Page 39 of A Queen’s Betrayal (Legends of Worldbinders #1)

The room was spinning. Arenna had a hard time focusing, seeing, feeling. Her body felt strange, unearthly, as if someone had come down and plucked her soul right out of it.

Kayson was speaking, maybe Bramnen, she didn’t know. Blood roared through her ears, pumping viciously until it was the only thing she could hear. She tried to make sense of everything she learned, the information daring to swallow her whole.

I create fire. I create an element.

I am part of an ancient prophecy and am one of the four keys to saving this world.

No matter how many times she repeated the lines, they refused to stick. The words tangled in her mind, slipping away the moment she tried to focus. Her palms were damp. Her chest tightened.

Panic inched its way up Arenna’s throat, slow and relentless, like a rising tide she couldn’t hold back. Her heart pounded louder than her thoughts, drowning out everything except the overwhelming pressure building in her chest.

She tried again—one more line, one more breath—but her mouth felt dry, her voice too small.

Then she was moving.

Without thinking, Arenna pushed through the door and stumbled out into the open air. She gripped the railing with both hands, bent slightly at the waist, and dragged in sharp, desperate breaths of cold wind.

What would Isabella and Koltin make of this? Make of her? She had never felt so alone, so unsure.

“I felt the same way when I found out.” Kayson stepped beside her, placing two gloved hands on the rail. “It’s not an easy burden to bear.”

She turned toward him, eyes wide. “You’re an elementalist too.”

A nod. “Earth,” he replied. “It manifested when I was just a boy and nearly killed me. I brought an entire mountain down on my sister after she stole my pastry.”

Arenna caught the faint smile on his face—just a flicker—before it faded into something hollow.

Something deeply sad. Her mind drifted back to the banquet.

She remembered the way Jaksen and Lord Bishop had laughed, loud and cruel, as they joked about the Fae King being the last of the Valor bloodline.

But she did not know that was Kayson until now.

Their laughter echoed through the great hall like a blade cloaked in mirth. And then, only moments later, Kayson had walked up the steps to greet them.

He must have heard it all .

Heard Jaksen mock the death of his siblings like it was sport.

Arenna’s jaw tightened at the memory. The sting of it was still fresh—even though it wasn’t her family they’d ridiculed. None of this changed how she felt about Kayson, but at that moment, she understood his pain.

Arenna knew what it was to lose a sister, and she knew what it was to have that loss twisted into Jaksen’s joke.

“I wish I could tell you it gets better, but it doesn’t. You’ll come to learn there’s a lot of pressure to succeed in your new position. The very world rests on our shoulders,” Kayson said.

Arenna sighed. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“Then what are you doing out here?” she scoffed.

Kayson shifted, his body visibly tightening. “When I found out who I was— what I was meant for —I felt truly and utterly alone. In my own way, I suppose I’m trying to make sure you do not feel that.”

She looked at him, but this time— really looked at him, as if she were seeing him for the first time. Right now, Kayson wasn’t the vicious, cruel beast she was made to think. She only saw a broken king, not the Red Reaper.

He was still a prick, and arrogant, and insanely rude, but maybe Arenna was beginning to understand him a bit more.

If she had to play a role such as he did—pretending to be an ally to a wicked king that killed her family, her people, tormenting them for years—she imagined she wouldn’t be very kind either. Especially not to his wife.

But a shadow still hung between them, and Arenna struggled to reconcile what she thought she knew with the reality in front of her.

Kayson—the Red Reaper—had razed her home. He’d brought destruction to countless cities and towns across her continent.

The Fae King had killed her mother.

Arenna had watched her die .

“I don’t know what’s true anymore,” Arenna admitted quietly.

Kayson kept his gaze fixed on the water. “Ask me something. I have no reason to lie to you.” She raised a brow. “ Okay ,” he amended, glancing at her. “I don’t have a reason to lie anymore .”

Arenna rolled her eyes, but the edge in her voice was real. “I don’t even know if you’re the enemy anymore. I don’t know what to believe.” She hesitated, then asked, “Did you… do everything Jaksen said you did?”

“Care to elaborate?”

“My home was destroyed before I lived at the castle. I remember seeing your bannermen, your flag. I saw a broad male in armor, riding through our port and killing anyone in his path.”

To this day, Arenna could still feel the phantom sensation of dirt caked underneath her nails, smoke clinging to her nose, ash coating her mouth, and her mother’s blood staining her too small hands. She closed her eyes briefly, fearing those thoughts might never fully go away.

Whenever she closed her eyes, she could see the Reaper’s scythe dragging against the floor or cutting through flesh as he sauntered down the middle of her port, blood coating the darkened cloak. She could still hear the way it sparked and skittered as it made contact with stone.

Kayson gritted his teeth. “Craydon, was it?” Arenna nodded after re-opening her eyes. “No, Serpent. I did not demolish your port.”

“All those battles, all the bloodshed. . .” She shook her head. Arenna didn’t know what was right and what was wrong, didn’t know how to decipher the truth from the lies.

“Understand this, I did not earn that foul nickname by sparing lives,” the king stepped into her personal space, their bodies so close his scent overwhelmed her, “and believe me when I say I have not started a battle, but I do finish them.” His voice was deep and husky, the sound sending a shiver down Arenna’s spine.

“But I do not take without reason, nor kill without justice.”

Fear had her taking a step backwards, as if that small space between them was enough to protect her. This was the wicked king she heard of, the one she feared. He was a towering wall of muscle, his face hardened and scarred from years at war.

“And what of the villages? The towns? Hundreds of innocent humans have been killed over the years, my mother included. All of Varios’s great cities have fallen.”

Back then, in the prime of Pheanixios, great cities sprawled across the continents, each distinct from the others.

Some survived the First War , but most did not.

As war broke out again after the Separation , the remaining cities were gradually reduced to rubble.

In the aftermath, these fallen cities transformed into Houses, where nobles ruled over small territories, collecting taxes, livestock, and vegetation for Brookworth.

“My army has never attacked a city, town, or village. I value all life, no matter the species, no matter the continent they live on. Worden would never attack innocents.”

Her head ached; the information was too heavy to handle. “Are you suggesting Jaksen attacked his own towns? Destroyed his own cities?”

Kayson shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that, Serpent. All I can tell you is that those attacks were not my army, nor my legions.” He glanced down at her. “And I know I didn’t kill your mother.”

Arenna’s stomach sank at the sound of the Reaper speaking a word about her. “That doesn’t make sense.” Jaksen and his ancestors were killing their own people, pillaging their own towns, burning their own cities?

For years, the war had raged on, fueled by the unrelenting oppression from Vlazias. Magic-wielding Fae refused to accept that humans would not bow to their will—to their desires.

But if what Kayson was saying was true . . .if Jaksen and his ancestors had truly lied—then why?

What did they stand to gain?

Jaksen had admitted to creating the druque and blood magic to gain power over the Fae. He’d ensured humans were finally strong enough to fight back. But the way Kayson described it, as if the Fae were the ones trying to escape the humans, if Jaksen was the one killing, enslaving, torturing—

Then what was his end game?

What did he really want?

What did all of his ancestors want?

Arenna took a heavy breath. None of this made sense.

“Ask yourself why.” The Fae King leaned down to her level, his face close enough she felt his warm breath in the night air. “Why would the Serpent King do such a thing?”

She swallowed. “To inflict fear. If his people believed you were doing this, they would cling to Jaksen’s reign. Fight and steal and kill for him. To make his people believe you were the enemy.” Arenna looked up, meeting Kayson’s gaze. “But you aren’t. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“My job is not to sway your thoughts of me.”

“Then what is it?”

“To show you your role in realigning the continents. To restore Pheanixios.”

Arenna breathed, her chest too tight. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

“Would you have believed me?”

Thick silence fell. “No, I don’t think I would have.”

Kayson nodded. “Not only did I think you would not have joined me when you found out who I am, but also because you were too far shattered, and that information might have ruined you.”

“And you think it doesn’t now?”

He rested his forearms against the railing of the ship, looking out at the vast ocean.

Wind blew through his chestnut waves, and she didn’t know what to make of the Red Reaper closing his eyes briefly, then breathing in the air.

It seemed so . . . human of him. “I think you know you don’t have a choice, so it doesn’t matter how you feel anymore. ”

“I could say no,” she retorted. “I could disappear, and you would never find me again.”

Kayson angled his head toward her. “Now that I know what kind of power runs through your veins, there is nowhere in any world, in any galaxy that I wouldn’t find you.”

She stiffened, meeting his hardened stare. “You would force this on me, then?”

“If it meant putting our continent back together, wiping out the Rot, saving all from damnation, yes. I would.”

Instinctively, her hand found the bulge on her waist where her dagger lay hidden. “I want to help,” Arenna said. “But when we’re done with all of this, I never want to see you again.”

Kayson grinned. “Deal,” he purred. He began walking toward the small quarters he called home.

Without thinking, Arenna wrapped her arm around his wrist, preventing him from taking another step. “You will never lock me up again,” she seethed, burning with anger. “No shackles, either.”

His jaw tensed, eyes roaming over her face, her scar. They fell to the hand that held him—likely noticing the purpling there too—and then slowly, the Fae King dipped his chin.