I forgot how to smile. Concern consumed my conscience. Worry wormed into my heart.

Was it over?

If so, would I ever know if Xelan was okay?

The longer this went on, the less I slept.

Nox suddenly lavished gifts on me without my understanding why. I’d never want for clothes or furniture again. Activity around the castle eased and strange events occurred.

I remember Colita awoke one night screaming. I heard her from up the stairs, but I wasn’t expecting her to pound on my chamber doors. With a quirked brow and tired eyes, I opened it to her flushed face.

“How dare you?!” she spat as she chucked a beheaded snake at my feet.

Bewildered, I watched her storm off.

A snake.

In the viper’s bed.

It was almost enough to make me laugh, but not quite. It’s certainly more amusing in hindsight knowing that Nox confessed to these pranks and tricks in his Verse.

[SS]: “Nox wrote that he wanted to make you smile.”

Unfortunately for both of us, we were about to come face-to-face with our ruin.

Now this is two years and six months after we “invaded” Earth. As planned, a city surrounded the fortress where humans and Icari engaged in commerce and cultural exchange. My daily routine around the settlement took me through the markets and down a few narrow alleys known for mischief.

Nothing too nefarious.

People of varying shades mingled. Deep browns, blacks close to blue, mid-toned tans, and all variations of gray skewing from the extremes, of course. All black hair in a gorgeous cornucopia of textures—tight curls, loose waves, straight, frizzy. Mixed and beautiful.

Eyes. That’s where people varied the most. Different shades of brown, from pale gold to near black. Not to mention the strange Icarean blends.

But it was a pair of bright blue eyes at a melon stand that made me double-take from my rounds. The flash against that deep complexion startled me.

New.

Someone unseen until now.

I glimpsed the striking woman long enough to see she wore a loose black robe over pristine white clothes with a hood raised to hide her unusual features. She raced away as if her melon purchase made her late for an urgent appointment. I pursued her.

Through stands and around people, she rushed without a glance back, but somehow I kept losing her. Swiftly, she dodged in front of Icari, much taller than herself, and cost me my visual many times.

By the time I spotted her again, a taller figure walked in step beside her. I walked alongside them across the thoroughfare, keeping my eyes forward while maintaining peripheral. In a familiar gesture, the man wrapped an arm around her shoulder. He pulled her against him. In the next few steps, she locked her ankle into his and sent him stumbling.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

That’s when I saw it.

An orb on his belt.

And finally, I heard her for the first time across the crowd. Icy, she warned, “This arrangement works better without affections. Keep your hands to yourself.”

As General of the Icarean army and the fortress, I could easily demand their identities and the purpose of their visit to our city. But my instincts told me to wait, leave it, and look for her another time.

Those eyes made her easy to spy in the crowd. Twice more in the next few weeks, I followed her throughout the city. She always met with the man bearing the orb, but with much less hand wandering.

It nagged me. I don’t know why. Her features. They were just so unusual. And the orb on his belt… Something was screaming at me to piece it together. Before I managed it, I was forced to deal with the problem head-on under the most unpleasant and unpredictable of circumstances.

A week later, my lieutenant knocked on my study at the fortress. I called, “Come in.”

“Sir.” He bowed, as was appropriate, but I could tell an excitement animated him. The words rushed out as he announced, “Prince Xelan has returned.”

I had to restrain myself from bolting out of my chair. For the first time in months, I wanted to smile, but the lieutenant’s hesitation made me resist it. I pushed, “Anything else?”

The Icarus actually shuddered before cryptically adding, “He is not alone.”

Remaining, as always, majestic and elegant, I calmly glided through the fortress and down the stairs to the staterooms. Contained. Reserved. I turned the corner and—

Lost my shit.

“Prince Xelan, where the fuck is your hair?!”

He turned with a stupid—wonderful, but stupid—grin on his face. Black fuzz cropped from his head as if he shaved it bald a month ago. “Do you like it? I had an accident in the lab.”

An accident. In the lab. Bald.

I looked away and laughed, incredulous. All this time worrying about him, and the worst to happen was a cosmetic incident.

Xelan laughed with me, but it sounded tired. Used up. He sobered quickly. “On a more serious note, I want you to meet someone.”

A human walked into the room and struck me with her gaze.

You.

I wanted to say. Instead, I looked between the two of them and waited for the introduction. I also noted the woman was severely pregnant, which I didn’t see in the market. Surprises. And they kept coalescing.

Two young men followed, also with unusual features. One had teal eyes and the other forest green. Another woman swept into the room like she could take it by fire. Bright green eyes and red hair.

But the tiny female behind them stunned me the most. Her eyes. They were purple in Atramentous.

Gaping, I looked back at Xelan. Unable to form my question.

Who? How?

My lover, the most surprising person in my life, squeezed my shoulder in an usually public display of affection. He assured, “I know. Much to take in, but I wish only to tell the story once. Take me to my brother.”

“Can I join?”

I glared at the blue-eyed woman. I couldn’t help it. Her clandestine visits with the man bearing an orb vexed me.

Xelan beamed at her.

At first—Elden, at first I thought the brightness of his smile denoted… Shit, I thought he’d been unfaithful. That the spawn within her was his own.

With that, I barged up the stairs and pounded on the observatory doors. Nox moved his operations there not long after Xelan’s departure. My King permitted my entrance, and I gave him the good news.

“Your majesty, Prince Xelan has returned.”

I failed to divulge all the astonishing revelations. To voice my suspicions to him. About the woman, about the pregnancy, and about the man with the orb.

Celindria wandered in as if she owned the place, and fuck if I didn’t realize Nox took to her from the start.

[SS]: Korac is swiping his hands down his face in frustration.

Why didn’t I see it then? See it and stop it. I swear, none of this misfortune would’ve been possible.

[SS]: I’m squeezing his hand. “Then we wouldn’t be here right now.”

He kissed my knuckles and then my forehead.

You’re right, amos. But I must ask you, sprite. King Rayne. If you could change it, would you? I can’t fathom another world than this one, but the Probability Matrix presents us with options. There’s a version of us out there that never met because Nox never fell in love with Celindria.

[SS]: “You said you thought Xelan looked at her a certain way, too. That at first you assumed it was romantic?”

It wasn’t. All these years later I can see that now. I’ve only seen him look at one other person to the same effect. When Xelan brought Rayne to the fortress to negotiate with Nox. I watched that Icarus beam at her with the pride and adoration only fathers have for their daughters. Before Rayne, Xelan looked at Celindria in that manner.

All my instincts told me the brothers’ affection for her would blind them in ways that would not only cost me—but all of Cinder.