Page 238 of Fallen Nocturne

“Svenn! Come play with us!”

Coral chirps and splashes water in my direction. Kiiska answers with a deep call that shakes the surface of the sea.

I glance once at the place where Blight disappeared, then walk toward my wife.

Whatever the gods are planning can wait.

For now, Rhianelle is laughing, the seadragons are alive, and the sun is warm against the water.

I smile and wade into the sea toward the love of my life.

Chapter 35 Rhianelle

It’s been a month since Rainer died.

I still think about the funeral. Fifty-six days. That is how long my uncle lasted against a killing spell no one survives more than twenty-four hours. Rainer was stubborn, always had been.

He was ready to go. But he held on for Shade. I remember the conversation we had in the final weeks before he died.

“There’s something you need to know about Shade,” he’d said, then he told me.

Shade is my half-brother.

Reinhart Wiolant had an affair. My father fell in love with a woman in Tiamat. A master assassin from the Guild. They were going to elope. But before they could, my father was murdered along with my mother in the Archon that nearly destroyed our family.

When the Guild found out their assassin had a child and violated their rules, they imprisoned her. They put her in a crypt beneath the Guild headquarters in Tiamat.

The Guild promised her release once Shade completed one hundred missions for them. So he did. Mission after mission. Year after year.

His hundredth and last mission was to protect me and Uncle Rainer for one hundred days. But the Guild kept changing the terms whenever Shade came close to completing it. When the Ashmedai attacked me, they reset his hundred days to the beginning. After Tavan, they did it again, claiming that because I had been harmed under his protection, none of the days before it counted.

The Guild never intended to release his mother. They only wanted to keep Shade bound to them for as long as possible.

Rainer had long known who Shade was and what he was trying to do. I learned the rest from his journals after his death.

My uncle had followed Shade into Tiamat years ago with every intention of killing him. He believed Shade might blame our family for what happened to his mother. Rainer wanted to remove the threat before Shade could come for me.

But he watched instead. The longer Rainer observed him, the more he began to recognize my father in Shade. By the time Rainer finally approached him, he no longer saw an assassin who might hurt me. He saw his brother’s son.

Rainer held on long enough to make sure Shade’s bond was complete. He wrote a letter to the Guild of Assassins, sealed with his authority as a lord of Völundr, confirming Shade’s service. Rainer vouched for him, making sure they couldn’t deny that the mission was complete. He died the day after he sent the letter.

My brother. I have a brother.

The thought still feels strange. It is unfamiliar, yet somehow right, like a missing piece of my past has finally settled into place.

Shade is standing in front of me now. In the palace courtyard, preparing to leave with Lucien at his side. Lucien remains trapped in the body of a large black wolf. He sits beside Shade’s travel pack, his sapphire eyes following every movement around the courtyard while his tail rests curled over his paws.

“When will you be back?” I ask.

“As soon as I have my mother,” Shade says. “I’ll bring her here once she is safe.”

“They have to release her now,” I say. “The mission is complete. The debt is paid.”

Shade nods. Hope brightens his eyes, though I can still see the fear beneath it. After everything the Guild has done, neither of us trusts them to honor their word without a fight.

He looks at me. There’s something soft and vulnerable in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he says, his voice rough with emotion. “For everything. For not hating me when you found out.”