Azrayel's steps echoed through the marble corridor, each one too hollow, as if the palace itself remembered what should have been here. The wing of the palace had been built decades ago for a child who had never come home.
A princess who was supposed to live and grow and laugh here — his sister, his blood.
Now she walked beside him, silent, her fingertips trailing along the painted stone as though she were trying to summon the life that had never filled these halls.
He stole glances at her when he thought she would not notice. The way her braid swayed lightly with each step, the way her gaze lingered on carved doorframes and faded murals.
She did not look like someone being introduced to her own chambers. She looked like a stranger walking through a mausoleum.
"This was meant for you," he heard himself say, though his tone came out more formal, more distant, than he intended. "The wing was prepared before your birth. Furnished in anticipation."
Her lips curved faintly, not quite a smile. "So I was expected."
The words caught him off guard. They were soft, but they cut. He forced his voice into something steadier.
"Of course. You were Katarthan. Born of fire."
But even as he said it, his chest tightened. Because memory struck —
The fire trial. The chamber thick with smoke and heat.
Her blood on the altar, the flames leaping high… but not as they should have.
He remembered the way the crowd gasped, how the air itself had seemed to twist. For him, the fire had roared in welcome, embracing him, marking him as son of the Nest.
It was neither rejection nor acceptance. It was the same uncertain shiver he had seen again at the Nest.
When the ceremony ended, when the priests and courtiers left murmuring, it was their father who had called him aside.
"You saw it, Azrayel."
The emperor's eyes had been sharp, firelight reflecting in their depths.
"The flame bent differently for her. It marked her, but not wholly ours. Years ago, before she was born, a witch whispered a prophecy to the court. A child of other fire, other blood. That woman dismissed it as madness. But now…"
Therion's hand had clamped on his shoulder, heavy as a shackle.
"Find her. If the witch still lives, you will find her. The truth is buried there. I want certainty."
The memory clawed at him now as he walked beside Metheea.
The truth. That word had sunk its fangs into him that night and had never let go.
He drew in a slow breath, trying to banish the sting of smoke from his mind. But then she spoke again, pulling him back.
"These halls are too quiet," Metheea murmured. She paused to look at a mural where it depicted a dragon carved in flame, wings spread wide across the wall. "Almost as if the walls are waiting for something. Or someone."
Her voice was gentle, but the words wrapped around him like a noose. Waiting. Yes. The entire kingdom had waited for her, the lost princess, the blood of Katarthan.
And yet when he looked at her, he felt something else entirely.
The pull.
It was the same restless fire that had haunted him from the moment he first laid eyes on her at the academy. The same bond that felt too sharp, too visceral, too much like the mate pull whispered of in hushed, dangerous stories.
The pull throbbed low in his chest, insistent, as if her presence vibrated against his very blood.
Every glance, every shift in her posture sent sparks where none should be.
He had forced himself to bury it beneath duty, beneath the word sister. But now, with his father's doubts gnawing at him, that fragile wall was cracking.
What if she wasn't his sister? What if the blood in her veins was not Katarthan, not fully?
The thought both terrified and exhilarated him.
He forced his gaze away from her and focused instead on the cold stone floor. But her voice came again, light and musing, making it impossible to escape.
"It feels less like a home," she said, "and more like a prison dressed up in silks."
His head snapped toward her. For a heartbeat, he forgot to breathe. Her eyes had caught the light, and something in them glowed — defiance, longing, pain all at once.
He almost reached for her. Gods, his fingers twitched with the need to close the small space between them, to brush her hair back, to tell her she was not alone.
But he swallowed the impulse down until it scorched his throat.
"This is your home," he said, voice iron-bound though his heart rebelled. "All you must do is claim it."
Her gaze lingered on him, steady, unblinking. For one treacherous moment he wondered if she felt it too — the fire thrumming between them, not born of blood but of something older, hungrier.
Azrayel's breath hitched.
The thought alone was poison.
What if she truly is my sister? Then what am I, to look at her this way? A monster. A fool who cannot master himself.
But the other possibility, the one his father's doubts had opened, coiled hotter inside him.
And what if she isn't?
The question fanned embers he didn't know how to name.
His chest tightened, a restless heat crawling through his veins before coiling heavy in his stomach. Not yet the sharp need of a man, but the unsteady, confusing stirrings of something that promised to become far worse in time.
It left him both eager and sickened, his skin prickling as though the fire in her blood was leaping to his own.
He clenched his jaw, forcing his gaze toward the stonework instead of the curve of her face. His throat was dry. No. Not yet. Not until I know the truth. If I let myself believe— gods, if I let myself hope—
The storm churned in silence behind his eyes.
He could not give in. Not yet. Not until he knew the truth.
And so, silently, he renewed his vow: he would find the witch. Not only because Therion commanded it, but because he needed the answer for himself.
Was she truly his sister? Or was she something else entirely — something the fire had tried to tell him that night, something his soul already knew?
He clenched his jaw and dragged his gaze away, forcing the storm into silence.
No. Not now. Not until I know the truth.
His voice was steady when he finally spoke, but the calmness was a mask. "The court has pressed me again to ensure you take in attendants," he said. "Not just servants, but maids loyal to you alone. Their presence will honor you, strengthen your standing, and make your name unassailable."
Metheea blinked at him, her brow furrowing. "Maids? I do not need strangers shadowing my every breath."
"A princess without her household is a blade without a sheath," he said, voice iron-bound. 'Your enemies or even the court itself will see any gap as weakness. You must armor yourself, whether you wish it or not.
"I don't know," she whispered, shaking her head. "It feels like another chain. Another way to remind me I am not free."
Azrayel's chest tightened.
Freedom… you still chase it, even here.
He forced his hands behind his back, his voice clipped, princely.
"Sometimes chains are what keep you alive. Accept them, and you may yet carve out freedom within them. Refuse, and the court will strip it from you."
She looked away, toward the window, her jaw tense.
"And if I don't want their chains at all?"
"Then tomorrow," he said quietly, "you will face them with none. Decide before then."
Her lips parted, as if to argue, but no words came.
The silence between them stretched, heavy and uncertain.
She turned back to the gardens, where the torches flickered like restless fire. He could not see her face, but he heard the sharp edge of her breath, the sound of a woman caught between longing and surrender.
And Azrayel, prince and brother, stood still beside her, knowing tomorrow would force her to choose what neither of them yet dared to name.