Page 104 of Prince of the Phantom Sky

“How do we know you’re not the betrayer?” Raiden rounded on him. “You’ve never revealed your magic, archer. Do you wield shadows? Do you have claws hidden under there? Barron’s darkness screamed at you in the void, I saw it. She called you a demon.”

Aryn snarled, a vicious sound ripping from him. Kora leapt back, her surprise evident as she remained a couple feet away, her hand wavering at the midnight dagger strapped to her thigh. Aryn’s eyes flared, bright gold blinding Raiden as his tattoo now writhed, a deadly creature lurking beneath the planes of his face.

“It’s Hector! He’s lying to us all. He wants Kora gone, and he sent that thing to attack her in the city.”

“Hector has no magic. His loyalty to this island is infuriatingly strong.” Raiden countered. “But you . . . you may just be the most powerful mage I’ve ever met.”

Aryn’s mouth snapped shut. “I would never betray Kora.”

“What about Aerion?”

Aryn visibly flinched, raw pain passing across his face. He pushed his brown locks back, the straight strands long enough to tuck behind his ears. “He understands what happened. He knows where we stand.”

Raiden scoffed, his stare sliding from Aryn to Kora. Would he leave her like he’d left Raiden’s brother? “I see.”

“Stop!” Kora stormed forward. “This is what Barron wants. He wants us divided! Whoever is controlling the hawk, it’s not from our group. It’s an outsider. A shade we cannot see.”

“I can see plenty,” Raiden replied dryly. Our group. A tiny shard of light broke through at those words.

“Do you? Do you really see? Enough for sehwani?”

The Devanian uttered from her lips rocked him. She spoke it beautifully, every syllable a melody of the ancients. Kora linked her arm through Aryn’s, placing a hand on his chest like she knew exactly where to touch him to calm him. Deep breaths whistled through his nose, and Raiden’s internal cry rang through his ears.

Aryn hadn’t told her. She didn’t know what a skildaj bond truly meant. She’d been lied to so much, he couldn’t shatter another shard of her carefully constructed new life.

“I-I have to go.” Raiden spun on his heel, racing back to his chambers as his heart climbed up into his throat.

He was royally fucked.

45

Kora

The storm outside raged, battering the stained glass of the balcony as Kora studied the armoire. After Raiden’s bizarre, stupid, downright rude interruption of her sparring session with Aryn, he’d continued to train her for another two hours until she could barely walk. Aerion had briefly joined, displaying how runed weapons also had a limit. Like mages, a rune only lasted so long before it could be used again.

Too much power disrupts the balance created by the gods. Only a creator may harness the core of the world, Aerion’s wisdom circled her mind.

The dagger Raiden had gifted Kora for her real birthday possessed runes, but Aerion explained if she found a witch, then she could add some to another weapon. She tsked as the rage through her bond with Raiden still burned. His emotions had hit her like a charging horse, trampling her mind. What had been worse was that Aryn’s leaked through as well. A sharp slice of bitter frustration. A tornado of dual male testosterone, beating their chests to be the alpha.

Gods-damned fucking males.

What was so wrong with the skildaj bond anyway? Kora had reaffirmed it last night, after Aryn had checked in on her. She’d been so shaken from John and Circe’s arrival, their bloodied clothes and wild eyes propelling her back into Aldara. Aryn’s mere presence had been so comforting, that his protector bond had snapped into place immediately, warming the cockles of her heart.

But Raiden had said there were consequences. Aryn assured her there was nothing to worry about after Raiden had left. Kora scoffed, rifling through the armoire. How could there be consequences from having a protector? It felt . . . right. Like the sun after a rainy day, warm honey dripping down toast, the final embers of firelight in the dark.

Wiping the water trickling from her body from her bath after sparring, she threw on the comfiest dress in the wardrobe, a soft brown material that hugged her torso and draped around her hips as though it were made of air. Partnered with long sleeves to keep the chill at bay, and a squared neckline that showed off the muscle she regained in her upper body.

As Kora turned to close the armoire, she caught the K.J. inscription on the inside at the back. She brushed over it and the wood creaked. Curiosity sparking, Kora pushed harder, and a smooth square shape around the initials clicked backwards like a secret latch. A ticking noise filled the chamber, counting down to something.

A small thrill filled her as she raced to the desk, the only other place she’d seen this engraving. Fluttering her hands over the edge where K.J. had been crudely carved in, no portion of the desk gave way. She felt underneath, and her heart leapt as she discovered an oblong latch and pulled it forwards.

A floorboard beside her reading chair beneath the mezzanine popped up, and Kora jumped in surprise at the complexity of the mechanism. Leaning down to inspect it, the faint K.J. etching was marred by the scraping foot of the reading chair over the years. Reaching down into the floorboard, Kora breathed back the sting of Agatha doing the exact same as she retrieved a leather-bound book, eerily like her previous ledgers of deceits.

A flag encased the book and Kora gingerly unfolded it. Dark blue, with a chrome trident painted across the middle. A skull rested on each speared tip, and bones lined the shaft, ending in a sharp heel that could kill.

Nestling in the chair, she opened the book with haste, eager to know what secrets her past self had kept hidden. With the ship flag sprawled across her lap, Kora thumbed the darkened edges of the ledger like it’d been dipped in paint. Endless scrawlings of runes filled the pages, each one surrounded by a circle.

“What?” Kora whispered out loud as she flipped through the pages. It was all runes. As she reached the centre, the same trident had been repeatedly drawn with fury, the ink overlapping until it indented the pages. Kora gently traced it and a cold prickle raced up her arm, circling the back of her mind.