Her eyes hold mine. “Storm,” she says, very softly, “I’m not a toy to be bent to your whims. I’m the only friend you have left who isn’t afraid to tell you when you’re being an idiot. That doesn’t make me a convenient cunt to fuck during Aethertide.”

Tipping my head back, I bare my jugular to her. The only creature alive who can press a knife to my throat and live. “Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite? And not a convenient anything.”

“Thank you. But I’d prefer compliments when you’re not thinking with your dick.” She pulls the dagger away and sheathes it.

“You’re right,” I say. “My apologies. I’m not handling this well.”

Her gaze softens again. “You’re a wreck.”

I catch her hand in mine. “What would I do without you?”

“Crash and burn, most likely. Want me to send in another courtier?”

“Someone durable, please.” I release her. “Don’t stay.”

I can’t have her here close enough to touch. To want. Not during Aethertide.

An emotion flashes across Zephyr’s face before she tamps it down and replaces it with that mask of cool professionalism. A curt nod, and then she’s gone.

OceanofPDF.com

36

EVANDER

THE SCENT OF blood hits me before I even open my eyes.

Bastien is here.

I roll out of bed and grab my pants off the floor, almost tripping as I yank them on. The pressure of his power prickles along my skin.

Bryony’s still asleep, her silvery hair spilling across my pillow. The sheet’s slipped to her waist, revealing the constellation of bruises I painted across her torso.

Something twists hard in my chest, but I push whatever emotion this is down deep and lock it away. My brother will sense the weakness.

The garden air is warm as I step outside. Bastien stands among our mother’s roses, blood garish in his bone-white hair, splashed across the stark angles of his face. It’s dripping from his fingers onto the soil. The fading cerulean and pink aetherlight makes the red look almost black against his skin.

His eyes stop me cold—twin voids of obsidian, empty of all recognition. The eyes of something feral that’s slipped its chain. Then his power flexes, vast and crushing, as if it’s being shoved down my throat.

Fuck. Alexios let him off his leash for Aethertide.

“Bas.” I keep my tone deliberately light, like I can’t taste the violence saturating the air. Like I don’t notice the madness. “I see you’ve been enjoying yourself.”

Nothing. No reaction. Just that dead-eyed stare. “Made some corrections.” His answer is devoid of inflection. Mechanical. “Restored the balance.”

Balance. The word sends a chill through me. When the rut-madness takes him deep like this, everything becomes equations. Blood debt to be paid. Red ink to be balanced in ledgers only he can see.

He turns back to the roses. “I planted these with Mother. Did you know?”

“No,” I say carefully. I touch the knife at my waist, ready for anything. He’s unpredictable when he’s like this.

“We spent hours out here together before you were born.” His voice softens, almost normal. Almost like my brother again. “She showed me how to prepare the soil, how deep to plant each bush. Which ones needed more sun. She let me name them. I called that one Vasha, for our grandmother.” He crushes the rose in his fist, blood and petals mixing together. “I was only one hundred and ten when you were born. You were this tiny, screaming thing. Red-faced. Squirming. Your wings weren’t even formed yet, just nubs on your back. Your little fists kept punching the air.” He looks at me. “You were always so fucking loud, Evander. I hated you the moment she put you in my arms.”

I abandon the knife and begin pulling my power instead. Bastien doesn’t reminisce. Ever.

“Babies are loud.” I keep myself calm. Controlled. “It’s what they do.”

“That’s what Mother said. She told me I needed to look after you, because brothers protect each other. So I taught you to fly. Remember?”

My chest tightens as I recall the two of us soaring over the Osbu, his starlit feathers to my gold. He’d been my brother then, not this stranger wearing Bastien’s skin. I would have done anything for him, sacrificed whatever I had to.

Like craft wings out of the shadows, even if it nearly killed me.

“Yeah,” I say softly. “I remember.”

“You were so small. But you were fast, and so eager to keep up.” His thumb traces over a thorn. “I got used to having you around and following me everywhere. Asking endless questions. I picked you up when you fell. I learned to love you.” Some real emotion flickers in those black eyes. “As much as I’m capable of loving anything. Which is why I can’t stand it when you lie to me.”

I don’t ask what he means or why he’s here after avoiding my tower for decades. I already know.

An image of Bryony flashes without warning—her hair resting on my pillow, body marked by my fingertips and teeth, soft and sleep-warm in my bed—

I shove the memories down deep, but not quickly enough.

Bastien’s head tilts. “You’re leaking emotion all over the place. Arousal. Possessiveness. Frustration…”

“It’s Aethertide,” I snap. “I’m not a puzzle for you to solve, so keep your prying ass out of my head. I’m not in the mood for nostalgia.”

I’m an idiot for dropping my guard like that. I might as well have sent Bastien an engraved invitation to carve her up.

His power unfurls, testing my defenses. Those pitiless eyes fix on me as he closes the distance between us.

This is the monster.

This is not my brother.

“While you’ve been rutting like an animal,” he says, “I’ve been in Vartena looking for Bryony Devaliant’s corpse. And her body is nowhere to be found.”

My blood turns to ice. I know that keen focus in his voice. He’s latched on to the scent of betrayal, and he won’t let go until he’s torn it open to see what bleeds.

Bastien steps closer, until we’re breathing the same air. “So I tracked her body to Scillari. And the only trace of her I can sense”—he inhales deeply, deliberately—“is here. With you. So I’ll ask once, and don’t lie to me. Why is her scent all over you?”

I only have a split second to brace myself before his power slams into my psychic walls hard enough to rattle my teeth. He scrabbles through my mind, seeking a way in, a vulnerability. Greedy for all the secret moments I’ve stolen with her. Moments I can’t let him see.

The feel of her in my arms, and the taste of her skin against my tongue. The little gasps and sighs she makes when I—

“Enough!”

Light explodes from me in a violent burst. Bastien stumbles backward as I unleash everything I have. My wings snap out, the flames licking up toward the night sky. Heat singes the air. His shadows rise to meet me, swallowing my light while my flames burn through his power. Soil cracks under our feet. The atmosphere thickens and squeezes my lungs as I call every bit of magic I can access before Alexios’ invisible collar chokes me off. I’m leashed and Bastien isn’t, and if he decides to slaughter Bryony in her sleep, I can’t stop him.

“Remember who you’re threatening,” I snarl as my wings flare brighter. Hotter. The roses around us begin to wither and smoke. “Try forcing your way into my head again, and I’ll tear you apart.”

A vein pulses at Bastien’s temple. His face is cold as ever, but his eyes—there’s a banked fire there. Something ugly and wild that I haven’t seen since the war.

“Is. She. Breathing? Is she in our mother’s tower? Have you been hiding her all this time?”

His shadows stretch and grow, devouring everything until the garden disappears. Until the stars and aetherlight above us are gone, and there’s nothing but endless black and the two of us standing in it.