“Nothing, just—” Xander knitted his brows, unsure why he felt like an intruder but unable to combat the sensation. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
Rafe’s face softened. “I’d do anything for you.”
“I know,” Xander replied, still torn without fully grasping why.
As though he sensed it, Rafe turned on his heels and crossed the common area, retreating to his room and leaving Xander with no more reason to delay.
I can do this, he thought, clutching the blanket, trying to bring his mind back to the task at hand. She’s a girl. Just a girl. I’ve talked to many before.
But she wasn’t just a girl.
She was his mate.
And somehow, that changed everything.
Xander shivered when he stepped outside, not just from the cold. He hastily tightened his jacket and flapped his wings, firing his muscles to warm his body as he flew the short distance and landed a few feet behind her, boots scuffing loudly against the snow. She glanced halfway over her shoulder, stopping when she realized who was there.
He cleared his throat. “I brought you a fur. I thought you might be cold.”
The princess didn’t respond. She just returned her gaze to the open sky, leaving Xander standing there like a fool.
I knew this was a stupid idea.
I knew she wanted to be left alone.
I knew—
“Well, are you going to give it to me? Or did you just come to gawk in the cold instead of behind the crystal? Speaking as someone who grew up in a palace made of the stuff, I can assure you, it’s not the stealthiest of materials for spying.”
“I— I’m—” Xander winced, and then sighed before stepping forward. “Here.”
Lyana turned, accepting his offer, flicking her gaze briefly to his face before returning it to the blanket. She tossed the fur over her shoulders and crouched back down to perch on the rock, staring out at the world.
Xander was unsure whether she wanted him to go or to stay. But Rafe had been right—this was his mate, and sooner or later, they would have to talk to each other. Why not start now? He wasn’t normally such a blithering fool. In fact, at home some people might have called him charming. Forgoing the practice grounds had given him plenty of opportunity to focus on other skills, and the art of communication was supposedly one of them, though his training was failing him at the moment.
He looked out, wondering what she could possibly have been staring at for the past hour. The sky was turning dark. Behind them, the sun was beginning to set. A white crescent hung low on the horizon, but there were no stars on which to make wishes. Just endless air spotted by clouds dropping into the misty void below, beneath which no one knew what lay.
“Thinking of making a run for it?” he teased as he knelt beside her.
The dove’s tone was unnervingly even as she replied, “I haven’t decided yet.”
Xander gulped, but decided he would stay the course for them both, and that he would fight in the only way he knew how. “What do you think you’d find?”
“The place where the dragons come from, I suppose,” she murmured, eyes flaring to life for the briefest instant. “I’ve heard the fire god walks the earth, the king of a barren wasteland.”
“They say the ocean has turned to a sea of molten flame,” he suggested. “To go near it would mean certain death.”
“Certain?” She joined the fun. “I doubt it would be anything a little snow couldn’t soothe. Worth a bit of pain, surely, to see beneath the mist, to know what waits there.”
“You’re not afraid?” he asked, surprised. “Of the fire god’s wrath? Of his dragons?”
“Other things scare me more,” she told him, voice so soft it was nearly drowned out by the wind whipping over the edge, pressing into their chests, making the blanket snap loudly, though she didn’t seem to notice.
What?
What scares you more than that?
Xander ached to know what could make her afraid, this princess who had won the trials, who had bested all her peers, who had defied tradition, maybe even the gods, by her actions. What could she possibly fear?
“Why did you choose me?” he asked, instead. Because they were little more than strangers, and he didn’t think he’d earned the answers to his other questions. Not yet, at least.
“I didn’t, not exactly.” The princess finally turned toward him, the barest hint of a smile on her lips.
He couldn’t tell if she was teasing, but he thought maybe, for a moment, she was. Yet, despite being delivered in a light tone, the words stung. Xander tried not to cringe. “My brother, then. Why did you pick him?”
“I didn’t pick him, trust me.” A frown passed over her forehead, etched deep with frustration. “He’s rude and somewhat of a grouch. And I just— I—”
The princess paused. Her words had released a knot in his chest, and Xander couldn’t stop a small grin from flittering over his lips at her rather apt description of Rafe. But then she sighed as she unweaved whatever tangled mess was in her unreadable mind. “What would you have done? I had four princes to choose from, all of whom were little more than strangers. My father matched me with Damien, and I’m sure he would’ve made a good mate, but if I’d followed along, then my whole life would have been decided for me. And I wanted a say. Maybe that makes me the typical spoiled princess who doesn’t realize how lucky she is. Maybe it just makes me human. I’m not really sure. All I know is that I chose the last mate anyone thought I would, and it gave me the slightest bit of pleasure to shock them all.”
Xander nodded.
He understood the binds of royalty. He understood the weight, the restrictions, the sacrifices. But unlike her, he embraced them. All Xander wanted to be was a good prince, a great king for his people. Everything he’d ever done was for them—to erase the mistakes of the past, to ensure them a better future. In every decision he placed them first, over his honor, his desires, and even his pride.
“Why did you say yes?” Lyana asked.
“Because,” he started, and then paused. He could lie and say it was her beauty or her brashness, that he’d been swept away in the moment. But it wasn’t the truth. In his heart, he’d gone there expecting someone else, wanting someone else, mind full of a dream that would never come true—the silly dream of a boy, the sort of dream an heir wasn’t allowed to follow. And his mate deserved honesty. “Because you’re the daughter of Aethios.”
Lyana nodded, a series of unsurprised rises and falls, before she let her lips spread into a wry smile. “Then I guess we both got what we wanted.” She stood, ending the moment, whatever it was. “Thank you for the blanket, but the sun is nearly down, so we should probably go inside.”
The princess held out the fur to him, and he took it. Their fingers brushed and they both hastily retreated, letting go at the same time. A gust of wind snatched the blanket, lifting it into the sky so it looked like a living thing as it wriggled in the air, then dropped beneath the edge, fluttering as though it had wings. Either one of them could have raced to retrieve it, but they didn’t. They stayed there, watching it disappear.
“Lysander,” she murmured. The word rolled from her lips, dipped in honey, tantalizing and smooth, as though his name were something precious, as though it held power. The sound sent a tingling down his spine.
He looked at her.
But she’d already turned around. Before he could ask why she’d said his name, her luminescent ivory wings flapped, leaving nothing but a plume of snow in her wake.
32
Rafe
Rafe must have paced the length of his room a hundred times in a row—walking to the door, pausing, shaking his head, returning to the bed, stopping just shy of lying down, turning, marching back to the door, over and over and over, until his mind was dizzy.
He had to talk to her one last time—but he shouldn’t.
He wanted to explain—but what would he say?
It would be for Xander. At least, that was
what he told himself. That he’d be going there for Xander, to praise his brother, to ease her fears, to give the two of them a better shot at getting to know each other.
For Xander, he thought, standing before the door, hand hovering over the knob but not quite touching it. For Xander. For Xander. For—
The door shot open.
Rafe recoiled, narrowly avoiding a plank of wood to the face as he jumped away. The princess marched in, silently shut the door behind her, and whipped around to face him, features charged.
“Your name,” she ordered, not a question. Her ivory wings were wide. Her arms were crossed. Her hip was cocked to the side. Everything about her oozed superiority and ire. Her haughty airs immediately set him on edge.
“No.”
Her eyes flashed like lightning in a storm. “No?”
Rafe shrugged. “No.”
“Tell me your name,” she commanded, somewhere between disbelief and indignation.
He could have given in.
He should have given in—gotten it over quickly, told her what she wanted to know and then forced her to leave before any of the sleeping ravens around them woke up.
But he didn’t.
And he really didn’t care to linger on the reasoning.
“Why?” he asked instead, unable to stop the smile rising to his lips.
Hers curled. “Are you really refusing to tell me your name?”
“No,” he said lightly. “If you tell me why you want to know so badly that you barged into my room in the middle of the night, I’ll tell you what it is.”
“I could just ask the prince,” she countered, narrowing her eyes.
“You could.”
“Or anyone else.”
“So why didn’t you?”
Her nose wrinkled in annoyance. Something about the gesture was undeniably endearing. He looked away from her, toward the curtains he’d drawn earlier that night, as though he’d somehow known something would happen that he didn’t want the outside world to witness.
“Please. I only know you as Lysander, but now he’s Lysander, and…” She trailed off as her wings dipped low enough for her primaries to slouch against the floor. Her features fell with them. And when she spoke again, her voice was hardly an echo of the vivacious girl he’d grown used to. “Just please.”
He ached to cross the room, to press his hand to her cheek, to bring a smile back to her lips.
He curled his fingers into fists instead, because if he did any of those things, whatever had happened between them in that cave would become real—not a secret in the dark, but something tangible in the light, and he couldn’t let that happen.
He had to bury those stolen hours in the shadows.
He had to snuff the fire out.
“Rafe,” he answered gruffly.
“Huh?”
“My name is Rafe.”
She frowned. “That’s not a name.”
“Well, it’s the only one you’re going to get.” She stepped back at his rough tone. He stepped forward. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Princess?”
“I—” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Is that all? You’re not going to apologize?”
“For what?”
Her mouth dropped open.
Rafe cut in before she could respond. The less she spoke, the better. The faster this was done, the faster she’d forget about him. “I never lied. You guessed at my identity in the cave, and I didn’t deny it. On the first night of the trials, I told you I wasn’t who you thought I was. Is it my fault a princess who is too used to getting her way didn’t listen?”
“But…but…”
Rafe closed in, widening his wings, making his body as intimidating as possible. “You saved my life, and for that I thank you, but it didn’t make us friends. I’m not your confidante. If you have a question, Xander will answer it. If you have a request, ask a servant. Don’t come charging into my room in the middle of the night with demands. You’re not my queen yet. I don’t answer to you. And as far as I’m concerned, when I leave this isle tomorrow, I leave everything that happened these past few days behind me. Got it?”
She didn’t give in to his ploy. The princess held her ground, widened her wings further, and met him head-on, not backing down. “Got it. Now you get this, you overbearing oaf. What happened in that cave happened, whether you want to remember it or not. We had a deal, and I intend to hold you to your promise. No one can know about me. Got it?”
Rafe held her stare. “Got it.”
He expected her to turn and leave as quickly as she’d come, but she didn’t. She paused, not flinching, not looking away. Their faces were a mere foot apart, close enough for him to feel the soft brush of her breath on his neck, the heat simmering from her skin, the magic sparking just beneath the surface, daring his to come out and play. Her hands twitched, as though she wanted to push him or strike him, or maybe pull him close. Her plush lips were pursed. Her stare drilled into him like a physical weight.
Then she blinked.
It all vanished.
She leaned back, but not fast enough, because he saw the gleam of water pooling in her eyes. When she spun on her heels, a wad of feathers smacked him in the face. Rafe stumbled, his chest throbbing even though that wasn’t what she had hit.
The princess quickly made for the door.
Good, let her go, he thought, clenching his teeth.
He’d done what he needed to do.
Then he remembered that look in her eyes, back in the cave, as he told her of his homeland. The childlike awe as visions danced across her irises, so naïve but so pure, a heart that hadn’t yet been fractured. Those days were gone. His lie had carved a wound in her, and his actions tonight had made it bleed anew. But he didn’t want her to hate his people or his home. He didn’t want her to hate Xander. Only him.
Most of all, he didn’t want to be the reason the bright spot of wonder should be gone from her eyes. She could still see her dreams come true. She could still live a life without hiding. Just not with him.
“Lyana,” Rafe murmured.
She paused with her hand on the knob, not glancing back.
“My brother is the only other person in the world who knows about my magic,” he whispered, barely able to hear his own voice over the wild pounding against his ribcage, as though something inside him were fighting to break free. “If you choose to, you can trust him with your secrets.”
And your heart.
But he couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.
She didn’t say anything. She just slipped out the door and back into the night.
Rafe stood in the middle of the room, fighting for control, forcing his feet to grow roots on the floor, forcing his wings to fall still, forcing his lips to close lest a shout tear its way out. His body began to tremble with the strain of keeping so many things inside—not just about Ana, but his wants and his fears and his dreams, all the things he never told Xander for worry they might hurt him. Sorrow over the loss of his parents. Pain that his own people had ostracized him for actions outside his control. Panic that his power would be discovered. Terror that one day his brother would see what everyone else saw, what Ana now saw—a nobody who never belonged.
The wounds were there.
Old and new.
Numb and throbbing.
So, he did the only thing he could think of to replace the pain—he slammed his fists into the glass table by his feet, slicing his hands with sharp shards, fighting the mental ache with something physical. Something real.
Rivulets of blood formed on his palms, sliding down the contours of his hands before dripping to the floor. He stared at the red pool, watching the firelight from the lantern flicker on the surface of the liquid, another round of dragon flames that would this time swallow him whole. And he stayed there for a long time, seeing his fate dance across the butchery—long enough for the cuts on his hands to slide seamlessly shut before he retreated to the washstand to clean up the me
ss.
33
Cassi
She couldn’t quite believe her eyes as the raven cleaned his hands, washing the blood away, revealing unblemished skin.
Cassi didn’t know what exactly had compelled her to stick around so long after Lyana left. At first, it had been curiosity—his cruel words were such an obvious cover to the outside observer, though it seemed they’d hit home with her friend. And then it had been pity, as he knelt in a circle of his own blood, black wings draped against the floor as though to hide him from the world, or maybe to protect him from it. And even then, as the minutes flew by, she remained, bound by some gut instinct she didn’t understand.
Now she knew why.
He’s an invinci, she marveled, spirit hovering over his shoulder as deep red turned to muted pink, then to unmarked cream. His hand had been healed of its injuries.
It was something her king would want to know immediately.
Cassi retreated from the room as the raven began to gather the broken glass, using his hand to sweep it into a pile in the corner, unconcerned as new cuts formed along his palms, healing them just as fast as they appeared. As she seeped through the walls and out into the barren tundra, a different face came to the forefront of her mind. Sandy hair. Stormy eyes. Pallid skin that had never been warmed by the sun, though in her mind she always imagined it should be golden. She sensed his soul immediately, and instead of taking her time, Cassi yanked on the line between them, rushing through air and mist and sky and cloud, her soul shooting like a falling star, tumbling from the world above and plummeting into her life below.
He was stationed in one of the many floating cities—hundreds of boats that were tied together, connected by bridges and flat wooden platforms, some containing houses, some containing trading shops, some just open areas for conversation and a little bit of fun amid so much gray. This late at night, everyone was asleep. Golden orbs of lantern light permeated the mist, bobbing in the waves as the wood around her creaked and groaned. Water splashed over the edges. Every surface was damp and dreary.
The Raven and the Dove Page 19