Page 60 of The Book of Legends
The air shifts.
Something primal ripples through the soldiers, like wolves recognizing a stronger alpha. Their eyes drop. A few clench their jaws but remain silent.
It shouldn’t make me feel safer.
But it does.
And that terrifies me.
I glance at Kainen from the corner of my eye. The tension in his jaw, the casual way he carries his authority like a weapon. There’s no apology in him. No softness. Just lethal grace and untouchable power.
He’s a walking warning sign—a man forged by war and fire, a prince only in title; everything else about him is beast.
So why do I feel safer near the monster than anywhere else?
My gaze drops to the path beneath us as we walk down stone-cut steps that wind through the cliffs like veins. The air smells of salt and something old—older than any ocean should. The silence between us stretches, coiling tighter with every footfall.
“Why did we come by boat?” I ask, my voice quieter than I mean it to be, like I’m afraid to break the spell.
He doesn’t look at me when he answers, but his voice is laced with purpose. “Given the circumstances, I didn’t want them tothink I was coming to declare war. Flying in on a fire-breathing dragon might’ve sent the wrong message.”
A ghost of a smile threatens my lips, but it dies before it can surface. He’s right: a dragon would’ve been a declaration—loud, impossible to ignore.
Instead, we slipped in quietly. Like shadows.
Like secrets.
Here, the stars seem different.
Sharper. Colder. Hung lower in the sky, like they might fall at any moment and shatter the realm beneath them.
I look back at the Fae Court, the echo of the Queen’s voice still humming in my bones.“You surprise me, Selene.”She hadn’t said it kindly.
And yet—I surprised myself.
I stood before a court of monsters and monarchs and declared the person I would become. That I would not belong to anyone—not to Kainen, not to a prophecy, not even to the flame that coils in my blood.
Now, the silence presses in, heavy and watchful, and I wonder if I truly believed my own words… or if I just needed to hear them spoken aloud.
A flicker of motion catches the corner of my eye. I tense—until I see that it’s him.
Kainen.
He stands in the doorway, part shadow, part moonlight, watching me.
“Did you come to scold me?” I ask softly, turning my eyes back to the stars. “To tell me I overstepped? That I risked too much?”
“Not at all,” he says. His voice is low. Careful. “You were right to speak.”
That surprises me more than anything else tonight.
I glance over at him. His face is unreadable, but he isn’t scowling. He isn’t mocking me. He just... watches.
Like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“You didn’t step in,” I whisper. “Back in the court. When she pressed me.”
“I didn’t need to,” he says simply. “You didn’t need me.”
