The world was eerily silent.
That was all Xander could focus on as he flew toward the sky bridge with his guards following him into battle. The air was too still. The wind was too hushed.
Rafe is fine.
Rafe is alive.
Xander repeated the phrases over and over in his mind. Throughout his young yet trying life, he’d learned one very important thing—positivity was a power all its own. He wouldn’t panic. He wouldn’t spiral out of control. He would remain determined, vigilant, and optimistic as he raced onward, wings beating as fast as they could, carrying him toward his brother.
A brother who was fine.
Who was alive.
Who was waiting.
That hope died when the sky bridge slipped into view and a pool of brilliant red filled his vision.
“Rafe!” he cried, landing at a sprint. “Rafe!”
But there was no response, just the echo of his own voice reverberating down the open channel and up into the vast sky—a sky that was clear of fire and smoke, filled only with endless blue.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
Xander refused to believe otherwise—even as he stared at the blood, watching the puddle spread. It reached the edge of the sky bridge and started dripping over the side, drop after drop after drop falling into the unknown world below.
Then he noticed something else—a footprint.
“Hold,” he shouted over his shoulder, raising his arm. Xander didn’t turn to see whether the guards had stopped, because they were loyal to their crown prince, and he knew without a doubt they would obey. With his eyes glued to the red footprint, he stepped closer. Holding his boot above the spot, he sucked in a breath as hope formed like a bright star in his chest.
The print was small—smaller than his—which meant it was smaller than Rafe’s.
“Someone was here,” he whispered to himself, then shifted position again, using his wings to hover above the blood, careful not to disturb it.
“My prince,” a voice called. Xander spun toward the sound, recognizing his captain of the guards, the woman he liked to consider his top advisor instead of the stuffy nobles his mother kept around her. Helen was a small raven, but her skills with a throwing dagger were astonishing, and her mind for politics was even sharper than the blades she wielded so well. “Your brother’s weapons.”
She gestured toward the two blades tossed haphazardly across the barren, frozen ground. Xander flew toward them and knelt to pick one up with his left hand. The sword was heavy, the hilt wrapped with black leather. He’d seen it enough times to know it was his brother’s, and that the other was its twin. Yet the blade felt cumbersome in his hand. Xander had abandoned sword play a long time ago, preferring books and debate to the practice fields. But today was one of the times he wished he could move like his brother, with his strength and abilities. Had that been the case, he would have stayed. He would have fought. He would know what had happened.
Then you’d be dead too, Rafe’s voice said, popping into his thoughts.
Xander dropped the sword and shook the comment away.
Because Rafe was alive.
He had to be.
And it was a good thing his brother wasn’t the crown prince. Rafe would have leaped over the edge searching for vengeance, would have sped across the land after a body, would have screamed his frustration for all the gods to hear. He would have been angry and rash. He would have missed all the signs.
But Xander was patient and observant. He stood, eyes narrowed as he took in the scene, reining his emotions in, refusing to allow doubts and fears to get the best of him. They never had before, and they wouldn’t today. Not when his brother needed him.
The evidence left behind was a puzzle he intended to solve. The swords. The scorch marks. The footprint. Xander’s gaze darted around the open field, to the sky bridge, the edge, and the cliffs beyond. His soldiers waited patiently, hovering above his head, knowing how their prince worked. Slowly but surely, the pieces came together.
“The dragon must have caught him as he flew up and over the edge,” Xander said, half to himself and half to Helen and the guards, eyes traveling along the scorch marks staining the frozen ground.
If he knew his brother, Rafe would have started the battle in the channel, a narrow space that might give him the upper hand. Clearly, something had gone wrong and he’d needed to flee. But the dragon had caught him.
“You see this?” Xander pointed at the black marks and the lines fanning out. “The flames were coming from the direction of the channel, shooting toward the land from above. They must have caught Rafe here, and…”
Xander followed the soot and ash, stepping through them until he spotted a mess of black, bloodied feathers on the ground. “The beast got him here. It’s where the blood starts. Maybe the dragon nicked him with a fang or a claw, and then slammed Rafe’s wings into the ground. Nothing else could have caused this mess. And in the middle of the beating, he dropped his swords, which is why you found them there.”
He pointed again, pursing his lips as he noticed the pattern in the blood trail leading toward the bridge. “The dragon tossed him, which is why there’s a broken blood trail, from where he skidded across the ground. And then his body stopped here, where the concentration of the blood is the highest.”
As far as Xander knew, dragons had never taken their kills as prizes or hostages. In all the stories, dragons came to wreak chaos for their god and either perished or fled. But they didn’t collect bodies.
“This print, it’s not Rafe’s,” he told Helen, glancing up at her as the others leaned forward with perked ears. “Someone must have come and stopped the dragon. I don’t know who, or how, but there’s no other explanation. Someone took him.”
In any other house, the soldiers might have raised their brows, looked at their heir dubiously, questioned him. But the House of Whispers was loyal, perhaps to a fault. They’d kept Xander’s disability a secret from the rest of the world out of love for him and his family. And they’d keep his hope alive until there was evidence to the contrary—they’d do whatever it took to prove him right, even if every one of their instincts insisted that he was wrong.
“Five of us will go left,” Helen announced, taking the lead as she divided the guards into groups. “Five to the right, three to the other side of the bridge, and three under it. We’ll search all day for any sign of your brother, and we’ll report back to you at the House of Peace tonight."
“Good, go,” Xander ordered. “I’ll search for more clues here while I wait for my mother and the rest of our flock.”
Not needing to hear more, the guards dispersed.
Xander hovered over the blood a few more seconds, and then landed on the other side of the pool, unable to look at it any longer. He walked slowly across the bridge, pausing in the center to lean his forearms against the rail, his attention drifting down the channel, beyond the cliffs to the Sea of Mist far, far below.
Where are you, Rafe?
Where’d you go?
I can’t do this alone.
I need you.
A gust of wind struck Xander in the back, pressing against his wings forcefully, almost shifting him off balance. He clutched the stones for support, his head turning as though searching for a cause of the sudden blast, searching for a sign. But there was nothing, just empty air. The wind was just that—wind.
A flurry of feathers lifted into the sky, pulled aloft by the air. Xander watched them drift over the edge of the bridge and flutter this way and that as they fell in black ripples. Raven feathers. His brother’s. Ripped and bloodied.
A bright spot caught his eye.
Xander leapt over the side of the bridge, diving headfirst into the channel, left hand outstretched for that bit of white that didn’t belong. When his fingers closed around the item, he spread his wings to stop his fall and took a moment to look at what he’d snared.
A single ivory feather.
One that couldn’t belong to a raven.
One that must have come from a dove—and he’d find out who. His brother had survived dragon fire once before, and he would again.
Rafe was alive.
Xander knew it for a fact. And he had to find his brother before anyone else uncovered their secret.