Page 9 of Tempest Blazing
"I'm gathering people I can trust," I said, watching the tension in his shoulders. "Mason thinks you should be part of it."
Kane's laugh was sharp and bitter. "Mason thinks a lot of things." The blade came down hard enough to send wood chips flying. "Doesn't mean they're right."
"This isn't about being right," I pressed, stepping closer despite the warning in his posture. "It's about—"
"About what?" He spun to face me again, and this time there was fire in those cold eyes. "About your little collection of devotedfollowers? You don't need me, Tess. You've already got a dragon, a mate, and whoever else is circling you these days."
Designed to cut. And they did. Heat flared in my chest—part anger, part hurt. "That's not what this is about."
"Isn't it?" Kane's smile was sharp as his blade. "The first human Dragon Rider, gathering her court. Very romantic."
"Stop." The word came out harder than I'd intended, backed by the authority that had been growing inside me since I'd bonded with Thalon. "Just stop."
Something flickered across Kane's face—surprise, maybe, or recognition. Gone so quickly I might have imagined it.
I took a breath, centering myself. "I don't need muscle, Kane. I need people I can trust. People who see things the rest of us miss." My voice softened despite my anger. "You grew up in the Guild. You know how it works, who the players are, what the politics look like from the inside. You have connections none of us do."
Kane's jaw tightened. He turned back to the post and swung again, harder this time. The impact sent vibrations up the wooden pole. "And what happens when my father decides you're a problem?" Another swing, another spray of splinters. "You think me standing next to you makes that better?"
The mention of Silvius sent ice through my veins. I'd seen the way Kane flinched whenever his father was mentioned, the careful distance he maintained. Whatever their relationship was, it wasn't healthy.
"I don't expect you to fix anything with your father," I said quietly. "I'm not asking you to choose sides in a family fight."
Kane's next swing went wide, the blade embedding itself deep in the wood. He left it there, his hands clenched on the hilt. "You don't understand what you're asking."
"Then explain it to me."
For a moment, I thought he might. His shoulders sagged slightly, and something vulnerable flickered across his features. But then the walls slammed back up, higher and thicker than before.
"No." He yanked his blade free with more force than necessary. "I've got my own business to handle, Tess. Don't count me in."
Final. Absolute. He didn't elaborate, didn't soften the blow. Just that cold, distant voice that might as well have been a door slamming in my face.
The hurt was immediate and sharp. After everything we'd been through—the fights, the magic, the moments when I'd thought I'd seen something real beneath his icy exterior—this was how he chose to end it. Rejection wrapped in indifference.
But underneath the hurt was something harder. Something that had been forged in the fires of my childhood, tempered by years of fighting for every scrap of respect and recognition I'd ever earned.
I stepped closer, close enough that he couldn't ignore me, couldn't pretend I wasn't there. "Fine," I said, my voice steady despite the emotions churning in my chest. "But I need to know you won't work against us."
Kane went very still. His hand tightened on the sword hilt until his knuckles went white, and for a heartbeat I thought he might turn that blade on me. Not to hurt me—I didn't think Kane was capable of that, no matter how angry he was—but to make some dramatic point about how little my opinion mattered to him.
Instead, he stared at the ruined practice post as if it held the secrets of the universe.
The silence stretched between us, taut as a bowstring. I could hear my own heartbeat, could feel the magic humming beneath my skin in response to the tension. The training yard felt smaller suddenly, the shadows deeper.
"I won't," he said finally, the words so quiet I almost missed them.
NotI won't work against you.JustI won't.But it was enough. It had to be.
I studied his profile, taking in the rigid line of his jaw, the careful way he held himself apart. Kane was keeping secrets—that much was obvious. The question was whether those secrets would eventually put us on opposite sides of whatever was coming.
But looking at him now, seeing the exhaustion he was trying so hard to hide, I found myself believing him. Whatever else Kane was hiding, whatever complicated relationship he had with his father and the Guild, he wasn't my enemy.
"Thank you," I said.
He didn't respond, didn't even acknowledge that I'd spoken. Just raised his blade again and resumed his assault on the practice post, each strike precise and controlled and utterly without mercy.
I turned to go, then paused. "Kane?"
