“You don’t need to stay either,” I finally spoke. My voice sounded like I’d swallowed rocks, gravelly and raw. “You and Kaldur. You’re needed in your own territories. You’ve already been gone too long.”

“Kaldur makes his own decisions,” Kythel said. “And if our positions were reversed…you would not leave me, Azur. Why do you expect me to leave you?”

I took a deep drag of the lore, feeling the delicious burn before I blew out the smoke. Even smoking made me think of Gemma, and my body tightened, remembering her reaction to the lore the night of the ball.

Until everything had changed.

I cursed.

“No news?” I rasped.

I knew there wasn’t. I had my Halo orb on me at all times. If Gemma was trying to reach me, I’d be the first to know about it.

“There is news,” Kythel told me, making me straighten. He frowned and amended, “Not about Gemma. About the kyriv attack that happened before the harvest.”

For a moment I was confused. But then I remembered. It just seemed like eons ago.

“Why didn’t you tell me a damn kyriv had managed to breach Laras’s borders?” he asked. “And why didn’t you tell me you took it down alone? You should’ve waited for the soldiers to assist you.”

“It was too late,” I told him. “It was going after the lore fields. I’m having barracks built along the wall. I’ll station soldiers there instead of keeping them clustered in the northern end of the villages. But until then, I have patrols stationed there until the last of the lore is harvested and packed.”

Kythel shook his head. “There’s much you haven’t told me, brother. And there’s a lot that you don’t know yet—about this Maazin.”

“Zaale told you,” I guessed, raking a hand over my tired face. “Is the news about him?”

“Yes,” Kythel said. “He’s dead.”

The two words were matter-of-fact. Firm, soft, but said without feeling.

My first thought was of Gemma. Her pleading with me to not go after Maazin, saying he was young, that he’d made a mistake. He’d been kind to her, I knew. She’d worked with him for days on end in the records room. She’d enjoyed his company. She’d been shocked when she’d discovered the discrepancies within the records.

She would be distressed to hear about his death.

“How?” I asked, turning my eyes to Kythel, thinking about all the times Zaale had tried to interrupt my work today. Had it been about this? “When?”

“His body was sent to us. Delivered to our patrols at the northern borders this morning.”

A shocked breath rushed from my throat.

“That makes no sense. If he was a spy for Zyre, why would he send his own to us? Like a damn gift at our gates?”

Zyre was the king of the Kaazor. He’d taken the throne from his father five years prior after his death. While I didn’t like Zyre, I knew that he had tried to sway his father’s decision when breaking the treaty with the Kaalium. Zyre had wanted to uphold it. It had been his father who had flown against us ten years into it.

“Zyre said he didn’t authorize the kyriv attack on Laras. We received his message with Maazin’s body. He said Maazin was no Kaazor of his.”

I’d had the head of the kyriv beast sent to Zyre after I’d felled it. As a threat. As a warning. In a long missive, pinned between the beast’s eyes, I’d told him that he wouldn’t steal from House Kaalium again and to keep his spies on his side of the border unless he wanted a war.

“What is he playing at?” I wondered.

“Maybe nothing at all,” Kythel told me, lifting a shoulder. “Maybe he’s telling the truth.”

“Then who was Maazin selling lore to? And who sent the kyriv?”

“Zaale has been trying to speak with you all day,” Kythel informed me before inhaling a breath of lore. “Would you like to know what he found? He’s been quite busy since Maazin’s betrayal was discovered.”

“I don’t want to play games, brother,” I said. Tired. On edge. Aching for my wife, who might decide she didn’t want to be my wife anymore. “Just tell me.”

“Maazin was a Thryki.”

“What?”

Kythel nodded. “In his missive, Zyre said Maazin was no Kaazor of his. Now I think he meant it literally. Not a way to disown him and cast him out beyond his lands, but because he wasn’t a Kaazor at all. Zaale managed to trace his passage through the Kaalium. He entered at Salaire’s port from across the seas but under a different name. Taking work where he could find it until he paid for passage to my province, to Erzos, where he became Maazin of House Laan. He lived in Erzos for nearly four years, working the ports as a records keeper. Afterward, he disappeared for a year, and I think that’s when he must’ve made contacts in Kaazor. Probably dipping across the border in the northwest to avoid the worst of the patrol.”

“Then he came to Laras,” I guessed softly.

Kythel lowered his head in a nod. “He had enough history living in the Kaalium that Zaale didn’t think to check beyond five years. You should know that he feels responsible. He blames himself for hiring Maazin to begin with, for bringing him into the keep.”

“Of course he would,” I growled, shaking my head. “I’ll speak to him tomorrow. It wasn’t his fault.”

But if what had Zaale discovered was true…

As if reading my thoughts, Kythel said quietly, “It concerns me that a Thryki came into our lands with seemingly the sole purpose of stirring up trouble between the Kaalium and Kaazor. It concerns me that there’s another participant in this, deep within Kaazor’s borders, and we have no idea who it is. Maazin wasn’t acting alone in this. But I don’t think Zyre had anything to do with this either.”

Kythel and I matched one another’s grim expressions.

We continued to smoke in silence, thinking over the weight of the words.

War was coming. I could feel it. An ancient instinct, deep in my bones. But perhaps it wouldn’t be coming from the north, as I’d originally thought. Perhaps it would be coming across the seas instead.

I knew Kythel felt it too.

“Rest tonight,” my brother finally said, leaning over to clasp my shoulder. “You look like you’ve been to Zyos and back. I’ll light Aina’s way tonight at the shrine. Go to your bed and sleep.”

He stood, stretching out his wings.

“Do you think that her bones are still on Pe’ji?” I asked. “After all this time?”

Kythel stilled.

“Mother believed that they were. She said she could feel them there,” he answered. “So yes, I do. And if your kyrana says she will return them to us…then I believe her. You got lucky, brother. You managed to secure yourself a little human warrior for a wife.”

If she still wants me, I couldn’t help but think, watching him stretch his wings.

“When I return to Erzos, I’ll ask around my territory. Ask about Maazin of House Laan and what exactly he was doing in my villages. Someone will know,” Kythel told me, shaking out his wings. “But I won’t leave until Gemma returns to Krynn. I don’t think Kaldur will return to Vyaan until she returns either. He’s felt quite guilty about it all.”

“And what if she doesn’t return?” I couldn’t help but ask, the question born of a sleepless night and the memory of her haunted eyes the evening that she’d left. “In the beginning…I was not good to her, Kythel. I didn’t treat her well.”

My twin’s lips pressed in a firm line.

“I was cold to her. Cruel. I wanted her to fear me,” I confessed.

“And did she?” Kythel asked, towering over me. “Did she fear you?”

“No,” I said, swallowing. “No, I think she’s quite fearless. Except when it comes to those she loves.”

Kythel grunted. After a brief lapse in silence, he told me, “She’ll come back to you, Azur. I have no doubt. But maybe…”

“What?”

“Maybe it’s you who will have to go to her first,” he said, turning his eyes to the sky. Then he left, launching himself up into the air.