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LILY

When a week passed and Wrath didn’t visit me, I feared he would never visit me again.

I stayed home every night and hoped he would show. When I prepared dinner, I glanced up more times than I could count and hoped I’d see him standing across the kitchen. My mind constantly reached for his, trying to feel him in every room I stepped into, hoping he was there watching me.

But I never felt him.

I’d done nothing to deserve his silence and distance, but I felt responsible for it anyway. It was the first time he’d shown the weight of his grief—and now I wished I didn't know. His bitterness was like fire to my skin. His pain was like a dagger in my throat. Whenever he hurt, it hurt me too.

For a man who was a temporary addition to my bed, I shouldn’t care so much.

But I cared deeply.

Lily .

I felt Zehemoth’s voice in my mind, felt his concern when all he said was my name.

I’ve felt your sorrow for days. I wanted to respect your privacy, but it’s gone on so long, I don’t think I can.

Having the blood of dragons was an exciting honor, but sometimes it was a pain in the ass.

Thoughts and emotions were never entirely your own, not when they were intense like mine must be.

Because we weren’t fused, most of my emotions were my own, but apparently this sadness was like a bonfire. I’m okay, Zehemoth.

But you don’t feel okay.

I was inside my villa with sunshine coming through the window. I would normally venture outside and fish for dinner or help out at the winery or head into the village, but for the past week, I’d literally done nothing.

Thud .

I felt the ground shudder from the weight of a dragon. “Dammit”

I want to see you.

I had a glass of wine on the counter beside me, so I downed the rest of it before I walked outside onto the grass, Zehemoth’s midnight-black scales out of place in the lush grass and oak trees. They glistened in the sunlight, and I knew from experience that they were warm to the touch.

Zehemoth lowered his chin toward the earth to get a good look at me. Sunieth . He moved his snout forward and rubbed his scales into my abdomen.

It was hard to resist a hug from a creature so sweet, so I rubbed my palm over his scales and rested my cheek against the warmth of his hard shell. The sun had made the dark color reflect the heat, so it was comforting on a winter day like this. “I’m okay, Zehemoth.”

But your sadness is deep like the ocean. I can’t see the bottom . After he rubbed me again, he pulled away so eyes matching his scales could look at me.

“You didn’t mention this to your father, right?”

No. Why?

“Let’s just keep this between us.”

Then you’ll tell me the source of your unhappiness?

It was a secret too big to tell. When I hadn’t wanted to be queen, Zehemoth had informed his father, who informed mine.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. It was just a situation so profound that he would probably fear for my safety enough to tell my father.

“I’ve been seeing someone…but I think it might be over. ”

Oh… He didn’t follow up with questions, either to respect my privacy or because he didn’t know what to ask. I can burn him for hurting you.

A scoff started before it turned into a chuckle. “That won’t be necessary.”

I could eat all his livestock.

“No, it’s okay.”

I could ? —

“No retaliation is required, Zehemoth. But thank you.”

Let me know if you change your mind. I could crush him in my talons.

“I know.” I patted him on the snout.

Did you have a fight?

“Yes…we did.”

My parents fight. It’s not the end.

I smiled. “Your parents are bonded forever and madly in love. He and I…” I didn’t even know how to describe it. “It was supposed to be temporary.”

If you knew it was supposed to be temporary, then why are you sad?

“Because…” I didn’t have an answer. And that moment of silence made me realize how complicated my situation had become.

I was sad over a man I should have dismissed after our first night together.

A man who would never be real, who would never share the same world with me. “You’re right…I shouldn’t be sad.”

I arrived at the castle to join my parents for dinner.

Hawk was already there, but he was quiet and sour, as if our last conversation continued to act as an anchor to his ship. I assumed he hadn’t confronted my father about his true feelings, that my parents just assumed Hawk was being a sore loser about losing the crown to his sister.

We talked about small things through the first and second course, the mild weather we were having for the heart of winter.

We discussed Khazmuda and his family in the valley, who were worried about wildfires because of how dry the air was.

The dragons were forbidden from releasing fire until we had rain.

I sat across from my father as I picked at my food, unable to look at him the same way. The fact that he looked identical to the memory Wrath had shown me didn’t help either. Just made it more real.

My eyes glanced at my mother, the woman I assumed was my father’s only love.

But he’d had a life before her. Had a life before Hawk and I were born.

As if he felt my stare like a shadow across his face, he shifted his gaze to me.

I immediately glanced down at my food and stabbed my fork hard into my salad, unnecessarily so.

The guilt was like a sickness that consumed the flesh, eating me to the bone.

I’d violated his privacy in a way he never would have violated mine—and it felt wrong.

But my heart felt consumed by the black void of death, knowing what my father had lost. Only now did I understand why it was so hard for him to let me sail away on my journey.

The constant turmoil it must have caused him night and day.

When the storm struck the sea and he set out with Khazmuda, he’d probably feared he would never find me—and if he was lucky, he would find my corpse to bury.

His stare was still on my face. I could feel it like the touch of his hand.

My mother continued to speak to Hawk, the two of them oblivious to this silent standoff between my father and me.

When I refused to meet his look, he tried to break through my defenses differently. “How are you, Zunieth ?”

I carried a grief that I’d never expected to hold.

In my mind, my hands started to slip through the tears that I imagined dripping to my fingers.

My time with Viper had been passionate and fun, but I’d been able to walk away from him with only a pinch of sadness.

But fearing that I would never see Wrath again…

felt like a winter storm that would never abate. “I’m well. What about you?”

He cocked his eyebrow slightly, probably because he’d never heard me respond so formally. “I’ve been in conversation with our allies. No one knows anything about the ships you described.”

The Barbarians . “Then perhaps they were just passing through.”

“Hopefully.” He took a drink of his wine then sat back in the chair when the main course was served.

A piece of white fish in a cream sauce with sauteed spinach and potatoes.

He didn’t seem interested in the food, meeting my gaze across the table like he wanted to say more but didn’t want to pursue a line of questioning in front of my brother.

He eventually grabbed his fork and ate the dinner that the servants provided.

We all fell into silence, like we all had different matters on our minds.

I walked through the courtyard and headed to my villa, my stomach full but my heart empty.

Would Wrath never come to me again?

Was it just…over?

“ Zunieth .”

I halted when I heard my father’s voice behind me.

The sky was dark and covered in brilliant stars, a fluff of clouds here and there.

The moonlight was so bright we didn’t even need the torches or the braziers.

The gnawing of guilt in my stomach doubled when I knew I was about to face him in the very place where I’d discovered his past.

I turned to face him. “Did you need something?” Acting normal when I felt anything but was a lot harder than I thought it would be. My voice didn’t sound the same. It was slightly higher than it usually was. I noticed it, but did he notice it?

My father came before me, dressed in casual attire in his trousers and long-sleeved shirt but still looking as kingly as he had in his armor when he’d defeated his adversaries while surrounded by his army of the dead, surrounded by my ancestors who’d taken up arms once more.

His dark eyes shifted back and forth between mine as he analyzed me.

“The flow of your river has changed direction, and I don’t know why. What troubles you?”

“Nothing—”

“Your mother does the same thing,” he said gently. “And you look so much like her that I can read you like words on a page. Did something happen between you and your brother?”

He would never guess the source of my unease. It was impossible to do so. “No. Hawk and I talked it out. He said he supports my rulership with his heart and his sword.”

“Then what troubles you?”

I should be relieved that the God of the Underworld had left my presence forever, but I was devastated. And that was what was wrong. When had I become so attached? When had this clandestine affair become so deep? “Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “What have I done to make you drop me as a confidant? You know you can always come to me. What has changed to make you doubt that now?”