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Kage’s crow cawed aggressively, as if in protest. Mal threw a piece of bread at it, but it passed through its shadowy form.

‘My shadow seems to believe you are lying, Mal.’ His voice was light, almost playful—but laced with something more dangerous.

‘That bird knows nothing.’ She glanced at the creature sideways. ‘Who knows, perhaps it will have to be replaced.’ The crow ruffled its wings, perturbed, though there was no true threat—one could not kill what was already dead.

‘Stop torturing Spirox,’ Kage said.

‘It is not I who tortures the damn thing.’ She turned her attention down to her long nails. ‘So will you help me or not?’

‘I do not see how. You said so yourself—someone must steal those documents. And I am a great many things, but I am not a thief. Besides, they’ve seen me visit the library countless times. If something goes missing, I’ll be the first they suspect.’

Mal pouted, tilting her head to one side. ‘If I find someone able to steal the books, will you accompany them? So they know what to steal? We can also blame them if it goes wrong.’

‘I will think about it, sister.’ Kage sighed, standing. ‘You frighten me sometimes.’

Mal beamed at Kai across the table. ‘That’s a yes.’

‘It is a maybe.’

She waved a dismissive hand. ‘And where are you running off to?’

Kage gave them both a tired look. ‘I am retiring to my own room to find some peace and quiet so I may read. I have read the same paragraph five times.’

‘Brother, stay and drink with us,’ Kai said, lifting a goblet of wine.

Kage sighed, exasperated, and Mal laughed. It was how they always were—bickering, teasing, filling the silence with words because silence meant acknowledging things too painful to say aloud.

‘I do not drink wine,’ Kage said. ‘As I have mentioned dozens of times.’

‘See, I always had the feeling we could not be related.’ Kai pointed his finger at his younger brother, chuckling.

Kage rolled his eyes. He did that a lot with them. ‘I have asked mother countless times. Unfortunately, we are .’

Mal gasped exaggerately. ‘It cannot be true! How can Kai be related to the rest of us? He is insufferable.’

‘Insufferably handsome.’

Kage sighed, exasperated. He gave them one last look before heading out, his shadow bird following in silence. Mal grabbed another piece of bread and threw it at Kai. ‘You made him leave,’ she said.

‘Will you stop wasting food?’ Kai’s smile kept growing. ‘I know you are a princess, but you ought to be a bit more appreciative. A few weeks in this cursed land and you are acting like a real drakonian.’

Mal’s mouth formed the shape of an O , a moment of wide-eyed surprise before it shattered into laughter. It burst from her, raw and unrestrained, her hand slamming against the table as mirth overtook her. The sound rang through the room, filling the spaces between them like warmth against the cold.

Kai watched her, a slow smirk tugging at his lips, before reaching for a cup and filling it with wine. Drakonian wine—because there was no other in this sweltering, wretched land. It was thick and golden-red, drowning in honey, so sweet it felt like sin. He slid the goblet towards her.

‘Was it terrible?’

Mal was rubbing at her eyes when he asked the question. The laughter drained from her like water slipping through cupped hands. She stared at him from between her fingers, as if looking at him in fragments—bits and pieces instead of the whole—made it easier to speak.

Kai’s smirk vanished. His voice dropped, a quiet promise wrapped in steel.

‘I will kill him.’ There was no hesitation.

No trace of the teasing brother who had spent the night making her laugh.

‘If you ask me to. I will do it. You know I will. All these kingdoms can find another princess to save them. They can curse us for an eternity for all I care. We can get on our wyverns and return home—stay there for the rest of our lives. We do not need the rest of the world. Just us.’

Mal let her hand fall from her face. She stood, stepping around the table, her movements slow, deliberate.

When she reached him, she didn’t speak. She simply lowered herself onto his lap, curling into his arms the way she had as a child, when the world had felt just as heavy.

She pressed her cheek against his chest.

Kai’s body tensed, his arms trembling where they hovered at his sides.

‘He did not touch me,’ she whispered.

The breath he had been holding released in a rush. His entire frame slackened, the tension bleeding from him in a single exhale .

‘Good,’ Kai growled. ‘I will break his fingers if he tries.’

Mal closed her eyes.

A single tear escaped before she could stop it. She buried her face deeper against him, hiding it—hiding everything. What it meant.

That she was married to a man who could barely speak to her.

A man who looked at her like she was an obligation, something to be tolerated, something to be avoided.

A man she would have to kill to save the world.

A man who had carved her homeland into the walls of his.

A man she sometimes caught watching her—not with hatred, not with resentment, but with something softer.

Something almost… curious. Like she was a mystery.

Like she was worth looking at. The only man who had ever looked at her that way.

‘If he touches you, he will understand what wrath truly looks like.’ Kai ran his fingers through her wild, tangled hair, his voice a dark whisper.

Mal exhaled, the words sitting heavy in her chest. ‘He won’t touch me,’ Mal whispered, her heart squeezing at the rejection. ‘I don’t think he ever will.’