CHAPTER FIFTEEN #2
His identity wasn’t engraved into banners or written in ledgers. It lived in murmurs. In the fear that dripped down tavern walls when his name was spoken. All anyone truly knew was the aftermath he left behind.
They said he carried no soul, no emotion. Only appetite.
And still, when his breath brushed mine, I almost let myself believe the rumors were wrong. That maybe a trace of life pulsed beneath all those scales.
A damn fool is all I was.
And now, I didn’t crave his demise—that would be too merciful—I craved his unraveling. Ronan the Wraith would kneel. He would crawl. And when the knife slid through the hollow where his heart should have been, I would twist, until even the smoke screamed.
Callum used a flame to swirl the contents of the mug, unfazed. “He didn’t strike me as all that terrible.”
I crossed my arms. “Did Gemma slip you some special brew, or are you suddenly incapable of righteous fury?”
He didn’t look up, only kicked his boots on top of the table. “You’re assuming I need fury to think.”
“I’m assuming you need something,” I shot back. “You’re sitting there sipping tea like you’re pondering cloud shapes.”
The next sip he took dragged long, then he exhaled. “It’s chamomile.”
My hands dragged down my face. “Maybe you’ve been hexed.” I leaned over the table until he finally met my stare. “Normally, you’d have a battle plan, a death wish, and ten backup strategies by now.”
“Maybe,” he muttered, “I’m saving them for later.”
A groan tore from me, fingers pressing hard into my temples. “Fine. When he chars you into ash, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“He won’t.” He rose, his chair sliding back with no sound at all. “Because I have something he wants more than freedom.”
Well, that had my attention locked to him as he crossed back to the window, muscles flexing as he shifted the desk aside with ease. He knelt, prying up a loose board set into the floor.
A family habit, this keeping of secrets underfoot.
“So, the distraction worked?” I asked.
Nodding once, he lifted an object, wrapped in layers of silk, from the dark. He carried it reverently, hands cradling each end as if the weight itself might bite him. Carefully, he set it between us, fingers peeling back the fabric.
“Yes.”
The room shifted when it breathed at last, when it was finally laid bare. The sword of Ryuu. The dragons’ lost heirloom.
I staggered back a step, the sight stealing air from my chest. Beautiful, yes, but dreadful. The weapon history swore had vanished the night Rhydan fell.
“How—” My voice cracked, knowing exactly what this meant. “How did you get that? It’s been missing for years.”
“Nothing is ever lost, Verena.” His hand hovered over the blade, not daring to touch. “Only waiting to be found again.”
“Gods.” I angled my chin, just enough to bare the sarcastic smile I wore. “You’re a bigger fool than I thought.” Its beauty was unmatched, its deep blue stone eclipsing even the finest gems. A sword born for kings and monsters. “I’m shocked he didn’t burn you alive the second you showed him that.”
Relief flooded my chest that Luamis’ relic was only a crown. Obrann with a weapon like this? Unthinkable. The crown was bad enough, amplifying his rot-born magic.
But the thought I couldn’t outrun was how untouchable Ronan would be with it back in his control.
Callum wound the fabric back carefully, hoping the sword wouldn’t remember his touch. His scent. He walked back to the window, lowering it into the floor, the wood groaning as if it, too, hated what it was forced to keep.
“He doesn’t know I have it.” Dust filtered into the air when he brushed his palms together. “I told him I’d retrieve it if he helped us.”
Wind whistled at the window, a shiver threading through the cottage walls.
“And when he gets it? Who’s to say he won’t cut you down before the silk even falls away?”
The lone candle burning on the windowsill guttered low in warning. Any moment now, our company would arrive.
A quick adjustment to the cuffs of his sleeves, a hand smoothing a crease that wasn’t there in his shirt, and he was primed. Like that could tame the chaos he’d invited.
“Trust, V.” His tone was maddeningly soft. “Just… try to have some faith, yes?”
Trust. The most fragile currency. The more you offered it, the faster betrayal came scrapping back for its due.
I kept my list short. Four souls. Maybe five. If Duke would ever start calling me by my godsdamn name.
My path curved toward the kitchen, and I slid the cracked frame into a drawer beside the stove to fix up later, the wood closing with a muted sigh.
The kettle’s handle was already cool beneath my fingers as I refilled it.
Callum moved to my side without a word, sparking a flame under the iron belly until it hissed.
“You never answered my question,” I murmured, eyes on the rising heat.
“Verena—” His hand found my wrist, pressing our hands palm to palm, an impression of the way he’d steadied me as a child. “You are our light,” he said, Gemma’s words reborn in his mouth.
My head shook once. “No.” Ruin burned under my second skin. Callum’s throat moved, his gaze flicking to where my fingers traced the hollow at my collarbone. “I am our darkness.” The confession spilled too easily, too true. “And leaving me out of that meeting proved it and provoked it.”
The candle on the sill trembled, its flame sputtering lower. His eyes shifted, his palms growing warmer against mine. “So, you’ve started taking the tincture again?”
My stare snapped to him. “I will not go numb just to make everyone else comfortable.” A beat as I studied him like a stranger. “Is that what this is about?”
The line of his jaw tensed. “Show me your hands.”
I blinked once, looking down to where our hands touched, then back up to him. “What?”
He didn’t look away. “Show me. Your hands.”
I cursed under my breath, suddenly chilled and burning all at once, then let a single, ancient word roll off my tongue. “Alluro.” Unglamour.
Black seeped across my fingertips, creeping past the nailbeds like ink, like corruption.
He shifted his weight. “This,” his stare stayed on my hands, “this is a big deal, Verena.”
Yes. Which is why I had planned to conceal it.
A piercing cry split the air, sharp enough to rattle the windows. I wrenched my hands from his, snatching the kettle from the stove.
“I trust you.” His tone was deceptively mild as he drifted back to my side. “It’s everyone else I don’t trust. I will not risk you in any way.”
I passed him a cup, chamomile rising in pale ribbons between us. The scent made my head swim.
“I am more than capable of taking care of myself.” The tea burned down my throat. “I don’t need to justify that I’m not some fragile kitten.” I didn’t let him see the part of me that feared I might be exactly that.
He cradled his mug in hands far too large for its porcelain handle. “I’m sorry.”
Footsteps struck the porch, voices, muffled by the door, before knuckles rasped across the wood. His eyes moved toward the sound while he pushed his untouched cup into my hands, fingers brushing mine in a fleeting promise.
“That was the only meeting you weren’t a part of,” he said, already moving for the door. “And it will be the last. On my heart.”
On my heart, our way of saying we promise for eternity.
Though as I stood in the kitchen, the air smelling of honey and deception—I knew, bone-deep, that I didn’t believe a word my brother just said.
“Ford?”
Every head turned as he hovered in the doorway, posture all wrong, eyes darting like he’d forgotten where he was.
My voice snapped his attention, though his stare still ricocheted around us, restless. “You okay?”
His mouth parted, brows shooting up. For a heartbeat, he just stared at us staring at him. Then his hands dragged down the front of his shirt as if that could smooth out the confusion.
“Am I okay?” He stood taller, his laugh a split sound. “Yeah!” With crossed arms, he leaned into the frame, missing it by a mile. A rasp cleared from his throat as he straightened again. “Why, what’s up?”
As if he hadn’t just come barreling in like he’d sprinted the whole way here. As if he wasn’t late, breathless and wild-eyed.
“Well, for starters—” Callum’s voice slid in as he emerged from the other room, papers in hand, attention half elsewhere. “You’re breathing louder than Verena after combat training.”
Ford snorted. Callum looked up long enough to throw me a wink.
He was rewarded with the gesture I reserved for family, obscene enough to sting, affectionate enough to keep.
Duke trailed in behind him, his broad shadow stretching across the floorboards.
I nudged the chair beside me, motioning for Ford.
And just like that, our familiar alignment snapped back into place.
Callum at the head of the table. Duke on his right.
Rook beside him. Me on the left, with Ford at my side, where he always was.
Gus, Rook’s top recruit, sat in the empty seat beside Ford, fiddling his newest collectable: a silver bird feather.
He brushed it across his cheek as if it were a lover’s touch.
Everyone else? They could sit wherever the hel they wanted.
Rook looked a little rattled and I gave him small smile, meant to settle. It took a moment, but he managed to mirror mine enough to show it had worked.
Ford slid into the chair, still catching his breath, words tumbling out before his lungs had properly recovered.
“I was delayed at home and had to sprint. Guards were everywhere, actual guards, not the half-dead recruits they usually dump on perimeter duty. Which is ridiculous, right? Lowest rank possible, you’d think they wouldn’t give a shit. ”
No one so much as blinked. That didn’t stop him.
His fingers twisted together, restless, as he kept rambling. “Anyway, I tried to jump the fence. Fell face-first ten feet down.”
The laugh ripped out of me before I could stop it, sharp and loud. Serves him right for snorting at Callum’s jab.