It was familiar, a comfort.

Taking the small, cylindrical, clear pipe and the vial of lore from my pockets, I stuffed the plant inside it and sparked the inner chamber. Smoke drifted from the tip, and I brought it to my lips, inhaling deeply. The heady, soft smoke whistled down my throat.

A rumble of relief followed. I drew one of my knees up, draping my arm over it, wondering if I would sleep out here again. I inhaled, tasting the earthiness of this particular harvest, a pleasant sweetness that tinged my tongue. It was more flavorful, I realized. I could identify different notes in the lore that I could not before.

Then again, I had my kyrana’s blood flowing through me, nourishing and strengthening me. Strong and impossibly powerful. The moonlight was brighter. The air more crisp. I could fly to the edges of the Kaalium and back without so much as a shuddered breath.

My mood darkened. When I closed my eyes, I could hear her sobs, desperate and aching. A part of me wanted to relish in her misery. She should have been miserable. That was what I’d wanted.

The other part of me…every clear tear dripping down her cheek had felt like a punch in the gut. It had felt like she’d been beating her fists against me with the power of Raazos, stealing my breath and making my heart squeeze with discomfort and restlessness.

My blood mate viewed me as a monster.

Right then, I felt like one.

I wondered if Rivin was right. I wondered if I had gone too far.

It’s too late, I couldn’t help but think. She is already mine.

A shadowed figure in the sky caught my gaze as I peered out over the Silver Sea. Straightening, I frowned, but then I recognized the flying pattern, the gentle sway of small wings.

Grumbling under my breath, I saw Kalia spot me as she flew closer and closer to the keep, the burning blue end of my pipe an easy giveaway.

When she neared, she swooped and I shook my head. Fighting the twitch of my lips, I huffed when she swooped again, as if she were trying to put out the spark on my lore.

“Enough,” I growled out, though the word barely held a hint of bite. “Get down here.”

Kalia dropped down to the roof and wrinkled her nose as she sat beside me, her wing bumping mine, cold from the wind.

“Thank you for informing me of your return, Kyzaire,” she said, her tone sarcastic and cutting, but I knew she was happy to see me. “I had to discover that you returned because I happened upon your bride.”

The last word was spit out into the air as if it were poisoned, and a knot of tension bundled between my shoulders.

“You met her?” I asked. “When?”

Kalia leveled me a narrowed gaze. “At the north entrance. Ludayn was showing her up to her rooms. Which, can I just say, is downright cruel that you put her beside us! In our wing. Our family’s wing, Azur! Why would you do that?”

“Because she is my wife now, Kalia,” I said, my tone curt and clipped.

“Not in the true form,” she argued sullenly.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her. To tell her what I’d discovered tonight. That Gemma was my kyrana and as such, she was more than just my wife, my bride.

The Kylorr held their kyranas in the highest regards. And not only because of our bloody history and the importance of the kyranas during the warring times.

Laras would celebrate her. A blood match for their Kyzaire? It was a blessing from the gods. All of them. For surely, with a kyrana at my side, House Kaalium would be unbreakable. Especially if war came with the Kaazor.

If only they could see how much we despise one another, I couldn’t help but think.

“Kalia,” I said softly, taking her hand in mine, even as I took another drag from my pipe. The smoke loosened that tension, right where my wings met between my shoulders. “Promise me that you’ll behave yourself.”

“You sound like Father,” she accused.

I chuffed out a harsh breath, dropping her hand.

“That’s what he said to me when he left Krynn. To behave. To follow your orders, to not stand in your way or our brothers’ ways,” she said softly. “Like I was just waiting to make trouble because that’s all he saw me as.”

“I didn’t mean for it to sound like that,” I told her gently, knowing it was a soft subject for her. “And you know he doesn’t believe that. He loves you more than he loves all of us combined.”

She scoffed, but I knew the words pleased her, that preening little part of her that needed to be first in something. The curse of the youngest child, the only sister among a long line of brothers.

Kalia sighed, turning her finely boned face to look out over the sea. My chest squeezed and I nearly lost my breath. She looked so much like our mother in that moment, dappled silver in the moon, that it was frightening.

Clearing my throat, I asked, “Would you rather live with Kythel? Or Lucen?”

Lucen was our youngest brother—five years younger than Kythel and me—though he was still five years older than Kalia. Since they were closest in age, they’d been attached at the hip when they’d been children. Kalia was closest to Lucen, and I knew the distance from Laras to Salaire, where Lucen was Kyzaire, was great.

“You wish for me to leave?” my sister asked. Though she tried to mask it, I still heard the soft hurt in her voice.

“No,” I said truthfully. “But if Gemma’s presence is uncomfortable for you, you could spend the harvest in Salaire and the winter in Erzos with Kythel.”

“I don’t want to leave Laras,” Kalia said, a hint of relief in her tone. “This is home.”

I nodded, reaching out to drag her closer. I pressed my cheek into her hair as she embraced me back. Affection thrummed through me. Though we’d been born a decade apart, I still remembered the day she’d come into this world, the awe I’d felt at seeing her for the first time. A female. A blessing. Our mother’s wish had finally come true.

“Then you will stay,” I told her. I thought of Gemma’s sobs, the aching, desperate, raw sounds tearing from her throat. I hadn’t been gentle when I’d ripped my fangs from her neck, and I nearly winced at the memory. I surprised myself when I said softly, “Try not to be cruel to her, Kalia.”

She pulled away. “Save the cruelty to you?”

I started as the words hit me square in the chest. Quickly, I took another drag on my pipe, blowing out the silver smoke of the lore when I could hold it no longer.

“Stay away from her,” I said instead. “It’s for the best.”

“You’ll allow her to wander the keep?”

“She’s not a prisoner here,” I reminded her sharply. “You will encounter her. So the offer still stands if you wish to visit Lucen for the harvest.”

“She’s your wife, Azur,” she pointed out with a sag of her shoulders. “She’ll always be here now. So why should I have to run away from my home?”

We lapsed into silence. I was buzzing with the energy from the feeding. Not even lore could suppress it.

In the darkness, hunched over as I was, Kalia didn’t seem to notice I’d grown or that the seams of my clothes were perilously close to ripping. A mercy. I didn’t want to face her horror if she realized it. I couldn’t bear it right now.

“You want any?” I asked Kalia, the question meant to lighten the mood.

Her eyes went to my pipe, and she rolled her eyes in a very human way. Something she’d learned from her friend in the village, no doubt.

Kalia didn’t like the taste of lore. One of the few Kylorr I knew that didn’t partake in traditions that went back to our ancestors.

“Isn’t it strange?” she asked quietly next. “That a plant created all of this?”

Peering into the clear pipe, rolling it between my fingers, I inspected the gently burning dried lore. Blue in color, it shimmered with an iridescent sheen. A foundation of our culture, our history, it had been used for centuries.