Page 137

Shouts and jeers rode up on the wind. He could just make out the practice fields from his perch, where the twins were ruthlessly training Lunara, their lumbering forms a blur.

Hedda and Faldir were both clearly in their rage, no mercy in their stances. Fern screeched and named-called, Solyrian reflecting off her mace whenever she swung at exactly the right angle. There was something off about the way Lunara moved, though. Sluggish. Distracted. The kind of thing that would get her killed in a real fight.

It was odd, now that Brand knew more about her. Her power was colossal, and no mistake. Worthy of Imperials and Realm Rulers and⁠—

His mind whirred, speeding through the stories, pieces tumbling and trying to fit together. A kernel of something, trying to surface. Knowledge he hadn’t had, then did.

Brand sat forward, willing his eyes to see farther. Clearer. To take her in and remember.

What the fuck was it?

He stared and stared, afraid to turn and look too quickly as the memory fought to bloom.

His youngest brother was there on the fringes, Araxis’s deep whisper growling at him, warning him. Brand knew the caution was made in ignorance. His brother was wrong about…her. About⁠—

The pound of heavy falls, hair trailing up behind her.

Her knees hitting the ground, his own just after.

Sleep, unwilling. Rage, consuming.

Shadows and prismatic power mixing, a door in his way.

Her broken body in his arms.

A note and another, fabric spilling through his fingers.

Such crushing heartbreak that it was suffocating him all over again.

Brand wrenched a gasp through clenched teeth, fingers clawing at his chest as recollection battered its way to the surface.

Weeping fuck.

Why they’d hidden this the past few weeks, he didn’t know. Didn’t care. Probably another thing they’d done to protect him.

But Magnus slipped in his storytelling.

“She misted half the Montrealm’s legions,” he said, but…

Araxis’s voice rumbled to the fore. “There are only two Sorcerit with the ability to mist at any given time.”

Sisters save him. Magnus’s robes, awkwardly sewn all the way up to the pulse in her throat and so bloody wrong on her, suddenly made all the more sense.

Brand pressed a fist to his mouth as his mind raced, knuckles running across his lips. There was no point in bringing it up. Not yet. She must have her reasons, and who was he to question it in his state?

He was mostly glad that he remembered something by himself. No wretched triggers shoving it down his throat, and no episode to further his indignity, as if this place had its own sort of magic.

Burning Solyrian, he was fucking mated to Lunara the Moonweaver, Illamiata’s Blessed Keeper.

The grin that split Brand’s face was not his own, but he forgot it by the time he left the mountain.

Endellion stood at a glittering fork in the Sight, holding back a scream as her gaze bounced back and forth between a sunny afternoon to the right, and twinkling evening to the left.

They’d switched.

She must’ve been too late to the Demon’s mind. Too late restoring his cage and hiding him from both Lunara and Night. Too late to keep their mate bond fully severed.

Shit. Shit.