Ulyssus’s responding growl efficiently conveys both determination and a promise to drop me from the sky at the first convenient opportunity.
Just as we level out, Dain's draken gives a soul shredding cry. Dain's body tumbles off into free fall, the draken roaring as he struggles against two nets, his wings beating desperately againstthe entangling mesh. My hand fists as the draken spirals, but we are too far away.
“Kai!” A dark shape punches through the rain to my left—Kyrian’s draken cleanly slicing through the wind with her wings. They pull alongside us and Kyrian pulls back his hood. “You are a mess.”
“If I knew you were coming, I’d have put on lip paint.” Fuck, it hurts to talk.
“We’re being funneled,” Kyrian shouts over the storm. “It’s a setup.”
“I noticed.” I saw through the last stubborn knot. The net flaps free, tumbling into the storm below. Ulyssus surges higher the moment his tail is clear, steadier now, his fury vibrating through my legs.
Kyrian glances over his shoulder—listening, but not to me. His expression freezes. Then hardens.
“What?” I demand.
“Rowan left the wards. She hasn’t come back.”
The storm seems to fade, though I know it doesn’t. “If Pherix and Ilian -”
“- They didn’t force her out. No one did.” His voice is steady, but I catch the betrayal bleeding through the edges of his control. His jaw locks like stone. “She left. Walked into the forest and didn’t return.”
“She wouldn’t—” I stop myself. I know better than to finish that sentence. For a heartbeat, the battlefield below disappears. All I see is Rowan. Rowan, walking away. Just as my twin sister said she would.
The edges of my control fray. My pulse hammers, breath coming in short, sharp bursts. I force it down—clamp it down—but the hurt and anger still claw beneath my ribs. Hurt at Rowan’s betrayal, anger at myself for believing in my own deception. For seeing what I longed for instead of reality.
“She was always going to leave, wasn’t she?” I fist my hand, left one, where my shoulder hurts. The burn in my flesh is easier to bear. “She was never going to abandon her people—not for us. That damn human bleeds loyalty like it’s carved into her bones. Fucking hell. It’s the reason I fell in love with her to begin with.”
“Kai—” Kyrian runs his hand through his dripping hair and I realize that I’d said the last part aloud. And then I realize that it's true.
I fell in love with Rowan. I’m still in love with Rowan.
My lungs seize, breath caught somewhere halfway out. I can feel my pulse in my teeth, hammering too fast, too hard. The world tilts. “Eryndor isn’t pressing forward, they are going after the draken. You need to change the deployment pattern.”
“Kai.”
“The nets?—”
“- I love her too. So does Logan.” Kyrian tips his head back and draws a breath. “We aren’t just going to let this go. Let her go.”
“Rowan isn’t ours to keep!” A dam inside me breaks and I shout into the thundering wind. “We kidnapped her. Forced her to play bride. We'd even bonded her without bothering to ask. Everything she did was with a bloody blade to her neck. Every time. Every step. It always seemed like the right thing to do, didn’t it? Weaving a tapestry of one wrong covering another, covering another as if the final product could be anything but a pattern of lies.”
Kyrian’s hand closes around the pommel of his sword and he looks down at the melee unfolding below, pretending he didn’t notice my cracking apart. “The forest beyond the wards isn’t some quiet night walk; it’s teeth and shadows and the kind of danger that eats hesitation alive. Even if she walked off by choice…”
I stare at him, not sure I heard him correctly, because every fiber in me wants him to mean what I think he does.
“I can’t leave,” Kyrian says, voice low. “Not when I’m supposed to be in charge of this chaos. And Logan is down there single handedly holding the line right now. And you…” he jerks his chin toward my shoulder. “You are half useless here already. Go. Make sure our girl is safe. Whatever she is doing.”
I don’t need to be told twice. Ulyssus and I spin about before Kyrian can finish his last word, the draken’s muscle coiling beneath me as we point toward the draken field. It’s not a far flight, but the balance between swooping low enough to make out the shapes on the ground but high enough to avoid highlighting the draken field as an area of interest takes constant calculations of cloud movement.
Reaching inside me, I find the tether that connects me to Rowan and follow it. Just like all the other times I’ve tried, the chord of magic goes dark before I can get much useful information from it. I can’t tell where Rowan is. Can’t tell if she is afraid. I just know she still exists. Because if she didn’t, I’m not sure I would either. Which is less than helpful.
What good is a lifeline if it doesn't tell you which direction to pull?
I’m still contemplating whether Rowan shut me out on purpose, when I finally catch sight of movement on a forest trail that runs just shy of the draken field. Not a lone figure though, but multiple shapes. Moving toward the nest. If Rowan is among them, she’s not alone. Which means she’s either walking with them… or being marched. Either way, it’s a problem.
I can’t get closer,Ulyssus warns.Might as well light a beacon over the nest otherwise.
I don’t disagree. Which means I need to go to ground.
