Chapter Fifteen
BENEDICT
Kaida.
The name hit like a half-forgotten song, one that I’d heard before but couldn’t quite remember the words to.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
Because I knew her scent—or at least, parts of it.
Not Kaida’s scent precisely, that is. No specific memory matched it, not from battlefields or courts or even the old dreams the curse had left me, but my blood still knew it. It rose to meet hers like iron filings to a magnet, ancient, unbidden, and familiar.
Aunt Kavni.
Well, not exactly. Similar to Aunt Kavni.
Enya had gasped my dead aunt’s name, resurrecting a ghost I’d thought long gone.
Kaida’s eyes: gods, those eyes. Purple as dawnfire. My mother’s eyes. My sister’s eyes. My aunt’s eyes. My eyes.
Kieran’s shoulder brushed mine, grounding me before I lost myself completely. He didn’t speak, but he’d caught the scent too; his nostrils flared, expression twisting in understanding.
Kin. Family.
“Like I said, I’ve been searching for him,” Kaida answered Wren calmly.
“Not possible,” I said even though every cell in me argued otherwise.
Kaida’s gaze snapped to mine. The wards hummed between us, alive and curious.
“This Kavni. She was related to you? I never knew my mother’s name,” Kaida said softly. She sniffed experimentally. “Canavar can’t remember either. You smell like home.”
My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Nerissa was saying something to her—introductions, explanations, politics—but it blurred. The world around Kaida blurred. All I could see was the shape of her jaw, the arch of her wings, and the glint of gold broadcasting her as the mate of the gold draken for all the world to see.
“Benedict,” Wren said softly. Her hand was on my arm, stroking the scales softly.
I blinked and found her. The sight of her steadied me: the familiar curve of her body, her scent of sea and fire. I forced my wings to fold, to anchor myself in the now. My arms went around her.
I breathed.
Kaida stepped forward and it was like I was a young drakling again, trying to impress my father and not disappoint my mother. Everything simplified back to when my only worries were dinner and being the best at sword play. And impressing females.
Don’t cry.
Kieran bumped me. “You are allowed to be emotional,” he whispered.
I glared at him.
“You look like him,” Kaida said simply, distracting me.
My voice barely worked. “Who?”
She tilted her head toward the massive draken sitting between us. “Canavar. My brother.”
“Brother—”
I whipped around, finding the massive draken right behind me. Canavar did not look like me! He towered over me by at least a head, with long, red dreaded hair and silver scales.
“I see it. The bridge of the nose, the arch of the cheekbones,” Wren said softly.
I kept staring at him and Kaida. My nose recognized her if not him, even if my eyes didn’t.
I had scented it when he first arrived, and not recognized it. It has been so long since I had a living blood relative.
Cousins.
“This is Nasi,” Kaida offered again, grinning at her mate. “You are?”
“Benedict and Kieran,” Kieran offered, leaning forward happily. “Hey, Vilhem and Meckar had gold coloring. Do you think Nasi is one of their lines?” He strode up to Nasi and inspected him like a prize piece of game.
“Kind of has Vilhem’s chin—”
Nasi growled and swiped Kieran’s hand away. Kieran blushed and backed off.
“Sorry. I went centuries without seeing a new draken male, and now drakens are falling from the sky,” he offered sheepishly.
I flinched at the reminder of Veskor.
“Kavni,” I whispered instead, almost like a prayer. Enya had known. Enya had seen it right away.
Kieran went still.
“What was that?” Wren asked, her small hands fingers wrapping around my hands.
“You’re from Kavni’s line. My aunt. My mother’s sister,” I babbled out like a simpleton.
Kaida smiled and something I hadn’t realized was broken mended.
After my father died in my arms, watching my brother bleed out, and the agony of learning my sister Baila had been captured, then sacrificed.
And who could forget the pain when the volcano had killed everyone on Lyoness, including my mother and my aunt, and my grandmother.
And everyone else.
Or so we’d thought.
Clearly, Wren was right and some drakens had survived the eruption. Perhaps they’d made it to the water and were washed ashore who knew where.
Kavni had survived long enough to give birth to Kaida. Now we knew there were more survivors than we’d realized, and their descendants were starting to come home.
And now another remnant of my bloodline stood across from me with my mother’s eyes and my aunt’s sass.
“Your wings are shaking,” Wren whispered to me.
“I—I—”
The world was shrinking. Somewhere behind me, Kieran swore softly.
Nerissa’s gaze darted between us. “Kaida,” she warned.
But Kaida didn’t stop. She studied me like she was cataloging proof. “I’ve been searching for you for years. I knew there were more of us, more survivors. Like we survived.”
“How?” I croaked out, my voice unrecognizable.
Her tone wasn’t reverent. It was wounded, and a little accusatory.
“You are king. Could you not feel us?” she begged, voice breaking slightly. “I’ve been tortured for years thinking we were forgotten and alone.”
I blinked at the hurt from her accusation.
“No. I … I don’t think.…” I paused. “I didn’t know,” I said finally, hoarse.
“No one ever does,” Kaida murmured, and for the first time, her smile softened, “until the blood calls.”
Nerissa rubbed her temples.
“Well,” she said flatly, “further proof the wards have gone to shit.”
Kieran looked between us, whistled low. “So what? You’re long-lost cousins? That’s awkward.”
I shot him a look that promised violence later.
But Kaida only laughed. “Cousins, ghosts, call it what you like. We’re all here now.”
Her mate, Nasi, moved protectively closer, eyes narrowed. “Enough, Kaida.”
“Enough?” she echoed, all humor gone. “You feel it too. Tell me you don’t. At least you have some memories of Lyoness. Canavar has nothing. Neither do I.”
He didn’t answer.
Kieran’s head whipped around and I stared at him too. I wasn’t sure how many more revelations or jolts from the past my heart could take.
“You remember?” I asked, croaking.
His head ducked with embarrassment at the attention. “Bits and pieces. I remember the volcano erupting. I will tell you another time. It is sad.”
That would be the understatement of the century.
Wren leaned forward from the cushions, her hand finding mine. “Come and sit.”
Her touch pulled me back from the edge of something raw and ancient. I exhaled, shaking off the fog.
Kaida’s expression flickered with envy, recognition, sorrow, then composure. “You chose well,” she said to Wren, and then, more quietly, to me, “And you carry what’s left of our kind’s future. Don’t waste it. I myself have not yet been blessed.”
The words sank deep. My father’s ghost stirred behind all of us, whispering words in my ear that I couldn’t hear.
I met her gaze evenly. “Then help us not repeat it.”
A pause. The hum of the island deepened, a heartbeat in the wood and water.
Kaida nodded once. “We’ll talk. Just you and me. It will all be all right. See to your mate.” Her eyes flicked to the draklings, a bit of sorrow in her gaze.
Nasi turned his face to the sea. Lightning crawled across the horizon, faint but deliberate—an unnatural light.
“You will truly help with the missing drakling?” I asked reluctantly.
Kieran’s head whipped to stare at me. He was always telling me to delegate more. I was trying. It was … nice, this having others around to help you. I was still scared from my uncle’s betrayal all those years ago.
Had I let it affect my leadership so much?
Nasi shifted. “Of course we will help. You are family.”
My throat tightened. “My mate will soon give birth, as you can see. Kieran and I do not wish to leave her side. Our third mate is already outside the wards, chasing a rogue draken who kidnapped a child. I could use your help assisting him in tracking down the rogue and bringing everyone back.”
Canavar was quick to agree. “I know about being a rogue draken. Nasi and I can help your other mate. We will do this.”
“What was the rogue’s name?” Nasi asked quietly, barely speaking.
“Veskor,” I said.
“No. Him.” Nasi interrupted me, pointing at Kieran. “The draken you said I favored.”
“Name? Oh! Who do you look like? Er … Meckar. Or Vilhem. Both had gold scales—”
“Vilhem.” Nasi rolled the name around in his mouth, as if tasting it.
“You do favor him.” I admitted. Vilhem had been close to my family, one of the royal guards who I’d grown up with. He’d been too old to fight on Dorea during the war, instead staying on the island to guard my mother and grandmother. I assumed like everyone, he’d died when the volcano erupted.
Nasi’s head tilted to the side, brow furrowed as he thought hard. “Names swirl in my mind, made up or not. Vilhem. Benedict. Fane. Sakala.”
I jerked at hearing my parents’ names coming from this foreign draken’s mouth.
“Yes! The old king and queen: Benedict’s parents!” Kieran exclaimed, practically jumping up and down in excitement. Wren’s eyes went wide.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Ghosts rose in my mind.
“You remember them?” I whispered, my throat going dry.
Color bled into Nasi’s cheeks. “I was young when the volcano erupted. I was thrown into the ocean, and I went feral left alone as my mind festered. Only with Kaida’s help did the memories come back.”
Kieran shook his head. “Domik’s gonna have a field day with you. And Ronan, when he returns.”
A small smile twisted the edges of my mouth.
For the first time since flying south, I was afraid—not for us, but for what waited beyond the edge of these, new, fragile friendships. And for the bloodline that had come back not to haunt me, but to help.
“We will leave you to rest, and wait outside when you are ready to discuss plans,” Canavar said. “Besides, we are eager to explore the island, if that is all right with you.”
My head bobbed, granting him permission.
The four of them bowed their heads and eagerly made their way outside to the platform. Kaida was already exclaiming on the intricacy of our interconnected tree bridges, and Canavar loudly wondered what the fruits were like.
“I must speak to him, eventually,” I muttered as Wren and Kieran both hugged me.
“Well, obviously. They probably have so many stories—”
I shook my head at Kieran. “No, you don’t understand. He was there, Kieran. He may be the only one left who survived. Who saw it.”
Kieran’s eyes lit in understanding, but Wren shook her head. “What? Saw what?”
I met her concerned look with my own haunted gaze. “The day Lyoness died.”