“Orita stares at you often, Landon,” his mother remarked over her raised goblet.

Olandon didn’t turn his head to where she sat two seats to his left. “Yes, it is most unwelcome.”

“Then your instincts are in tune,” she replied, a hint of humor entering her voice. “For that is one who will claw her way past anything to get to the top. Even you.”

Olandon leaned back to allow the servant to take away his empty plate. “You rather sound like you admire her, Mother.”

“I could hardly hate my own reflection.”

He turned and saw her lips curve into some semblance of a smile.

She studied him as a different servant refilled her goblet. “You are ready to begin your training, my son.”

He was? Olandon didn’t answer—his mother didn’t require one—but his breath attempted to hitch in his throat as she continued to watch him. Olandon was the second child of the Tatum. When his elder sister became Tatum, he would become her Head of Guard. He hadn’t expected to begin training so soon, being just shy of his seventeenth birthday.

“Yes,” Avanna purred. “You are ready. I will instruct your uncle it is to be so.”

There was no one he hated more than Cassius, but the man was a necessary evil if Olandon wanted to commence training.

“Thank you, Mother.” Olandon smiled at Avanna, and she returned the gesture.

The murmured conversation in the dining ring dimmed and Olandon didn’t need to glance over to confirm his sister had entered the room. Veiled as she was, and hated by their mother, her arrival was always cause for vicious talk, though you would not guess it from how she carried herself. Olandon kept his proud smile in check, knowing there was a direct correlation between how much love he displayed for Olina and how much she was tortured by his mother’s guards.

His sister sat between him and the Tatum, not saying a word, though as soon as Avanna turned her attention elsewhere, Olina reached under the table and held his hand. They did so through every meal because she hated coming into the dining ring. Many things had changed in their relationship over the last few years, but that habit never diminished.

Her hand tightened as Avanna spoke. “I have just been telling your brother he is ready to begin his training.”

Olina gripped Olandon’s hand tighter again, and he had the dreadful realization that he’d been used to land a cruel blow on his sister. She was nearly eighteen and hadn’t started training under their mother yet. For him to be training already was a direct insult to Olina. Why hadn’t he seen it immediately?

Her hand relaxed a few seconds later, and with no small degree of bitterness, Olandon knew she’d made the same connections as he had, and was loosening her grip to show she didn’t blame him.

“Landon,” Olina said in a mild voice, “I am proud of you. You have looked forward to this day.”

She delivered the words neutrally to annoy their mother; though her words were honest, he could feel her hand trembling in his grasp. Sometimes it made him so angry, the way she never let him see the full extent of her pain. He’d expected it as a child and thought nothing of her protecting him.

Now, he wanted her to share the burden with him.

He wanted her to trust that he was strong enough.

* * *

Olandon wrenched upright in bed, heartbeat thundering in his ears at the booming knock on the door.

He rubbed a hand over his face as the person spoke, the thickness of the chamber door muffling their voice on the other side. “Sir, there is an urgent matter.”

Olandon waited for his racing heart to settle somewhat and climbed out of bed, reaching for last night’s robes and shrugging them on. “Come in,” he mumbled. What time was it?

A young guard poked his head into the room, fully entering when he saw Olandon was up, if only barely.

Striding forward, the guard held out a small scroll secured with a wax seal Olandon knew all too well. He took the message in a careful grip, registering the guard’s immediate departure from the room only as a sign the message clearly did not require an answer. Olandon stared at the note from his mother, now fully awake; his thoughts—as always—moved to concern for his sister’s wellbeing. Swallowing, he pried his finger under the wax seal and unfurled the scroll, eyes falling to his mother’s elegant, looped handwriting.

Olandon blinked, his body stalling as the words simultaneously registered and did not. He needn’t have worried because as he skimmed the note again, the four short lines slammed into his head with such force white light erupted at the corners of his vision. Olandon stumbled back until his legs hit the bed, and sat heavily, his ears buzzing.

The crisp scroll fell from his fingertips, curling up again on the floor.

Olina ran away? She’d left him here alone, just to be with a Bruma?

Olandon covered his mouth as bile surged up through his throat. His chest rose and fell and he shook his head. No, it couldn’t be true. The note had to be a trick.

Yet hadn’t he seen the romance between his sister and the prince of Glacium growing stronger? Olina had told him she loved Kedrick just the other day, and Olandon himself had helped the couple meet in secret twice. How could he not, when the prince made her so happy?

She’d left him here.

As the first trickles of firelight tumbled through the opening, Olandon fell to the ground, scraping his knees in a frantic search for the dropped piece of paper.

Uncurling the cruel note once more, he re-read Tatum Avanna’s message, breathing as though he’d run for an hour.

“No,” he said loudly, squeezing his eyes shut against the horrible words.

Olina couldn’t have given up on their plans so easily. Olina was going to be the Tatum of Osolis and Olandon would be her Head of Guard. Together, they would change the world for the better.

He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, shaking his head in silence. Yet no tears came, and no sound left his lips. The tears and words couldn’t come because eight words could not possibly describe such a betrayal. But he’d seen how happy Kedrick made her. How much she’d changed in recent months. He’d studied the new bounce in her step with wariness, knowing a union between her and the prince was doomed to fail; he’d already been preparing to pick up the pieces.

He just never realized he’d be picking up pieces of himself.

Olandon dropped his shaking hands and stared at his knees with blurring eyes.

“She left me,” he whispered, fists clenching. “She left me here alone.”