“All that changed when the skirmishes became what no one wanted to call them—war. Then my father began to instruct me on how to fight in earnest. He told me religiously what to do should something happen to him.” He shook his head, and my stomach sank. “He knew, in some way. He knew it right down to his bones. And in the end, I didn’t try hard enough to stop her. I didn’t keep my word.”

“You tried to stop your mother from going to Rorn for assistance?”

“Yes, and when that failed, I tried to reach her before it was too late. She was already at the towers seeking entry when I found her. So I did the only thing I could,” he said. “I accompanied her and hoped that my father’s affection for the brother who’d resented him for his alpha status and abilities would not let us down. I knew it would not go well, but not once did I think he’d…”

“You never thought he would see you as a threat after he’d gotten what he’d thought he’d never have,” I finished for him when he couldn’t.

Rorn had never longed to be king. At least, I hadn’t noticed if he had. But he’d risen to such unexpected power so quickly, and he was not the type to surrender anything.

Scythe nodded. “My father began to bring more coin home with him. He could never take too much for fear of Theenon growing more suspicious than he already was. He feigned a gambling problem, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t enough. It was too late, and what we did have didn’t last nearly as long as we’d hoped it would.”

“Your mother would have gone to Rorn regardless of how many times you stopped her.”

Scythe’s jaw rotated, and he sighed. “But he warned us. He told us that no matter what, we were to live free of them. To never seek a thing from anyone at the towers.” He cleared his throat. “I know I was just a cub, but I’ve lived with it ever since.”

“The alcohol,” I questioned, smiling when Scythe steered me around a small but sharp rock in the road.

“I saw my father rely on it, and when I started drinking, I was too young to understand that it wouldn’t actually help. I was in so much pain. Every type of pain. Even when it dulled, the discomfort of my eye, of the life I was then expected to adapt to…”

I nodded, taking his arm and clutching it tight.

Scythe stopped suddenly.

I looked up at him, uncertain of what he was doing. Then I sensed it, too. The unnatural silence that had flooded the woodland and fields on either side of the road we’d taken.

The smoke now rising from just beyond the town up ahead.