Page 155 of Blade of the Nightking

But like a coward, I stayed hidden in my room.

I told myself she likely didn't want to see me. That she'd want to be alone with her thoughts, alone with the enormity of her grief.

And Aedric⁠—

An ugly heaviness settled low in my stomach.

What had he been thinking, bringing Dannis to Thistra of all places? Bringing the heir of Dusk—the nephew of the Dark Prince himself—into an enemy Court as though it were nothing? Had it been arrogance? A quiet, deliberate cruelty? Some unspoken vengeance against Rìan, parading his stolen heir before those who’d once allied themselves with the Court of Dusk? A reminder of everything Rìan had lost?

Or had it been something else entirely? Some belief, perhaps, that keeping Dannis close was safer than leaving him elsewhere. That so long as he remained at Aedric's side, Aedric himself could watch over him.

I didn’t know which it could be. But Dannis—Neeken—hadn’t seemed afraid. He hadn’t seemed like a captive.

I thought back to him sitting beside the fire, laughing with the others as though he belonged there. As though he weren't a prisoner at all, but simply another member of Aedric's company. A friend, even.

How had he been so at ease, so content, after having been stolen from his mother? From his Court? From his home? After having been mutilated?

Unless he’d been taken too young to remember. Unless three hundred years had worn the painful edges from whatever sorrow and fear had once existed.

Unless—somehow—he’d come to love the man who had taken him.

Shame settled over me like a heavy blanket. I didn’t know how to face Levinica again. And deep down, I was no longer certain I deserved to.

Aedric was my mate. I’d chosen him. And what he’d done… what he’d dared do…

He'd never intended to tell her. Of that, I felt certain. He'd been prepared to let Levinica go on believing her son was alive somewhere, safely held in one of the Courts, while Dannis had been dead for months.

And it hadn’t been to spare her grief. No—it had been because the truth was inconvenient. Because the moment anyone learned he was dead, Aedric would’ve lost the only thing keeping the Court of Dusk in check. So long as Dannis remained alive, the Dusklands would kneel. Aedric had been prepared to lie and deceive for as long as necessary to preserve that control.

But I refused to believe he'd done it for power alone. Hadn't he sacrificed too? Hadn't he been forced to do terrible things for the greater good? For Elantis. For peace.

He’d ended a war that should’ve swallowed the realm whole, and the price of that peace had been one small boy taken from the Court of Dusk and raised beneath his protection. He’d even spared Levinica’s life when her loyalty to the Dark Prince should have earned her execution.

Dannis hadn't been locked away in chains. Aedric had kept him close. Brought him into his own company and raised him at his side. And his death... that hadn't been Aedric's fault.

I still remembered the look on his face when we'd found the body. The devastation in it. The terrible, haunted silence that followed. It made sense now why he'd refused to speak of Neeken afterward, why something dangerous had entered the room whenever anyone dared mention him. He'd grieved. He'd mourned someone he'd genuinely cared for.

Or perhaps… Doubt slithered through me unbidden, foul enough to make my stomach turn. Perhaps his grief hadn’t been true grief. Perhaps he’d mourned the loss of the one advantage he’d held over the Dusklands for three hundred years.

Because the moment Dannis died, so too had Aedric’s leverage.

I spiralled like that, back and forth through my thoughts, trying to understand his motives. The things he'd done. And why.

I'd truly thought I understood him. Thought I'd begun to glimpse the male beneath the High Lord, the heart hidden beneath all that arrogance and entitlement. But he was still, in so many ways, a stranger to me.

My mate... and yet someone I hardly knew at all.

Night fell, then deepened, and still I couldn’t quiet the unease gnawing at me.

At last, I crossed the room and wrenched open the door. If I hesitated, I wouldn’t go—I knew it. I had to find Levinica. I would go to her chambers, fall to my knees, and beg forgiveness before I lost the nerve entirely.

I stepped into the corridor and forced my feet forward. The halls were empty and still. No shadows trailed me for once—Rìan must’ve had Veylan occupied, likely searching for the wells—but their absence gnawed at me all the same.

My pace slowed as I realized, with a stab of frustration, that I’d only been to Levinica’s chambers once. And I had no idea how to find them again.

I wandered without direction until a familiar corridor pulled me up short. The library lay just beyond the bend.

I hovered there, uncertain, my teeth sinking into my lip. I couldn’t tell Rìan. Not yet. The thought alone made me want to tear my heart from my chest.