretching long in her wake.
Talen whistled low.
Ren sheathed her blade, eyes still locked on Kaelin’s retreating figure. “She thinks she can rattle me,” Ren grumbled. “Let her try.”
Talen’s lips curved into the barest grin as they locked eyes. “Keep staring like that and people will start writing ballads.”
Ren scoffed. “Relax. If anyone writes a ballad, it’ll be about how I throttled you in your sleep.”
As soon as Kaelin reached the quiet alcove off the east corridor, she poured herself a glass of wine and took a long sip, letting the sweetness drench her tongue.
Ren was just sparring, and she was just a mortal with a sharp tongue and a hellish bloodline that they knew nothing about, which should make her someone not to be trusted.
But nothing could drown the image still burned behind Kaelin’s eyes.
Ren, flushed and breathless, straddling Talen like a goddess of war.
The wild light in her eyes. The smirk. She looked like fire wrapped in mortal skin – something ancient and untamed, barely contained beneath the surface.
Ren’s tangled auburn hair, the sweat-slick curve of her jaw, the cut of her shoulders under leather.
Solid, stubborn, brash. Not the graceful elegance Kaelin usually preferred in a lover.
Not her type at all .
And yet, some treacherous part of her mulled what it might feel like to have Ren standing over her like that. The image struck something deep in Kaelin’s chest, something sudden and unwanted .
A spark she had no intention of feeding.
She wasn’t some court fool, tripping over herself for an attractive face. She’d trained her entire life to guard her power, her throne, her family. To want was a weakness. To need, even worse. That path led to ruin.
And yet… here she was unable to shake Ren’s image from her head.
It was infuriating .
Because Ren didn’t try to charm Kaelin. She didn’t fawn, didn’t beg for favor like so many others. She challenged Kaelin, even mocked her at times. Ren met her blow for blow, word for word. And Kaelin, who had always held power like a blade, found herself disarmed.
Unsettled.
Yet inevitably drawn.
It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did.
“If only you were a woman.”
At least she wasn’t blind to women. A dangerous comfort.
A dangerous hope.
Kaelin closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself. She buried these thoughts deep, where things like that belonged. She was heir to a court with a traitor in its wake, and Ren was a mortal girl with dragonfire in her blood and a past full of ghosts.
There was a quiet shuffle of boots on stone that broke the stillness.
Kaelin didn’t turn at first. She didn’t need to. “Subtlety was never your strength.”
Talen stepped into the alcove behind her. “Didn’t realize brooding was your new pastime, sister.”
“What do you want?”
“I could ask you the same. You’ve been standing here so long I thought you might have turned to stone.”
“I needed a moment.”
Talen studied her. “You’re not usually so easily rattled.”
“I’m not rattled.”
“I wanted to talk before we both pretend none of that just happened in the training ring. You are drawn to her. She’s something else. Fire and edge and all that. But you might want to tread carefully.”
Kaelin raised a brow. “You seem to find her trustworthy. You’ve fought with her. ”
“She’s strong. Fierce. I admire her. But that was before we discovered she is Flameborne.”
“She saved your life nearly a month ago.”
“I’m not ungrateful.” He leaned against the opposite wall.
“But she’s not just some angry human with a sword now.
She’s a Flameborne, which means that there’s not much we know about her bloodline.
None of us, including Mother and Father, have ever met a Flameborne.
We only know what we can read from texts and legends.
” Talen’s eyes met hers. “I’ve seen her power firsthand.
I certainly wouldn’t want to be on the other end.
We’d be foolish not to watch her closely. ”
Kaelin turned back to the window, but this time, her reflection stared back with narrowed eyes.
Talen pushed off the wall. “It’s no coincidence she shows up on our doorstep in the midst of this deadly plague and when the dead rise.”
A tense silence stretched between them. Kaelin moved to pour another glass of wine.
“Something else is moving behind all this, Kaelin. And whether she knows it or not, Ren didn’t just stumble into this war. She was placed .”
Kaelin’s expression hardened. “There’s certainly something brewing.
While you’re out gutting monsters, I’ve been smiling through every cursed ball, every royal feast, pretending I enjoy dressing up and dancing.
” Her fingers curled tightly around the stem of her glass.
“I watch every guest, listen to every whisper. The ogre ambush was no coincidence. Someone knew you’d be there.
” She finally looked at Talen. “So, yes. We both play our roles. While you are beyond our borders and fighting those creatures, I throw the balls, I wear the dresses. But while they toast to politics, I’m hunting down a traitor amidst our court. ”
Talen looked past her, toward the horizon bleeding fire across the sky. “That’s what I’m intending to find out as well.”
Kaelin swirled the wine in her glass, her tone casual but laced with thought.
“Ren is impulsive, unpredictable. Half the time, I can’t decide if I want to throttle her or applaud her.
” She shot Talen a sidelong glance. “But there’s good in her.
Stubborn, blindingly noble good – the kind that’s both annoying and a little ridiculous.
Whatever else she is, Ren’s not our enemy. ”
“I know she’s got the heart for this fight. But if she lets that fire consume her, there may be nothing left to distinguish her from the very forces we’re fighting.”