‘It’s that girl, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ he lied.

He could feel his mother roll her eyes.

‘I don’t see why she can’t live here once this is all over.’

Bethan was too good for a place like Zakros. Her family loved her, she needed to stay there, and besides, he knew that the relationship was new. There was no need to make decisions like where they should live as a couple.

‘Sabien is your favourite; he would make a good king,’ he offered.

‘He is too secretive.’ Her voice lowered. ‘He has been having meetings with Isla and Josan, which he never used to do. Tayven and Loren mentioned before they vanished that Sabien was trying to have meetings with them as well. Their father forbade it, obviously.’

‘They’re siblings. Maybe he just wanted to spend quality time with them.’

‘You know very well we are not the type of family who sits around and enjoys each other’s company. The only ones who do are Loren and Tayven. You and Sabien were close for a while. Until—’

‘He sent an assassin to kill me.’

‘And you handled that well enough. You killed the assassin in the end, didn’t you?’

‘He was a child. I was a child.’

‘Fourteen. You were fourteen, basically the cusp of adulthood. Enough of that. When you come home, your next test is to locate the twins.’

‘I’m not coming home.’

Not after that look on Bethan’s face when she told him they’d never work. Their relationship would never succeed if he goes back to Zakros. He saw the colour drain from Bethan’s face when she told him her worries. He could never go back.

‘At least have your prophecy read,’ she said.

Was she actually accepting this? he thought.

‘If I go to the Moirai, my fate is sealed.’

‘I can’t lose another person I love.’

The Queen of Fire and Air’s mask had finally faltered, and Kellan listened to his mother break over the phone.

‘If you love me, why didn’t you show it.’

‘I let you live,’ she said. ‘It was a choice to keep you or your father.’

His mother inhaled sporadic breaths over the phone line.

‘And what of your father. If you don’t return. I’ll never tell you.’

Hot, fiery anger laced her voice. It used to make Kellan shudder, but behind the phone line, he only felt sad for her. Sorry that she was trying so hard to hold on to the scraps of a family she never had.

‘If he wanted to be in my life, he would be. Because if I had a child out there, I would burn everything to be with them.’

‘You’re so much like him—’