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“I can see why Valen couldn’t get close,” Kyer kept on. “He must’ve used a telekinetic to get you down here.”

“But you managed,” Draven pointed out, still stewing over the fact they touched him.

“Because my intention was never to harm you.”

Draven lifted a brow. “Still, a bold gamble to make. Why take the risk?”

Kyer shrugged. “Like I said, I just wanted you awake.”

“I find that hard to believe. People don’t act as reckless as you for no reason.”

“If I asked for something, would you return the favor?”

“I have nothing to give you.”

Kyer adjusted, sitting crossed legged on the ground. “How about information? Specifically, about yourself.”

Draven huffed. “You seem to know more about me than I do.”

“Then maybe we’ll both learn something new today.”

A small smile curved his chapped lips. “We’ll see where it goes.”

Through the dark, he caught the flash of Kyer’s teeth. “Tell me about yourself, Valen’s first born.”

He pulled his gaze away. “Not the first born—first to breathe.” To live.

Valen had many children, but none were gifted a soul from the Aithre. Whispers in the palace suggested it was the Guardian’s way of punishing him for ripping it from its rightful bloodline—denying him the chance to continue his own. Or it was at the hands of the Primordials, or the blame for so many stillborns landed on the women he took to his chambers being of poor breeding. Regardless, Draven lived when those from before didn’t because Valen used the Guardian’s own blessing to share it.

“His First Incarnation,” he finished.

“Not anymore,” Kyer said. The thought twisted up Draven’s insides in a way he couldn’t identify. “Your soul is now separate from his.”

“This soul does not belong to me.”

“On the contrary, I think you belong to it more than it does to you.”

That bore a hole straight into Draven’s temper—to once again be at the mercy of something he wanted nothing to do with.

Kyer continued, “And you’ll be hard pressed getting rid of it on your own.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“I think you should focus on adjusting—”

“Adjusting?” Draven barked a laugh. “I do not plan on getting used to this.”

Kyer tilted his head. “Maybe you should consider the possibilities of the alternative.”

And there was the crux of it. Kyer didn’t do this out of kindness. He wanted something only he, or the Serpent, could give. “What good could possibly come from me continuing to hold onto this Flare?”

“I never said anything about good. Unless, that’s what you were thinking?” Kyer leaned in, and with the blue glow from his eyes, Draven could make out the features of an older man. “What constitutes a ‘good act’ to someone like Imperial Prince Draven Hazevale?”

Kyer’s aura darkened to red, voice sharpening as he grew angered by his own words, or rather the weight behind them. There was no way he didn’t know about Draven’s past. The people he killed, the souls he consumed and destroyed. All actions he knew many found reprehensible, but for someone he didn’t know to spit them back in his face?

It was painful.

Draven wanted to fight—to argue, to scream on his behalf. It was for Valen, for Caine, for the good of Eizreth. But no motive—no excuse—would be enough to take it back.