Page 97 of This Shattered Star

Both of them seemed inclined to say something else, but Theia breezed past us to sit across from my vanity. She began unstopping all my perfumes while admiring the dangling necklaces and the earrings that rested in a box next to them. “Where will you go when you win, Eloise?”

A wave of heavy tension settled along my shoulders.

“Surely, you won’t stay in the castle. Neither will your exquisite collection of goods.” She delicately sniffed the rim of a tall, fuchsia-tinted bottle, then quickly moved on to a shorter, heart-shaped one with a pearlescent sheen. Its potent sugar and vanilla scent could be captured from across any room.

The castle didn’t classify anywhere near what most consideredhome.No one needed any magic to see that. It was a sanctuary. A place of respite from the cruelties of the kingdom. But never a home.

I perched gingerly at the edge of my bed. Picked at a stray fiber that had come loose in the sheets. “IfI win,” I corrected, and Kodhan stiffened, but said nothing. “Somewhere far, at the very edge of Aedreath. Where I can live unbothered while I search for those who killed my parents.”

If.Because despite his words, Maverick would not let the four of us win. Only two of us would have the chance to decide where to live out the rest of our lives. Toliveat all.

The thought festered like an infected wound, leeching the color away from my face.

Brannon paced the considerable length of my room, halting only long enough to pick up one of many trinkets off the wooden dresser, and examined it while wearing down a path in the floor. One piece of an ever-growing collection of things I’d bought from the night markets with Gideon. This one being a small bird made entirely of gold. In its beak sat a tiny golden twig, with four round diamonds encrusted to the end meant to be berries. When he held it up to the light of the candles hanging down from the ceiling, the diamonds reflected a shimmering pattern onto his cheek. He whistled, impressed.

The three of them were quiet. But Kodhan’s silence was the worst. Arms crossed and lost in his thoughts, he leaned his shoulder against the window nearest to my bed. Nothing but murky darkness appeared beyond it. Usually the twinkling lights of the homes sprawled throughout Aedreath shone so bright that they would keep me awake at times. Especially this time of year. But I found myself grateful for the temporary blindness to the outside world.

“Where would you go?” I asked tightly. “If you don’t prefer where you’re staying, that is.” I knew nothing of the Syrello estate, and where it was situated in Aedreath.

Brannon’s boot scuffed against the floor as he stalled. But he instantly resumed his pacing, suddenly very interested inthe rest of my trinkets. He picked up two new ones, though I couldn’t make out their shapes. He kept his back to me, hiding them from view.

Theia angled her body away from the vanity, crossing one knee over the other. She held a hand out in front of her, admiring a ring she’d slipped onto her pinky finger. “Somewhere with a bath the size of a small pool.” She slipped on another ring. The one with a considerable sized lapis gemstone encrusted onto it. Holding it eye-level, she peeked back at her reflection, comparing it to her irises. The exact same shade, just like I’d guessed. “I’d probably have one built in a cottage deep in the woods by the mountains up north.”

“I’ve never been up the mountains. Though I imagine it must be peaceful up there.” Kodhan would know, seeing as he spent most of his life there. But to my disappointment, he didn’t comment. “What about you, Brannon?” He now held a palm-sized topaz carved into the shape of a rose.

He tossed and caught it a few times, testing its weight. It popped over his shoulder as it soared through the air, and without turning, he caught it behind his back with ease. “I’ll go wherever the winds take me.”

“You wouldn’t settle? Even with the option to choose any home you wish for comfort?”

“Settling is the opposite of comfort.” His tone took on a seriousness that was so at odds with his usual behavior. “There is no solace in stagnancy. Not for me.” Forcing a smile, he tossed me the topaz. I caught it easily, but didn’t buy into the playful act, not for a second.

“What’s important is that you find it. And that you’re happy. Right?” I chucked the topaz back to him, to which he caught with one hand.

His smile turned genuine. “Right.”

I tilted my head at Kodhan expectantly. “Well?”

“Well, what?” he replied gruffly.

“Would the Son of the Second forsake his title and disappear if he had the choice?”

I was only teasing. But his lips pressed into a tight line, and his fingers curled where they rested on his biceps. Theia paused her admiring of the rings long enough to glance at him.

I must have hit a nerve,I thought. Or perhaps it wasn’t about what I said at all. This might have been the first time they ever spoke about what they would doafter—having avoided the topic until now since they knew they wouldn’t all make it.

Kodhan pushed off the wall, but his feet remained rooted in place. “The mountains are peaceful. It wouldn’t be so difficult to return.” The barest of smiles tilted the corners of his lips. “Only insects and animals for company. Not ideal, but at least they won’t incessantly talk my ear off like someone I know.”

He bent just in time to avoid the hairbrush soaring towards him. It clattered off the wall, narrowly missing his head.

Brannon choked on a laugh, darting into my dressing chamber to avoid other flying hairbrushes or anything else that would leave a mark on impact. But he instantly re-emerged at the squeak of a handle being turned.

None of us were relatively close to the entry. Yet the main door creaked open several inches.

It took all but two seconds for Kodhan and Brannon to stand shoulder to shoulder, rallying their magic. Brannon raised his left hand, taking aim for the blast of wind that would pin the intruder to the wall if they so much as lifted a finger. Fire wound around Kodhan’s arm, ready to burn. To maim.

I reached for my blades but stopped short the moment the intruder stepped beyond the threshold. “Don’t hurt him.” The order came out strangled, warped by urgency.

Kodhan’s fire burned brighter, but thankfully remained on his person.