Page 66 of Blade of the Nightking

For a moment, my anger faltered.

He looked like my Aedric. The one who’d saved me, who’d fought for me, who’d protected me. And yet⁠—

There was always something beneath that surface. Something he kept buried, locked away behind that careful composure. Too many silences. Too many things he wouldn’t say.

Levinica’s son. The library.

What else had he done that I didn’t know about? What, exactly, was he capable of?

His gaze flicked briefly to Hamish, and something passed silently between them—a warning. It made something in me snap.

“Leave us, Hamish.” The words came out a bark, edged with a heat I didn’t bother to temper.

Hamish didn’t move. Of course he didn’t—he didn’t take orders from me.

He only turned when Aedric gave a short, decisive nod, stepping out without a word and pulling the door closed behind him.

Aedric’s attention returned to me. He waited, patient, expectant, the pen hovering just above the glass.

I’d come here with words burning in my throat, but now they tangled, slipping from my grasp the longer he watched me.

“Levinica’s son,” I managed at last.

Something shifted. It was subtle, nearly imperceptible, but I saw it—the tightening of his lips, the way the concern vanished almost instantly. I opened my mouth to continue, but he cut me off.

“Not here.”

“Then where?”

For a heartbeat, all warmth left his face entirely, replaced by the shrewd, assessing look I’d begun to recognize—the one that surfaced when the Lord of Flame was calculating.

“The truth, Aedric.”

He held my gaze for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.

He lifted a single finger—a request for patience—and bent once more over the table. The pen moved again, slower now, each stroke curling into elegant, looping script that gleamed faintly before disappearing. I had the fleeting, irrational thought that he was doing it on purpose—drawing out his message to Calantha, taking just a little longer than necessary, buying himself time to think. To decide how he would answer the question waiting on my tongue.

He finished with a final, sweeping flourish—his signature, no doubt—before setting the pen carefully back into its holder and rising to his feet.

“Come.” He didn’t look back to see if I followed.

We passed Levinica's receiving chamber, where we'd emerged after skelding to the Court the night before, its doors now closed, silent and forbidding. Beyond it, an arched opening led onto a terrace. The bay stretched wide before us in its perfect crescent, waves glinting in the mid-morning light. Aedric didn’t slow as he crossed to a narrow staircase carved into the cliff.

“This way,” he said.

He knew where he was going. Knew this place. He moved through it as though he'd walked these paths a hundred times before. Somehow, watching him navigate the castle with such ease and familiarity made my skin crawl. What had he done here?

We descended the steps and emerged onto a stretch of sand at the base of the cliff. Waves crashed against the shore, loud enough to swallow anything softer. Not that it mattered. There was no one else in sight.

Even so, Aedric scanned the shoreline one last time before stepping closer. When he turned to me again, his face had changed. I’d never seen that look on him before. It was as sharp and cold as the edge of a blade.

“What do you know?” The accusation in his tone made me bristle.

“You told me we would be honest with each other,” I shot back, lifting my chin as I met his stare. “No more lies.”

His nostrils flared faintly, the only outward sign of irritation, but his composure didn’t break.

“What do you know?” he repeated, pressing each word through his teeth.