Page 38 of Savage Crown

Until I reach the last one.

A single letter, stained with something dark in the corner—blood or ink, I can’t tell.

And the name at the bottom makes my breath catch.

Nhilian.

I skim the words, absorbing them in quick, sharp beats of understanding.

You’re still living under the wrong name.

Still wearing a dead man’s skin.

How long do you think you can keep pretending, boy?

I swallow hard.

A dead man’s skin.

Something cold slithers through me.

Because suddenly, things I’d ignored—small, fractured details—start fitting together.

Rylan doesn’t use his last name.

Ever.

He’s built an empire of secrets, yet his own past is the one thing no one speaks of.

And Lartina—gods, Lartina.

"Ask him about the last woman he protected."

She didn’t just say that to rattle me.

She said it because she knew.

There’s something here.

Something Rylan is keeping buried, something so dangerous it might ruin him if it ever came to light.

I hear footsteps in the hall.

Too late.

I barely have time to shove the letter back into the drawer before the door swings open.

Rylan.

His presence floods the room before he even speaks, his gaze locking onto me like a blade pressed to my throat.

"Find what you were looking for?"

I don’t flinch.

I don’t let my breathing hitch.

But he knows.

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