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I stayed quiet until the servant led me to a door. It was ever so slightly ajar and even from the hallway, I could smell Vale’s scent—fallen snow and sandalwood that made my heart skip a beat. He was inside.

I dismissed the servant. Taking a deep inhale, I leaned into the door.

“Vale,” I called, sure that since the door had been open, he wouldn’t be asleep or in a compromising position, but not wishing to startle him. “It’s Neve.”

He didn’t respond, and unable to help myself, I pushed the door open enough to peek inside. I found his back to me as he looked out the window.

In the distance, a castle gleamed in the waning moon’s light. Staghorn Castle—the seat of his mother’s family.

“Vale? Are you well?”

His shoulders lowered, his dark semi-diaphanous wings pressed down his back, and still, he said nothing. His unusual actions set my heart racing, and I entered the room and went to him. Only when I stood right beside him did I realize he was crying.

My lips parted at the almost unfathomable sight. Vale Aaberg, the famed warrior. Strong and stoic and honorable. And there he stood, crying.

My stomach pitted. “Vale?What’s wrong?”

He didn’t turn to me, nor did tears stop streaming down his face. Instead, he pointed out the window.

“Do you see those torches in the distance?”

“Of course I do.” Beyond the small clearing around Riis Tower, beyond the woods filled with evergreen trees, there was a black castle that flew a flag of green bearing asilver hart. I’d been told it was a short walk away, though I had not ventured that far. “Thantrel told me that it’s Staghorn Castle.”

“It is.” He inhaled deeply. “That’s where my mother grew up. Where she lived until she married.”

I waited. This was common knowledge. What was Vale getting at?

“You can’t see it in the dark, but I know which tower her room was in. In the daylight, she would have been able to see Riis Tower.” His shoulders slumped. “I wonder, if all that time, she was thinking of him, just as he thought of her. If she still is.”

My lips parted. “I don’t understand?—”

He spun and gestured to the room. “Lord Riis grew up in this room.”

“Oh,” I replied, still not understanding, but taking in the room all the same. The bed was on the small side, the furs atop older, and the room dustier than the others I’d seen, which made sense as no one came up here. Otherwise, the space was tidy but unlived in. “You wanted to see the castle?”

“I wanted to see this room.” He swallowed and his gaze fell to the floor. “M-my father’s room.”

I stiffened. “Your father is King Magnus.”

“In duty, yes,” Vale replied. “It’s how Lord Riis could call him my father for so many turns. The king, the male I’ve always called father, believed he sired us. But he did not. Lord Riis did.”

I blinked once, twice, three times, working through the information.

Burning skies. Vale is not an Aaberg.My heart rate sped up.

He lifted his gaze to meet mine. “I’m a bastard, Neve.”

The initial spark of excitement that blazed through me fizzled. Poor Vale. He wasn’t thinking the same as me. Not at all. To him, his entire identity was being questioned, and as I walked a similar path, though in reverse, I could understand.

“You’re a Riis,” I whispered. “And you can also be an Aaberg too. If you want.” I paused. “I feel selfish for asking, but does this mean that you don’t completely despise me? That when you avoided me you were working out your own troubles? Not just what happened between us?”

“I never hated you,” he replied. “I felt betrayed and blindsided, but I never hated you.”

My primary worry cast aside, I blew out a breath and focused solely on him. “How did you find out?”

I doubted very much that Lord Riis would leave evidence. Should this news get out, get to King Magnus, there was no telling what he’d do. If he’d still love Vale and Rhistel as his own. If he’d disown them.

Perhaps he’d even have them killed.