The last mile of dirt began to give way to a better-kept road as they drew closer to Carlbrin. Stone packed tighter. Ruts less hungry. The kind of road that said a city was close enough to start swallowing travelers. More carts appeared. Wagons. Merchants with their canvas tops snapped by the wind. Other riders merging in and peeling away as the main road thickened into a slow-moving current.

  Kairi glanced down at Onyx, then at the pommel where one of her hands rested. Her other hand lay over Kylar’s forearm, the arm he kept around her waist to steady her on the warhorse’s broad back.

  He seemed more protective after he’d escaped the carriage with her brother. And it had been an escape. She’d felt it in the way he was tense when he first climbed up behind her, his hold had been iron for the first miles. Slowly, as the distance grew, he eased. His arm stayed firm, but it stopped being a bar and became warmth.

  The wind picked up again. Kairi shivered, and without thinking she leaned back against him.

  A low chuckle rumbled behind her. Kylar tilted his head closer to her ear. “Almost there. When we crest this hill, you’ll see the palace and the city.”

  She looked toward the rise ahead. Kylar shifted behind her and pulled her closer until there wasn’t room for the wind to thread between them.

  “I can make you a hot drink when we get home,” he murmured.

  Home.

  Her chest loosened around the word. Home soon. For both of them.

  “A hot drink?” she teased softly. “You’ll have to make me something I’ve never had. Some sort of princely-privileged beverage.”

  She felt him breathe in deeper, like he was actually considering it.

  “A princely-privileged beverage,” he repeated, dry amusement tucked into his voice. “There’s a coffee some of the noble ladies like. I can try to brew it. Spices. Sugar.”

  “That sounds like a good place to start,” she said, and let herself relax again, eyes closing.

  His arm stayed around her waist. Her hands rested against his, and she felt the rise and fall of his chest with each steady shift of the road. Hooves struck stone now instead of mud. Voices drifted from nearby caravans, scraps of chatter and laughter carried on cold air. She didn’t ask what they’d talked about in the carriage. She had a good idea. Temples. Devotion dressed up as rules. Rush’s certainty like a blade laid against a throat.

  Betrothed, he would have reminded Kylar. And then something sharper beneath it. Something that sounded like protection and felt like warning.

  Kairi’s thoughts tried to hook on it, tried to spiral into the same dark places they always did when she let them.

  Niveus.

  What kind of man had he grown into? Was he still the kind young prince she’d met years ago, the one who’d made a promise to Krez? Or had the crown carved all softness out of him? He’d had three boys to raise. Did he raise them, or let the palace do it?

  She realized, suddenly, she’d never asked Kylar about his mother. She’d avoided parents in the dreamscape the way you avoided pressing on old bruises. If she asked about his… she’d have to talk about hers.

  Her father, always busy, always gone. Her mother steady as the hearth. Mother’s hands fixing hair and hems. A kingdom that had loved them.

  And then, like a hook snagging cloth, the memory returned.

  Broken doors. Rush bursting through. The smell of blood and smoke, and the too-still shapes beyond that looked wrong.

  Kairi tensed. Kylar’s arm tightened on reflex, then eased again, gentler this time.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  She opened her eyes and blinked into the bright winter light. “No,” she admitted. “Just… lost in thought. It spiraled.”

  He didn’t ask for details. He only gave her a quiet squeeze, like an anchor.

  She didn’t deserve him.

  She needed to steer herself away from death and pain before it swallowed the whole day.

  Onyx huffed, a low impatient sound, and it pulled her attention back to the living world. To warm breath and muscle beneath her.

  “Dato,” she said, and felt the small thrill of using his name. “Onyx is well-trained. How did you train him? He still seems unruly with others.”

  Kylar’s breath warmed her ear again, and it made her stomach tighten in a way she wasn’t ready to name.

  “We didn’t always get along,” he said. “He bit me plenty when he was a colt. Kicked me twice. Gnashed his teeth at me like I’d insulted his bloodline.”

  A laugh slipped out of her before she could catch it. She turned her head enough to look at him, and his gaze was soft. “Did you butter him up with sugar cubes and fruit?” she asked.

  Kylar sighed, eyes shifting to the back of Onyx’s head. “He wouldn’t take a saddle. Wouldn’t let me ride him.” He paused, like the memory was equal parts irritation and pride. “So I slept in his stall for a week.”

  Onyx’s ears flattened back and then perked forward again, as if he’d heard and approved.

  “There was some fruit bribing,” Kylar admitted. “But I think I won him over.”

  His mouth flattened a little, mock-offended now. “But you… you just look at him and he falls all over himself for your attention.”

  Kairi grinned. She lifted a hand and stroked gently at the stubble along his jaw. “Slate is the same way. Maybe I smell like a sugar cube.”

  Kylar leaned into her touch, almost without realizing it. “They’re just smart boys,” he murmured.

  She was about to make a comment about if he was including himself in that statement when she saw the city.

  Light caught on Carlbrin’s white roofs and threw it back into the sky, as if the whole place had decided to glitter on purpose. The expanse was bigger than she’d imagined. Streets and lanes braided out in every direction, and she couldn’t help but wonder how many years it would take to learn them all.

  Could she sneak out with Kylar sometime, both of them disguised? A quiet luncheon tucked into a corner shop. Hours spent hunting books to smuggle home. New drinks. New foods. Storefronts full of trinkets and odd little treasures that begged to be collected.

  Her gaze followed the lines upward, toward the temples and their towers, and then the palace perched near the cliffs beside the lake. Lake Aurelune glistened below it all, gentle waves rolling in like a slow breath. The sight made her chest ache for the ocean. For salt.

  The palace, though, was grand in its own right, white stone threaded with marbled blacks and greys, as if the mountain had been woven into it.

  Motion caught her attention as Darius rode up beside them.

  “Welcome to Carlbrin,” he said, steady. And he seemed to relax a fraction as soon as the city was in front of him.

  Kairi twisted in the saddle to face him more. “Glad to be home?” she asked, curiosity threading through the awe.

  Darius nodded once. “I need to see my family. Make sure my sisters didn’t turn the house into a battlefield while I was gone.”

  “How many sisters?” Kairi asked, watching him now instead of the skyline.

  “Two. Younger.” His eyes slid to the road again, already measuring distance and threat. Then, to Kylar, practical as a blade: “She should ride in the carriage once we reach the gate. Too many eyes.”

  Kylar breathed deep against her, the warmth of him steadying. “That would be for the best.” His voice stayed even, then he leaned closer to her ear. “Please bear with Damon a little longer in there.”

  Kairi twisted just enough to catch Kylar’s eyes. “His company is entertaining. I’ll be fine.” She reached up and tugged the half-mask higher on his face, a gentle, fussy gesture that was almost intimate. “You, try not to get overwhelmed.”

  Kylar didn’t answer. He just looked at her, eyes warm and half-lidded, like her concern had reached someplace tender.

  Darius reached over and pulled Kylar’s hood up and over his head.

  “Cover all of yourself,” Darius muttered. “You’ll slow us down with your good looks.”

  Kylar glared at him, halfhearted. “Careful. You’ll make her jealous.”

  Darius raised a brow and looked at Kairi. “Do you get jealous, Kairi?”

  Her mouth flattened. “No.”

  Darius looked to Kylar.

  Kylar rolled his eyes and pulled her closer against him anyway, like he didn’t believe a word of it.

  The road narrowed as the hill leveled out, and Carlbrin rose to meet them. The last stretch toward the outer gate was a slow compression of sound and motion. More carts. More riders. Traders with bundled cloth and crates of winter apples. A pair of kids racing along the verge until a weary mother snagged them by the collar. Bells somewhere in the city, not loud, just constant, like the place breathed in metal.

  Onyx’s ears flicked forward and back, reading the world faster than Kairi could.

  Kylar shifted behind her, his arm firming at her waist the moment the first line of guards came into view.

  Darius rode ahead to speak with Fenway, then circled back, gaze scanning the approaching checkpoint like he was already counting exits.

  “She rides in the carriage from here,” Darius said quietly, the words aimed at Kylar but the concern for her.

  Kairi didn’t argue. She did, however, take one last breath of Kylar’s warmth like she could store it behind her ribs for later.

  Kylar’s jaw worked once. He didn’t like it. He did it anyway. He helped her down with careful hands. His gaze lingered like it wanted to say a dozen things it couldn’t say with guards watching.

  “Soon,” he murmured, so low it was almost swallowed by hooves and wheels.

  Kairi nodded. “Soon.”

  Damon was already at the carriage door, one gloved hand out as if it was a ballroom and not a checkpoint full of suspicious eyes. His smile was soft, practiced, harmless.

  “Come on then,” he said, voice pitched just warm enough to be heard by anyone nearby. “We can’t have the city thinking our honored guest is being marched like a prisoner.”

  Kairi climbed in, skirts gathered, and the moment the door shut the world changed.

  The carriage smelled like leather and travel and the faintest hint of spice, and the windows framed Carlbrin like it was a painting she couldn’t stop staring at. She leaned toward the glass almost immediately.

  White roofs. Narrow streets. Market awnings like little flags. The distant shimmer of Lake Aurelune between buildings, a blade of pale light.

  Damon made a soft sound of amusement. “Careful.”

  She didn’t look away. “I’m just looking.”

  “That,” Damon said, gentle as a warning, “is exactly what I mean.”

  Kairi finally turned her head. “What do you mean.”

  He nodded toward the window with his chin. “Every time you lean forward like that, you look… eager. Like you’re trying to climb out of the carriage to taste the city.”

  “I am,” she said plainly.

  Damon’s smile sharpened a fraction. “Yes. And if you do it too much, people will decide the story is romantic. Which turns into rumors. Which turns into priests deciding they have permission to comment.”

  Kairi stared at him a beat longer than politeness allowed. “You,” she said slowly, “are trying to prevent rumors.”

  Damon’s mouth twitched like she’d caught him with his hand in a cookie jar.

  “The prince of scandal,” she added, dry as dust.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Damon sighed and leaned back, shoulders easing. “I’m not preventing rumors, Princess. I’m… shaping them.”

  Kairi’s brow lifted. “Why.”

  He hesitated. Not long. Just long enough that his mask slipped a corner.

  “Because I don’t see a point in acting around you,” he said, quieter now. “You always looked at me like you could see through it anyway. And it…” He swallowed, then gave her the truth like it tasted strange. “It scared me a little.”

  That got her. Fully. She stopped looking out the window. Stopped hearing the clatter of wheels. Her attention pinned to him.

  Damon’s expression went guarded, as if he regretted admitting it.

  Kairi leaned back slowly, studying him like he was a book she’d only half read. Then, with a sudden spark of mischief that belonged entirely to her: “Take me drinking sometime.”

  Damon blinked, then laughed. It came out surprised and real. “I might be too wild for you.”

  Kairi’s eyes narrowed. “You barely drank at the inn.”

  Damon’s laughter faltered into a softer sound, and something in his chest eased despite himself. Too observant. Gods, she was too observant. Was it something she always did before? Or was it something she had to learn to survive all these years?

  Kairi turned back to the window, but her voice stayed pointed. “So take me. Show me what you actually do when you go about your nights of sin and pleasure.”

  Damon went still, watching her profile. She leaned toward the glass again and Damon moved before thinking. He leaned forward, reached out, and caught the sides of her hood with both hands, tugging it up over her hair. He adjusted it, neat and precise, like he was dressing a doll and not touching a woman his brother had sworn himself to.

  Kairi froze mid-breath.

  Damon froze too, suddenly aware of what he’d done. His hands lingered one heartbeat too long. Then he let go as if the cloth had turned hot and leaned back again, gaze snapping away to the latch, to the corner, to anything that wasn’t her.

  Kairi stared at him. Damon cleared his throat and huffed a laugh like it could cover the awkwardness. “If you keep staring like that, Dato is going to stab me in my sleep thinking I did something to you.”

  “He wouldn’t,” Kairi said at once, offended on Kylar’s behalf.

  Damon kept his eyes on the latch as if it had become the most fascinating object in the kingdom. “You’re right. He would just punch me and break my nose. Devastating. Truly. My fans would weep.”

  Kairi’s mouth pulled tight, frustration climbing. “He doesn’t have any reason to be jealous of you. He knows that.”

  Damon’s lips curved, faint and sharp. “Does he?” His mind ever helpful reminding him how his brother reacted yesterday. I don't think he knows that...

  Kairi shot him a look.

  “What did you do. Kiss him until he stopped threatening my life?” Damon joked with an easy tilt to his lips.

  Heat rushed to her face before she could stop it.

  Damon blinked. And then his brows lifted slowly, dawning horror and delight mixing in equal measure.

  “No,” he said softly. “You did not.”

  Kairi turned her face back to the window like it could save her, hood shadowing her eyes.

  Damon’s grin widened, wicked and helpless. “My, my. Princess. You do have a boldness to you.”

  Kairi muttered, very quietly, “Stop.”

  “I cannot,” Damon said, equally quiet, and for once it wasn’t all performance. It was brotherly disbelief wrapped around genuine amusement. “I was not prepared for this information.”

  Outside, the carriage slowed as the outer gate approached. Voices sharpened. Guards called orders. A line formed. Fenway’s tone carried faintly through the walls, crisp and official.

  Kairi shifted again, trying to peek past the hood.

  Damon clicked his tongue under his breath. “Stay back from the window.”

  Kairi frowned and sat back against the seat. "I request to be shown around the city later then."

  “We can explore the city later. I would be honored to take my future sister shopping." Damon said simply as his eyes shut relaxing with the sway of the carriage as they began to move again. Gate check was complete then.

  Kairi’s annoyance softened into something warmer, something surprised.

  Future sister.

  Damon glanced at her, just once, and his grin faded into something honest.

  “No acting,” he reminded her quietly. “Not with me.”

  Kairi nodded, hood shadowing her smile. She looked toward the window, but didn't try to get closer to get a better view.

  Damon watched her in the way he watched everything. The way he watched people when they didn’t know they were being watched. Most people fidgeted when their thoughts got loud. Ryder bounced his pen in meetings, a tiny betrayal of impatience. Dato swayed just a little when he was holding back too much, like motion made restraint easier. Kairi did neither.

  When she thought, she went still.

  Her hands curled inward once, then loosened. Her gaze drifted over the passing streets, the white roofs, the little bursts of color from market cloths and lantern strings. Then her eyes came back to him and pinned him like a needle through fabric.

  “No acting then,” she said softly.

  Damon didn’t smile. Not the polished one. Just a small, acknowledging curve.

  “None,” he agreed.

  Kairi’s voice stayed calm, but it landed with weight. “What was your true goal on this escort?”

  Damon’s foot tapped once, a reflex. He caught himself and stilled, like he’d been caught with his own nerves showing.

  “You think I had an ulterior motive besides trying to impress you,” he said, not quite a question.

  Kairi didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Her silence was its own blade.

  Damon took a breath and let it out slow, the way you did when you decided to stop dodging. “You wrote to my little brother,” he said. “And it came through Jayce. Jayce knew too much about you, which means Ryder knew. He doesn’t meddle unless he thinks it matters.”

  Kairi’s eyes narrowed slightly. Not angry. Measuring his train of thought.

  “So,” Damon went on, “I was curious. About the kind of person you had to be for our Crown Prince to do matchmaking with a pen instead of his own hands. And about what could crack our prince of ice enough to make him… reach.”

  Kairi’s expression softened at that last word, just a fraction, but she stayed silent.

  Damon’s gaze dropped to his gloves for a moment, then lifted again. “And I wanted to see if Ryder’s judgement of you was sound.”

  There it was. The truth, blunt enough to bruise. Kairi didn’t flinch. She only watched him, patient in that terrible way she had. Patient like she could wait out anything.

  Damon’s mouth tightened. “Dato and I,” he said honest enough to drag the rot into the light. “I was cruel to him when we were younger.”

  Kairi’s face didn’t change, but the air in the carriage did. Like the city noise outside had leaned closer.

  Damon kept his voice low. “I told myself it was teasing. That he needed to toughen up. That it was harmless.” His laugh came out once, short and bitter. “It wasn’t.”

  Kairi’s hands remained folded in her lap. Still. Listening.

  “Our mother died young,” Damon said. “Illness. Slow enough to teach you dread. Fast enough to teach you you’re never ready.”

  Kairi’s eyes flickered, sympathy moving behind them like a shadow.

  “He didn’t get much time with her,” Damon continued. “And after she was gone…” He glanced at the window as if the city could take the confession from him. “He grew up in servants and duty. Not in warmth. Not in a family that knew what to do with grief.”

  Kairi’s gaze dropped briefly, as if she could see a young boy in too-big clothes, too-still, learning how to disappear.

  “As soon as he could join the guard,” Damon said, “he did. And he thrived there. He made friends. He stopped being that shy, lonely boy and became…” His eyes softened despite himself. “This commanding young man who knows how to keep people alive.”

  Kairi nodded once. She knew. She had watched him become Kylar in the dreamscape, watched him become Dato on the road.

  Damon exhaled. “Ryder and I left him to himself. We did. Whether we meant to or not.”

  Kairi’s voice came quiet, careful. “He told me about the ones who smiled at his misery.”

  Damon’s throat worked. He didn’t pretend not to understand. “He meant me,” Damon said simply.

  Kairi held his gaze. Not condemning. Not forgiving. Just seeing.

  Damon’s hands flexed once on his knees, then stilled. “So yes. I came to judge you. To see if you were real. To see if you were the kind of person who would use his softness as leverage.”

  Kairi’s brows rose slightly. “And?”

  Damon’s smile returned, but it wasn’t playful. It was tired. Honest.

  “And I realized you scare me for a different reason,” he said.

  Kairi tilted her head. “Which is?”

  “You don’t use what you see,” Damon admitted. “You just see it. And then you decide what to do with it.”

  Kairi’s lips pressed together, like she was holding back a laugh or a sigh.

  Damon looked at her, truly looked. “I thought you’d make him worse,” he said. “Or make him reckless. Or make him forget what he is.” His voice dropped. “Instead you make him… present.”

  Kairi’s eyes went distant for a heartbeat, as if she could feel Kylar’s arm around her even through stone walls and city streets.

  Damon watched her carefully. “That’s why I’m not acting around you,” he finished. “Because if I did, you’d still see through it. And I’d rather you see me as I am than what I pretend to be.”

  Kairi sat with that a moment, still as winter. Then she spoke, soft but sharp enough to cut a thread. “So your goal wasn’t to steal me from him.”

  Damon let out a quiet laugh, genuine this time. “Gods, no.” He leaned back, eyes lifting to the carriage ceiling like it might spare him the next truth. “My goal,” he said, “was to make sure my brother wasn’t walking into a blade.” His gaze returned to her. “And to make sure,” he added quietly, “that I wasn’t the blade again.”

  Outside, Carlbrin kept moving, bright and crowded and unaware of the quiet conversation happening inside a single carriage. Kairi’s hands unclenched in her lap.

  Kairi’s voice stayed even. “So your goal wasn’t to steal me from him.”

  Damon’s laugh came soft and low, but there was nothing playful in it. He leaned back and watched the city slide by through the carriage window like it was easier than looking at her. “I wasn’t trying to, that is correct. Did it need repeating?”

  A beat passed. The carriage rocked over a seam in the road. Then Damon added, as if it cost him nothing to say something that honest. “I only would have if you were bad for him.”

  Kairi’s brows lifted.

  Damon finally looked at her. His eyes were steady, stripped of charm. Protective in a way that had teeth. “If you were the kind of woman who makes a man smaller,” Damon said quietly. “If you were the kind who turns him into a weapon for her comfort. If you were the kind who breaks him and calls it love.” He shrugged like he hated the confession sitting in his mouth. “I could handle you,” he said. “If it meant keeping his heart intact in the long run.”

  Kairi didn’t bristle. She didn’t flare. She only watched him, calm and unreadable, and that calm unsettled him more than anger ever would have.

  “The Phoenix helps,” she said softly. “With… seeing people.”

  Damon’s expression tightened, as if he’d been hit somewhere that didn’t bruise.

  Kairi continued, gentle but certain. “Not mind-reading. Not pulling secrets out of you. Just… clarity. The way your voice changes when you mean something. The way you go still when you’re trying not to feel. It just is easier for me to notice than before her.”

  Damon’s jaw flexed. "My blessing lets me charm easier...don't tell my brother's" The smallest twitch up of his lips followed.

  Kairi held his eyes. “And I’m not guessing about Dato.”

  Damon stilled.

  She said it simply. No flourish. No dramatic pause. “I’ve known him for six years.”

  The words landed like a cup dropped on stone. Damon blinked once. Then again, slower, like he was trying to correct what he’d heard. “Six,” he repeated, low. “Years?”

  Kairi nodded.

  Damon’s foot began tapping again before he caught himself. The prince of rumors, the prince of scandal, suddenly looked like a man who’d walked into a room and found it full of strangers speaking truths he’d missed.

  “You mean… before this escort,” he said carefully.

  “Yes.”

  He stared at her, searching for the joke. The angle. The trick. There wasn’t one. Damon’s throat worked. “How.”

  Kairi’s gaze softened, but she didn’t look away. “In the dreamscape.”

  His breath caught. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a small failure of control.

  “The… dreamscape?,” Damon said, like the word didn’t belong in his mouth.

  Kairi nodded again. Patient. Steady. "A safe haven I have had for years. And as it sounds, a place I go to when I sleep."

  Damon went quiet so fast the carriage felt louder around them. The roll of wheels. The murmur of street voices. A vendor’s call drifting in through the crack of the window. Then, slowly, he exhaled through his nose.

  “So that’s why,” he murmured, almost to himself.

  Kairi tilted her head. “Why what?”

  Damon’s eyes flicked to her and away again, like looking too long might make him say something he couldn’t take back. “Why he stopped being lonely,” Damon said quietly. “Without any of us noticing when it happened.”

  Something tightened in Kairi’s throat, but she kept her face smooth.

  Damon’s gaze sharpened again, not cruel, just stripped bare. “And you’ve been watching him,” he said, voice lower now. “All that time.”

  Kairi didn’t deny it.

  For a heartbeat, Damon looked like he didn’t know whether to be grateful or furious about the years he’d lost. Then his expression settled into something heavier. Something real. “And you’re still here,” he said. “Still choosing him.”

  Kairi’s mouth curved faintly. “I am.”

  Damon held that truth like it was hot metal, then nodded once.

  “No acting,” Kairi reminded him, quiet.

  Damon’s lips twitched, but it wasn’t a smile. “No acting.” Damon sat back like the truth had shifted the bones in his chest, and for once he didn’t scramble to make it funny.

  He watched the light move over the carriage wall, then looked at her again, direct.

  “All right,” he said quietly. “Questions.”

  Kairi nodded once. “Ask.”

  Damon’s mouth tightened. He chose his first one with care, like it mattered where he placed his foot.

  “How does it work,” he asked. “The dream. Do you fall asleep and… end up there? Is it every night? Can you control it?”

  Kairi drew a slow breath and let it out, eyes flicking briefly toward the window as if the city might help her order it.

  “It started before I understood what it was,” she said. “Sometimes it came when I slept. Sometimes when I was exhausted. I don’t… summon it like a trick.” Her fingers curled in her lap and relaxed again. “After a while,” she added, “it started to feel consistent. Like a place. Not like a dream that changes. The meadow stays the meadow. The air feels the same. The sun sits where it sits. And him…” Her gaze softened despite herself. “He stayed.”

  Damon’s eyes narrowed slightly. “So you’re both there. At the same time.”

  “I think so,” Kairi said. “At first, I didn’t know. I thought I was making him up because I was lonely. I thought he was a story my mind made so I wouldn’t break.”

  Damon’s jaw tightened at that, but he didn’t interrupt.

  “And I’m pretty sure he thought the same about me,” she went on. “It took… a long time before we stopped treating it like something fragile. Before we admitted we could be hurt there. Before we realized… it didn’t fade when we woke.”

  Damon stared at her. “Six years,” he murmured again, like it was still too big to hold.

  Kairi nodded.

  His next question came sharper, instinctive. “Does he know you’re telling me?”

  Kairi didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  Damon’s brows rose. “Then why tell me?”

  Kairi met his gaze without flinching. “Because you asked me to stop acting. And because you just told me you would have tried to take me if you thought I would hurt him.”

  Damon went very still.

  Kairi’s voice stayed steady. “I’m telling you because you’re his brother. And because… I don’t want you making decisions about me based on a story you think you know.”

  Damon exhaled, slow. Then nodded once, as if he accepted the logic even if he didn’t like the vulnerability of it. “All right,” he said. “Who knows.”

  Kairi’s gaze dropped for half a breath as she counted.

  “Me,” she said. “Dato. Rush. Shade. Jayce.”

  Damon’s eyes flicked. “Jayce knows.”

  “Yes,” Kairi said, quieter. “And Tessa… not all of it, but enough to understand something is happening. Darius knows enough to keep me safe. He doesn’t know the whole shape of it. Kurt. Zen.”

  Damon’s mouth tightened. “So I’m late.”

  Kairi’s lips pressed together. “You’re not the only one.”

  Damon’s fingers tapped once against his knee. He stopped himself and made his hand still.

  “Did he know he was riding to you?” Damon asked.

  Kairi’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know for sure.”

  Damon watched her closely, waiting for the careful lie.

  She didn’t give him one. “I think he suspected,” she said. “He read about Tearia. He asked questions. He watched the signs. But knowing…” She shook her head slightly. “He’s stubborn. He would have told himself it was coincidence for as long as he could.”

  Damon’s gaze went distant for a moment. “That sounds like him.”

  Kairi’s mouth curved, small. “Yes.”

  Damon leaned forward a fraction. “Did you know he was coming.”

  Kairi’s fingers twisted together once in her lap before she forced them to relax. “I had an idea,” she admitted. “A hope. The kind you don’t say out loud because then it can be taken from you.” Her eyes lifted back to Damon’s. “But I was sure the moment I saw him.”

  Damon’s expression shifted, something uneasy and soft passing through it. “And you…” he started, then stopped, as if he’d found the real question and didn’t like how exposed it made him.

  Kairi waited. Let him find the words.

  Damon’s voice came out lower. “You said you loved him.”

  Kairi didn’t look away. “I have,” she said simply. “For a long time.”

  The carriage rolled over another seam in the road. Outside, voices rose and fell. Inside, the air went still around them, as if even the upholstery was listening. Damon swallowed. His eyes moved over her face like he was trying to reconcile the woman in front of him with the weapon he’d expected to meet.

  “You loved a boy you weren’t sure existed,” he said quietly.

  Kairi’s expression didn’t change, but her throat tightened. “I loved the way he showed up,” she answered. “The way he listened. The way he stayed when I tried to make him leave. The way he learned my fears and didn’t use them against me.” Her gaze softened again, betraying her. “Even before I knew his name.”

  Damon sat back slowly. For once, he didn’t have a joke. Didn’t have a grin to deflect the weight. He only looked at her and nodded like he’d accepted a truth he couldn’t undo. “Then,” Damon said, voice rougher, “I’m going to ask you one more thing.”

  Kairi lifted her chin slightly. “What.”

  Damon’s eyes held hers, steady.

  “Tell me what you need from me.”