Aydra felt the color drain from her face. “That’s not… he wouldn’t. I am head of security. Anything threatening our borders should have gone through me. He would have told me.”
Draven huffed amusedly under his breath. “A title given to make you feel as though he trusts you, as though you have a place in his court. Nothing more.”
“I was not given such a title to simply execute wandering thieves,” she said through clenched teeth.
“No. I’m sure you chose to do that on your own,” he mused. “I think you crave getting your hands dirty.”
“I refuse to sit back and bark orders when I can take care of a problem myself.”
He stared at her a moment before pushing off the top of the table where he’d rested himself. He walked across the room to the desk where she’d seen letters upon letters strewn over the top of it, and he plucked the one on the top of the pile.
“You want evidence of your brother’s cowardice? Here it is.”
The letter flung into her lap, and he turned his back on her, striding to the opening out onto the deck to leave her sitting there. She stared at him, and then opened the letter. She recognized her brother’s handwriting at once.
What lands on Lovi’s shore is your problem, Venari. Take care of it.
Aydra nearly crumpled the letter between her tightened fists. She struggled to her feet and grasped the crutch in her hands, forcing herself out on the deck. The cool wind wrapped around her body. Draven’s back was to her. She could just see the outline of his figure from the great bonfire going down below them in the clearing.
“I am sorry, Draven,” she said softly. “I didn’t know.”
She saw him do a double-take and frown at her over his shoulder, eyebrows flickering surprise. But then he sighed, and the surprise she thought she’d glimpsed vanished. “I know you didn’t.”
“How many men did you lose?” she asked.
“Five. The Honest lost thirteen,” he answered. “It sounds like a small number to you, I am sure, but for us… when our children are born from Duarb’s roots with one of two fates, and the Infi claims a majority, every person counts.”
“I would have been here,” she assured him.
“Somehow I doubt your brother would have allowed you bring a guard of your own.”
“My brother doesn’t dictate everything I do. Nor does he own every single Belwark.”
He paused and looked her over deliberately. “No. I’m told you have a special way of luring them into your own company,” he mused with a raised brow.
The crutch clenched in her hands. “How I choose my pleasures is not your concern, Venari.”
He smirked and held his hands up. “I’ve no judgement for how you live your life. Every king has taken the liberty of multiple persons in their bed. Why should you not enjoy life’s pleasures simply because you are a woman?”
“And are you such a king?” she heard herself ask.
A pause washed over the air as they dared one another to blink.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I think you’re hard to figure out,” she admitted. “But what I am sure of is that you’ve never found yourself wanting or bereft of pleasure.”
A huff of amusement left him, and he turned back to the bonfire. “Infinari persons rarely do.”
Her eyes narrowed just slightly at his use of the word. She gripped to the railing at the edge of the deck and used it as a prop, lowering herself down to the wood floor to sit. “You chose that word at banquet to speak of the Infi in our streets,” she said as she laid the crutch on the floor next to her. “Why that instead of calling it what it was?”
“Because it wasn’t always Infi,” he said simply.
“What do you mean?” she frowned.
He met her eyes, and she swore she saw a shadow of darkness fall over his features. “Are you genuinely interested?”
“I am,” she said sincerely. “I never understood how you are born with two fates. Can you tell as infants what fate they are of?”
He sighed in silence and sat down on the deck a few feet away from her, his legs dangling over the edge of the wood. His eyes danced with the flames of the fire in the clearing, and she could see his hands fidgeting in his lap.
“It’s in their wailing,” he said softly. “By the Dead Moons. Venari children do not wail upon hearing the Aviteth scream. They grow quiet. Her cry calms them, a comforting lullaby. Infi children scream, as though the screech is piercing their ears, shutting down their core. They turn red. Their skin burns…. And then there are those with both fates, also known as the Infinari.”
“Are not all of them born with such?”
“We used to be,” he said quietly. “Infinari children laugh. As though the sound of the Aviteth is a joke. It’s easy to tell the three different ones as we are only born during the Dead Moons.”
Something dark rested in his eyes, and she could see his mind working behind his gaze, a battle to admit something to her that she wouldn’t expect.
“Which were you?” she asked.
“Every Venari King has been Infinari at birth,” he admitted slowly. “We grow up with an inkling of the fate Duarb would choose for us, but it is not always certain. Previous kings decided that by the age of ten, we would have chosen our fates. We are taken to Duarb, and he marks such a fate in our hands and
