Page 65 of Storms of His Wrath

“You meannnol ttaehh mael?”

He shook his head. “Thennol ttaehhis the knife. Maelmeans wound.So you have annol ttaehh maelfrom annol ttaehh,”

“Oh. What doesnnol ttaehhmean?”

“It roughly translates to special knife.”

Naya nodded. “All right, I understand.”

“So, Drennek had one of these, and he wanted to try it on me.”

Naya went very still beneath his touch. “On you?”

“I was maybe nine years old. He was older, stronger and I learned to avoid him.” Akoro’s voice dropped. “I told him I’d let him do it if he taught me how first. So I could understand what he was doing to me.”

Naya’s mouth dropped open. “But that’s so dangerous. Why didn’t you tell anyone—your parents?”

He shook his head. “You think they would listen? He was a Sy.”

“So what happened?”

“He lied about what it did, so I fought him and cut him with it.”

Naya gasped. “But you said he was bigger and stronger.”

“Yes, but I’d been training long before I was nine. He learned that day that the ‘boring’ combat skills he always passed on had real value when you intended to hurt someone.” He finished with the ointment, capping the pot and setting it aside. “I made him show me how to remove the wound and forced him to tell me what it was. He made the knife, carved the symbols into the blade. Said he’d learned the technique from someone who knew the old ways.”

“Someone who knew...” Understanding entered her eyes. “An Omega.”

“I didn’t realize that at the time. I thought it was just another piece of dynasty magic, something passed down through bloodlines.” His jaw tightened. “It wasn’t until years later after I learned what my family had been doing that I understood what Drennek had really done to acquire that knowledge.”

Akoro could see her mind whirring. Drennek had coerced an Omega into teaching him a technique designed to controland enslave. And Akoro had learned it, unknowingly from his cousin’s cruelty.

“What happened to Drennek?”

“He lives in another region. Far from Onn Kkulma.” Akoro’s tone grew flat. “He sometimes robs trade carts close to the border, and occasionally kills travelers if they resist, but we barely hear about him anymore.”

“You could stop him.”

“I could.” Akoro met her gaze. “But dealing with Drennek would require resources. As long as he stays outside of my region, he’s not my immediate concern.”

Naya was quiet for a long moment, her fingers pressing against his chest. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “You used it on me after you knew. After you understood what it meant, what it had been used for.”

Akoro swallowed, accepting the chill that entered his veins. “Yes,” he said simply. There was no point in denial, no excuse that wouldn’t sound hollow.

“Why?”

The single word carried the weight of everything between them—all the pain, all the betrayal, all the complicated emotions that had brought them to this moment.

“Because I couldn’t lose you,” he said, the admission clawing his throat raw. “Because every instinct I possessed screamed that you belonged to me, and I would do anything—anything—to keep you.” He paused, coldness settling in his chest. “And because you’re right. I blindly became what I’d killed my family to stop.” He blinked, the realization cresting in his mind. “I’m not against cruelty. But I was consumed by vengeance, wrath, anger for too long.”

Tears gathered in her eyes, though she didn’t let them fall. “Do you regret it?”

“Every day.” He held her gaze. “Not just because it hurt you, though that’s part of it. But because it proved that all my righteousness about being different from them was ultimately a lie. When it mattered, when I wanted something badly enough, I reached for the same tools they’d used.”

She was quiet for a long time, her gaze searching his face. Outside, the desert wind whipped and whispered, and the camp settled for the night. They were silent for a moment, memories he could remember from his childhood, drifting in and out of his mind. And then something stuck, a sharp memory.

Akoro stilled, his hand ceasing its movement through her hair as the recollection took form. He could see it clearly now—Drennek in the old armory, not working on flesh but on a broken piece of sandstone from the palace wall. The master torturer had been experimenting, carving those same symbols into the stone, muttering about redirecting energy instead of drawing it.

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