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Landers’s hands slipped down my arms, intertwining with mine as he settled back onto the bench, swinging a leg over both sides. I lowered myself next to him, crossing my legs between us as his hands wrapped around my thighs and pulled me closer to him.

“Now, about this mating bond. There is a soul tying ceremony that can override—”

“Yes,” I interrupted, “I want to do it.”

Landers smiled, a soft chuckle vibrating from his throat as his hands rubbed over the tops of my legs. “There is no going back once it is done, so I want you to be sure this is what you want. That I am what you want.”

“You have my answer,” I said, bringing my hand up to cup his cheek. “You can’t get rid of me now.”

His smile widened as he turned his lips into my palm and placed a kiss in the center of it. “I will send word then—let the Yaldrin Elders know you have accepted. I told them if you did, we would be there in five days to complete it.”

I nodded as my hand fell back into my lap.

“What exactly happened between you and Cain?”

A heavy sigh slid over Landers’s lips as he ran a hand through his hair. He stayed silent for a long moment, like he was trying to figure out where to start.

“When my father left The Silliands to become a traveler, he went to Ammord first—that is where he had Cain. Centuries later he came to Ithia and married my mother. I met him only once while my father was still alive, and he was every bit as vile. He could have stopped what my father was doing to my mother, but instead he turned a blind eye. I did not see him again until the night we found Pri. He was the Intelligence Officer that held her captive—that tortured her husband.”

Landers’s jaw pulled tight as he paused, closing his eyes for only a breath as if he was trying to calm the anger the memory flared in him.

“After that night, I searched for any information I could about him, only to find he was worse than my father ever had been. That was the moment I decided I would kill him. For years I searched for him, hunted him, but every time I came close, he vanished. Then, finally, I found him and when I did, I slit his throat just like I had done to my father. When he did not die, I learned he had used black magic to protect himself from me, from anyone that carried our father’s blood.

” He let out a deep breath as his eyes met mine again and I slipped my hand into his.

“Pri helped me move on from the blood lust I had for him. She saw how it ate at me day after day knowing that I would never be able to snuff him out and she refused to let it devour me. She has saved both mine and Andrues’s souls more times than I want to admit.”

I watched the small smile that graced his lips as he spoke of her, and I could see in his eyes, in the fondness that flared there, that she was etched so deeply into the man he was.

I always thought it was the universe’s love letter to us, how it would drop a person into your life at random, only to have them change the trajectory of who you are to become.

A cosmic happenstance that seemed to thread every being together in some way.

“I thought he had died in the war. Every trace of him vanished from Nimbria after that so I assumed he was just another casualty.” Landers let out a soft breath as he pushed a clump of curls behind my ear, letting his hand fall to cup the back of my neck.

“I need to brief Elric and Wren before the meeting tonight. Will you be okay here?”

I nodded. “I’m going to stay with Nithra, maybe train a bit once she has rested.”

My eyes fluttered open to Pri’s voice echoing through the stables, calling for me.

I’d only meant to relax in the quiet while Nithra rested, but apparently I was more tired than I had realized.

It was dark now, and the snow falling into the night looked like a million little stars were showering over the earth with the way they sparkled under the moon.

I pushed my arms over my head, stretching as a yawn escaped my lips and watched as Pri approached.

“There you are,” Pri said as she slowly stepped toward Nithra. “Landers told me I would find you here.”

“What time is it?” I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“Six, we still have a few hours before the meeting.” She smiled, pointing at me. “You have hay in your hair.”

“I probably look like a feral animal,” I retorted, patting my hands over my curls and pulling out sticks and twigs that tangled into them while I slept.

She lowered herself to the ground in front of me, crossing her legs. “You just look tired like the rest of us.”

I lifted a corner of my mouth, forcing a half smile onto my lips as my brows furrowed. “Are you doing okay? I know Landers was hard on you with everything that happened with Brakan.”

“He was right to be. I should have known better.” She let out a heavy breath, as she plucked up a piece of hay and rolled in between her fingers. “If I am speaking truthfully, I do not think I have it in me anymore to be a spy and I wish I could get out.”

She looked exhausted, frail almost. Like she hadn’t eaten or slept in weeks. I could see it in the deep lines etched into her face and the dark circles under her eyes, she wasn’t doing well. That radiance she always carried, the light that had always shone so brightly had faded.

I reached between us, pulling her hand into mine. “Pri, Landers would never force you to be an Intelligence Officer.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I am just too deep in it after all these centuries. I have tried so many times to pull myself out but I always get dragged back in for one reason or another. I am just tired. But it will pass, it always does.”

“Have you talked to Wren?” I asked as she pulled her hand from mine and gathered her hair to the top of her head. “I’m sure he could find someone to take over the sources you have.”

“Yes, but with what is coming there is too much unease to change now, we would lose them all together.” She smiled over at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I will be okay, Hyacinth.”

I nodded, sighing as I looked back into the darkening night. “Are you scared too?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “I fear none of us are prepared for what is coming.”