Page 110 of Savage Crown

He shrieks.

“Nhilian!” he gasps. “Nhilian took them!”

The name lands like a curse in my chest.

Nhilian.

The bastard who has haunted me since the fall of my family.

A man who was supposed to be my father’s friend.

A man who has been pulling the strings in the dark for far too long.

And Vael—my brother in all but blood—had handed Seraphina over to him.

A new kind of fury surges through me.

A cold, unrelenting rage that sharpens every breath, every thought.

The informant scrambles for words.

“He—he had no choice!” he blurts.

I still.

Slowly, I ease back the blade.

“Explain.”

He swallows hard, his pulse hammering against his throat.

“They’re going to take her,” he whispers. “Vael’s sister.”

A pause.

A slow, sickening realization curdles in my stomach.

Vael had a sister.

A girl he never spoke of.

A girl he had spent his entire life protecting.

And Nhilian had taken her.

That’s why he did it.

That’s why he betrayed me.

For family.

For the only thing that had ever meant anything to him.

I exhale through my nose, steadying the storm inside me.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t change anything.

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