“I know it’s unbelievable,” he said, tipping his head back in her direction, “but that’s really Veralie. My Veralie.”

Jaeros dropped his hand, clenching and unclenching both at his sides as his eyes frantically darted around them. The fear in his scent hadn’t diminished in the least.

Starting to feel a sense of unease creep in, Jaren tried again. “She’s been alive this entire time, Jae. Living on fucking Aleron of all places.”

“And for good reason.” His reply was quiet, no more than a muttered phrase, but he might as well have screamed it at the top of his lungs.

Jaren froze, his entire world stopping at those four simple words. Pressure built in his head until everything around him seemed to fade away. The sound of the crowd milling about, the ocean air whipping against his face, the heart pounding in his chest. It all froze in time as his father’s words struck him. As they dug in and ripped him open, flaying his skin and tissue as they went.

Jaeros had known where she was? No, that…that wasn’t possible. Because if he’d known she was on Aleron that meant this entire time, all these years, he’d also known she’d been—

Horror speared through him, taking every memory, every moment and every word he’d thought to be true, and dousing it all in poison. Black dots spread into his vision, and he swallowed hard, fighting the bile surging up his throat.

Veralie’s scent washed over him a second before he felt her approach, her confusion mixing and compounding with his own. Yet his father just continued to fucking stand there, eyeing the Magyki around them, unaware of the soul wound he’d just inflicted. As if he didn’t even realize he’d spoken the foul words aloud.

“You knew,” Jaren said, his voice thick and hoarse.

Jaeros’s eyes snapped to his, blinking back a fog like he’d been so deep within his own thoughts that he’d forgotten he was there. “What?”

Everything suddenly made sense. How she’d wound up on Aleron, the group she’d said had snuck her there and made a deal with Sulian. All the pieces were adding up, forming a spiked truth that was going to tear him apart.

He’d wondered. Wondered how she could have lived when his fathers had been so sure of her death. They’d loved her almost as much as he had. They would’ve checked her a hundred times, a thousand times, trying everything to save her.

And apparently, they had. He was such a fucking fool. The lump in his throat grew hot, scorching him and turning his words raspy and broken. “You told me she was dead.”

Jaeros flinched at whatever he saw in his gaze, and then he looked over Jaren’s shoulder to Veralie, who was standing just behind him, tensed like a bow. A mixture of determination and sadness filled his father’s expression when he finally spoke.

“This is not the place to have this conversation.”

The fuck it wasn’t. He lunged, gripping the front of Jaeros’s tunic, and glared down at the male he’d respected his entire life. The male who’d followed him into the woods the night Veralie had been born, who’d sat him down and explained what his mating bond would mean, who’d gifted him his daggers and told him how proud he was.