“All right, I’m just going to say it.” Brighty’s voice trickled down from above, nearly lost to the wind. “Your wings are a pain in my ass.”
Rafe looked up from where he was perched on the cliffs, struggling to keep a smile off his face as Brighty hugged a rope to her chest, limbs trembling from the cold. At least, that’s what she’d claim. But it couldn’t be easy to dangle over the edge of an isle floating thousands of feet in the air when one lacked the ability to fly.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, dropping his head back against the rocks as she continued to descend into his field of view.
“What am I…” She shook her head, a sneer on her lips. “What are you doing here? Captain and I have been trying to talk to you ever since we landed in this frozen hellhole, and all you’ve done is sulk down here for hours.”
“It’s…complicated,” he said, unable to explain the emotion stirring beneath his skin. Being back in his world as this thing, being back in the House of Peace again, Rafe didn’t know what to feel. The last time he’d been here had been the beginning of the end—meeting Lyana, participating in the trials, winning his brother a mate, then telling her goodbye. Every bit of him longed for those hours the two of them had spent in the cave reveling in their magic, yet every bit of him wished to forget, to go back to that fateful morning on the bridge and tell his brother no.
That was a lie.
He wouldn’t change anything. Even with these flaming wings on his back and the inferno simmering beneath his skin, a heat not even this frozen landscape could subdue, he wouldn’t change his past. The few bright sparks had been worth all the pain.
“Rafe, get your head out of your ass.”
He frowned at her.
“There’s something important Captain and I need to tell you, and we’ve waited long enough. Trust me.”
“What? What do you need to tell me?”
Brighty pointedly eyed the rope cinched around her waist and the misty sea far, far below. Then she glared at him. “I’ll tell you when I’m back on solid ground… Well, relatively solid ground.” She wrinkled her nose. “Just, come on.”
“Fine.”
With a sigh, he fell forward and tumbled through the air. As his wings snapped open, they caught the wind, and with a few quick beats he raced past her.
“Show off!” Brighty shouted, followed by some mumbled curses he couldn’t quite make out as the crew hauled her back up to the edge. By the time she’d clawed her way over the icy precipice, he was there waiting with his arms crossed. One glance, and she stomped toward the crystal dome to their left. Captain Rokaro stood on the other side of the translucent wall, watching them with a grim expression on her face.
“Do you have any idea what this is about?” he asked his shipmates, a sense of impending dread making his chest tighten. They collectively looked at him, then at each other, then at their boots.
“I’m freezing my bloody balls off out here,” Archer announced, hugging his arms, his teeth chattering. “I thought a world bathed in sunlight would be warmer. I’m going inside.”
“Me too,” Jolt added.
“Me three,” Pyro chimed in. Rafe glared at her accusingly as he took in the flames simmering around her palms. She was a creature of fire just like him, and there was no chance she was cold. “What?” She shrugged. “Cook’s making a stew.”
“A word of advice,” Patch’s deep voice boomed in his ear as a meaty hand came down on his shoulder. “Whatever it is, Captain won’t drop it. Neither of them will. So I’d get it over with if I were you.”
The first mate, along with the rest of the crew, trudged across the ice to a different building in the raven guest quarters, leaving Rafe very much alone. Well, aside from the two women glaring at him from the other side of the crystals. He cast a longing gaze at the blue skies overhead, then sighed. Patch was right. Whatever it was, he couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Brighty said you were looking for me?” he asked as he stepped through the door, keeping his focus on Captain Rokaro and not the photo’kine practically bouncing by her side.
“I was.”
“Well, here I am. What’s going on?”
“You should sit.”
Every muscle in his body tensed. “I’m fine.”
“Rafe, there’s something we need to tell you.” Captain Rokaro paused, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, the feathers of her copper wing rippling as her shoulders writhed. “Something you have a right to know.”
The gods.
Was it Lyana? Was it Xander? Had Captain heard something? Were they injured? His heart hammered against his ribs. With each second she delayed, the pounding only intensified, until Rafe could no longer hear anything except the drumming of his blood.
“Rafe…”
Brighty glanced at the captain, rolled her eyes, and stepped forward. “Rafe, we think you’re the King Born in Fire.”
“What?” All the air left his lungs as though he’d been punched in the gut.
“The King Born in Fire?” Brighty said slowly, as though talking to a child. “The king of prophecy? The one destined to save the world? We think you’re him.”
“Brighty, you can’t— Come on, Captain— I mean—” He broke off, shaking his head. Was this some sort of a joke? His lips spread in a smile as laughter spilled up his throat, loud against the heavy silence. They had to be kidding. This had to be some twisted game. Yet as he stared into their unflinchingly somber expressions, his mirth died. “You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly,” Captain Rokaro replied.
Rafe gulped. “But that’s ridiculous. I’m not a king. Gods alive, I’m as far from a king as anyone can get. I’m a bastard. I’m half-dragon. I’m not some hero from a storybook come to save the day.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Rafe,” Brighty said, drawing his attention. For once in her life, there was no teasing grin on her lips or sarcastic retort on her tongue. Her voice churned with sympathy, an almost reverent edge to her tone. He wanted to puke. “We always thought the King Born in Fire would be an aethi’kine because the prophecy mentions healing, and they’re the most powerful mages in the world, but what if we read it wrong? I saw the queen stop that tidal wave from crashing over Da’Kin. She’s powerful enough on her own. She doesn’t need Malek. She doesn’t need another aethi’kine. But she might need you.”
Rafe staggered back.
It was everything he wanted to hear—that he was destined for more, that he had a purpose, that he and Lyana had been drawn together by forces outside their control.
But it wasn’t possible.
It couldn’t be real.
“Brighty, I—”
“You can speak to them, Rafe. You commanded a dragon to come to our aid. You saved a ship full of sailors by sending one away. They listen to you. They heed your orders. Dragons are the only creatures in the world that can kill an aethi’kine, the only creatures in the world that can prevent the queen from fulfilling the prophecy, and you can control them. Don’t you see what this means?”
The room began to spin. His thoughts flooded back to that night after the earthquake when Lyana had snuck into his room to heal his wings. Her golden magic had flooded his skin, and his silver power had risen to meet it, and they had crashed together, two opposite forces meeting as though made for one another.
I don’t think what we have is magic, Rafe, Lyana had said as her silken fingers trailed across his bare shoulders, her gaze burning his skin. At least, not the kind our ancestors feared. I think we were chosen—by Aethios, by Taetanos, by all the gods even. We were chosen for something more.
He’d wanted to believe her.
He’d wanted nothing more than to take her hand, kiss her lips, and soar into the night, following whatever path destiny had created for them. Then he’d remembered Xander, and the dream had fallen apart. But what if it was real?
What if they were meant for something more?
The two of them—together?
“You can keep her safe,” Brighty whispered as she placed her hand on his arm, something tender in the touch. He’d never spoken to her about his feelings, but she knew. She’d read the emotion on his face, the torture of wanting someone he could never have. Maybe it was a pain she herself understood. “You were made to protect her.”
Rafe froze.
Protect?
His spine straightened as a gasp fled his lips and he turned toward the wall, seeing not the blue skies and snowy landscape on the other side but a dark alley and a beast of shadow made to blend into the night. His nightmares flashed, one after another after another, visions of gore and slaughter. He’d never mentioned the creature to Brighty, nor to the captain or the crew. He hadn’t wanted to terrify them. Now, horror ran through his blood, turning his body cold.
Dragons weren’t the only beings capable of killing an aethi’kine.
Just the day before Rafe had been one good punch from ending the king, a man no one else could get close enough to touch. If he could, the shadow creature could. And if the shadow creature could, so could the six others just like him waiting to hatch.
“I have to go.”
Rafe spun for the door as Brighty reached for his hand. “Rafe, wait—”
“No, I have to go. I have to find her.”
A wind cut across the room, slamming into his wings and drawing him back.
“We didn’t tell you so you could storm off like a lovesick fool,” the captain reprimanded. “Did you forget your wings? What they look like in this world? How your presence might affect everything the queen has been trying to build?”
“You don’t understand,” Rafe shouted.
All day, he’d been sitting on those cliffs. All day, there had been a nagging sensation at the back of his mind, a gentle tug he couldn’t quite place. Brighty and the captain thought he’d been sulking, and in truth so had he. He’d felt off ever since they’d broken through the clouds, moving closer and closer to the House of Peace. From the memories, he’d thought. From the pain of his past.
Now, he realized the truth. Coming to the House of Peace hadn’t unsettled him. It was coming to the rift, coming closer to the eggs. The subtle pulse in the air hadn’t been a headache, but an awakening, the presence of another mind reaching out for his.
I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, the drumming seemed to say.
I’m awake.
I’m alive.
I’m here.
“The House of Paradise,” he murmured to himself, turning south toward the isle as the voice in his head grew louder. “It’s falling.”
“What?” Brighty and Captain Rokaro asked in unison.
“It’s falling!”
He ran, tearing through the guest quarters and emerging into the frozen landscape at a sprint before taking to the sky. Another of those creatures was about to hatch, and if he knew Lyana, she would be right there waiting when it did.