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Disbelief crashed through him. The Omegas his family had enslaved and tormented, the ones he’d banished from the region, were alive?

And not just alive but apparently magically sophisticated enough to offer assistance to the very dynasty that had wronged them.

They had been here the whole time, hidden in these treacherous Sands while he’d believed them scattered and dying in some distant forest?

Questions crowded his mind, each one urgent and demanding, but he struggled to determine what to ask first.

“What is she saying?” Oppo asked again, his voice carrying an almost pleading edge.

Akoro noticed his brother’s face had flushed, his expression cycling between elation, concern, and relief in rapid succession. The drawing crinkling in his grip.

“First tell me,” he said to Naya, his voice rough. “Who is Nnimi?”

She glanced at Oppo, something gentle softening her features. “Your niece. Oppo’s daughter.”

Shock rendered him speechless. The words echoed in his skull, refusing to make sense. Oppo had a daughter? His eyes flicked to the direction she’d walked from, toward the shimmering heat that concealed whatever community lay beyond. Family was here?

The realization hit him hard. “You knew,” he said to Oppo, switching to Shtǒnma. “You knew these Omegas were here.”

Oppo’s mouth clamped shut in alarm, then he exhaled, his shoulders dropping as though releasing a burden he’d carried for years. “No, I didn’t know they were here, Akoro.”

“But you knew about this community,” Akoro snapped, fury building in his chest like a brewing storm.

“When you disappeared five years ago, you told me you’d found an Omega.

You’d found your true mate, but that you had to walk away.

You didn’t say there was a whole community.

You didn’t say anything about having a child. ”

“Why would I?” He lifted his chin, his eyes growing cool and distant. “Why would I tell anyone, Akoro?”

“I’m your brother!” Akoro bellowed, the words tearing from his throat.

“No, you are King of Tsashokra!” Oppo bellowed back, his own composure finally cracking. “Your duty to the people always comes first, not your loyalty to me as your brother. You banished Omegas to some dead forest and haven’t cared to even find out if any of them are still alive.”

“I had to?—”

“You always have to!” Oppo thundered, stepping closer. “There is always some fucking justification for your laws and rules.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t have done it?” Akoro’s eyes were wild, his hands clenching into fists. “Are you saying I should have let Omegas roam the region with no idea how to stop wild magic from attacking them, and put everyone else at risk?”

Oppo took a breath, his eyes lowering before lifting to meet Akoro’s, his mouth twisted with conviction.

“No. No, brother. Once again, I agree with the hard decision you had to make. But this is my mate we’re talking about.

My child! I have no obligation to tell you anything.

Not when you were planning to kidnap and torture an Omega. ”

His words pierced Akoro like a thousand spears at once.

He stared at his brother, brows furrowed, trying to untangle all the thoughts unspooling in his mind.

He’d kept himself at a distance with Oppo since the Battle of Sy, resenting him for letting Akoro shoulder everything, but Oppo had distanced himself too.

He didn’t see Akoro as his brother, he saw him as belonging to the people…

a wild king blinded by the needs of his people. Just like what Naya said.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Naya move to Oppo and hold out her hand for the parchment. When Oppo gave it to her, she came toward Akoro, an intensity in her eyes he’d never seen before.

“This is me,” she said, holding up the drawing and pointing to a stick figure with zigzag copper hair and a wide grin.

The artwork was clearly a child’s creation, innocent and charming.

She pointed to the other smaller figure.

“This is Nnimi.” The second stick figure bore carefully drawn crisscross braided hair.

Naya’s eyes found his, compassionate and soft.

“She is beautiful, Akoro. A happy, healthy, clever four-year-old. She would play all day if she could, she loves reading. She runs away from having her hair done and is shy in the mornings, and she speaks both the Common Tongue and Shtǒnma.”

The gentle cadence of her voice soothed something savage in his chest. His fury drained away, her scent wrapped around him, replacing rage with something more manageable. He slowly took the drawing from her fingers, staring at it. Naya had played with the little girl.

“And she’s never met her father and uncle,” Naya added quietly.

His jaw clenched as tangled emotions surged through him. “I didn’t know about her,” he said, his voice dropping low.

“I know,” Naya said softly. “It was for her own safety. It’s no one’s fault. Certainly not Oppo’s.”

Akoro breathed deeply, forcing calm into his frame. “Naya, wait for me in my tent. I need to speak to my brother.”

She searched his gaze, then nodded. After inclining her head toward Oppo, she turned and made her way across the sand drift.

Akoro stared at the drawing, his mind racing between past and present.

When Oppo had disappeared for nearly a year, Akoro had torn the region apart searching for him.

He’d been convinced one of the districts was making a move against the throne, but Oppo had vanished from a secluded area with no witnesses, no traces.

When his brother finally returned, he’d been reluctant to explain his absence.

Only under pressure had Oppo revealed meeting an Omega, his true mate, spending months with her before forcing himself to leave because Alphas couldn’t be with Omegas.

At the time, Akoro had found it both brave and unbelievable—he couldn’t imagine any Alpha possessing such restraint.

The story had explained Oppo’s transformation.

He’d returned a different man, sadness permeating not just his mood but his entire physicality.

Withdrawn, softer, sometimes irritable. He barely talked for the first year.

Akoro had thought he’d understood to some degree.

But he hadn’t. He realized when he’d met Naya that he’d had no idea about the gravity of what Oppo had done.

But the idea of leaving his child...

He looked up at his brother, who watched him with cautious eyes. “Tell me what really happened.”

“Everything I told you before was true,” Oppo said, his voice steady despite the emotions flickering across his features. “We met in Hhǎrvelin and realized instantly that we were true mates.”

“How did you know?” Akoro asked, remembering the first time he spoke to Naya. Something had happened between them but he hadn’t known the significance until much later.

“I listened to our parents and our uncles and aunts talk about how they met,” Oppo said.

“They all described a moment where the body recognizes that is in the presence of its true mate: her scent sweetens, and there is an attraction like you’re being drawn toward her.

And she smells like a kind of bliss that you didn’t know existed. ”

Akoro nodded slowly. That matched exactly what had happened with Naya—the way her scent had shifted from pleasant to intoxicating, the magnetic pull that defied rational thought.

“As you know, we were together for a few weeks,” Oppo continued. “We met in various districts and spent time together, she never wanted to come to Onn Kkulma or to the palace, obviously. And then she was pregnant and I insisted on staying with her during it.”

“Did she have her heat?”

“No,” Oppo shook his head. “She was taking something that prevented her from going into heat.”

“Where were you with her while she was pregnant? You told me you were in the Sands.”

Oppo gestured around them at the endless golden expanse. “It’s not strictly a lie,” he said.

Akoro’s face contorted. “You were here?”

“I was in their community,” Oppo clarified.

“but I didn’t know where it was. It was a beautiful, calm place, nothing like this.

Oshrun and I were isolated from everyone else, so I never met the rest of them, but I got to spend every minute with her.

I learned a lot, and obviously I understand why they choose to separate themselves.

” Pain eased into Oppo’s features. “I had to respect that I would put them in danger if I tried to change that. If it wasn’t for our family’s hand in things, I probably would have stolen her and the child away.

Taken them somewhere isolated and lived my days there with them. ”

Akoro remained silent for long moments, processing the enormity of what his brother had endured.

Oppo had left his true mate and his Omega daughter and hadn’t seen them in years.

“I don’t know how you did that,” he said finally, astonishment threading through his voice.

“I don’t know how you could leave them.”

“I would do anything to keep them safe, brother,” Oppo said simply.

The comparison between how his brother had treated his Omega and how Akoro had treated Naya struck him.

Oppo had gone without his true mate and child for five years, while Akoro couldn’t endure a day without his Omega.

It wasn’t exactly the same, but it still showed Oppo’s willingness to sacrifice himself for them.

He took a breath. “I assume you want this alliance to work, then?”

Oppo’s brow furrowed as he considered. “I would prefer them to be safe,” he said finally.

“I don’t want Omegas returning to the region only to be abused again, by anyone.

Knowing they have been safe all these years is the only thing that has kept me going.

Even if I never see them again, I do not want them to come to any harm. ”

Akoro nodded, understanding that desperation to be sure that one’s mate is safe.

“If this happens, we have to do better than our family did,” Oppo added. “But… it is your region, brother. It is in your hands.”

Akoro let the weight of that responsibility seep into him. Oppo was right. He had to do better. He handed the drawing back to Oppo, then pulled him into a tight hug. “Congratulations, Oppo,” he said. “I look forward to meeting them.”

Oppo made a strangled sound and smiled through the emotion threatening to overwhelm him. Drawing a steadying breath himself, Akoro turned toward his tent, where his own mate waited. The woman who’d walked away from him only to now hold the fate of his people in her hands.