“You mean that time you cursed your entire Kin to send your illegitimate grandchild across the realm to live with strangers?”

Amja let out a large sigh. “Yes. Though you could have said it with less of an attitude.”

“Sorry,” Wesley said, with a shrug. “I’m from Creije. Attitude is a requirement for survival.”

“Tact, then.”

“What’s that?”

Amja shook her head, though there was the spirit of a smile on her stern mouth. “We need to speak about your future, Malik.”

Wesley wished she would stop calling him that. He wished everyone would stop trying to mold him into who they wanted him to be, because he finally liked who he was.

“I already know my future,” Wesley said.

It was behind that door and in the city they would travel to tomorrow.

“What about your destiny?” Amja asked. “You were supposed to be our Liege.”

“Saxony is your Liege and she’s earned it.”

“And you should rule by her side once this war is all over,” Amja said. “That’s who you are.”

Except it wasn’t. So many people thought they knew Wesley, when he had been careful to spend a lifetime making sure the exact opposite was true.

“You might see me as a prodigy for your Kin,” he said. “But when this is all over, I’m going to stay in Creije, because that’s where I know I belong.”

“Vea didn’t intend for you to stay there forever,” Amja said. “She sacrificed her life to keep you safe, hoping one day you’d return to us. You can’t know what it’s like to care for somebody that much. To a love person so much that you would give up the world for them.”

But Wesley did know.

He’d known for a while.

“Does that busker girl mean more to you than your family?” Amja asked.

Wesley’s jaw ticked.

“Watch yourself,” he said. “Tavia is my family.”

Amja sighed again. “Perhaps I’m selfish wanting to keep you after this is over,” she said. “I just don’t want to lose my grandson so soon after getting him back. My dream would be for you and your sisters to be by my side forever.”

“I’ll get Zekia back,” Wesley said. “I swear it.”

“And then you’ll leave.”

Wesley hated the softness in her voice. This woman who had lived through wars and led a Kin, and Wesley was somehow making her feel fragile.

“I’m sorry that I can’t give you what you want,” Wesley said. “But that’s not what’s important right now.”

“Then what is?” Amja asked. “What do you want, Malik?”

Wesley ran his hand across his wrist, over his scars and up the lines of his tattoos, meeting the first of his staves. So many parts of his life now intertwined across his skin.

A past forgotten, a present lived, a future promised.