“Rafe is good at putting on a front, at pushing people away," Xander continued. "He always has been. Because, well, it’s a lot to explain.”
Lyana remained silent, watching him, giving him the opening.
Feeling exposed, he worked through the discomfort. Lyana was his mate. His mate. She deserved to know even the darkest parts of his past. “My mother was the first princess in five generations to bring home a mate from the courtship trials. Before that, our house had been shunned, the last pick in a string of unlucky trials that left our princes and princesses outnumbered and unmatched. But when she returned with a falcon from the House of Prey, our people were ecstatic. They glorified her and my father as the saviors of Taetanos, the ones who would return the other gods’ favor to our small island. The day my mother went into labor with me, she rushed to my father’s rooms in her excitement, only to find him in bed with one of her chambermaids. She wanted to murder the girl, but my father begged for her life, telling my mother his lover was pregnant, too. And though she seems callous now, she wasn’t always that way, especially not with me or my father. She relented.”
“Rafe,” Lyana whispered in shock.
Xander nodded. “That’s how my brother, Rafe, was announced to the world. And for five years, he lived in the lowest level of the castle, hidden away with his mother but close enough for my father to visit them. When we were children, they both died, leaving Rafe an orphan. I ordered he be moved to the royal chambers, with rooms next to mine. And though he’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember, my mother and my people have never forgiven him.”
Lyana’s gaze slipped toward the window. “Forgiven him for what?”
Xander’s attention was pulled by an unseen force, falling to the courtyard below, where a raven and an owl sparred, swords arching, bodies fluid as though made for fighting. He had few memories of his father, but one had taken place in that very spot, as he was given his first sword. The weight had been awkward in his hand. He’d stumbled over the steps. But he’d made an effort, practicing the footwork again and again, so focused that he’d failed to notice when his father’s voice faded. Dripping with sweat, smiling because he thought he’d improved a little, Xander had spun, searching for his father’s approval. Instead, he’d been presented with his back. Those sleek brown wings were spread as the king knelt over his other son, the one who held a blade twice the size of Xander’s in two sturdy hands.
He looked at Lyana, tearing himself away from the memory and the view that had sparked it. “They’ve never forgiven Rafe for being the son my father loved more than me, the strong son, the warrior. And he’s never forgiven himself either, which is why he never lets anyone get close. He doesn’t think he deserves it.”
Lyana turned to him in sympathy. “I’m sure that can’t be true, Xander. Your father must have loved you both, just in different ways. How could a parent ever do anything but love his child? How could anyone do anything but love you?”
“Maybe you’re right,” Xander said indifferently as he pushed away from the wall and closed the window. He didn’t need pity, especially not from her. “Either way, it’s all in the past. But that’s why my brother is the way he is. And maybe now that you know, you might find it in your heart to forgive him for his rough edges.” Xander sighed, turning toward the door, needing air and quiet. “We should go. There’s probably a seamstress worried sick somewhere in the castle because the princess she’s supposed to be fitting is nowhere to be found.”
He offered her a wide smile, trying to make it as real as possible. Lyana did the same, questions flickering in her eyes as they both pretended everything was fine.
He was silent as he led her out of his library.
Not because there was nothing to say. No, there was plenty. But he couldn’t bring himself to explain the truth—how he knew his father had loved Rafe and not him. There were too many memories, too many examples, all too painful to dredge up from the pit he’d shoved them into. Even something as simple as their names was riddled with countless levels of hurt and confusion.
Before Xander was born, his mother had wanted to name him Aleksander to honor his father. For months, while he grew in her belly, she’d thought of him as little Xander, the endearing nickname his father had been given as a child. But discovering the affair changed all that and turned her loving heart into a bitter one. When he was born, she locked his father out of the room and named her son Lysander instead, a raven name through and through—her father's name. Four months later, when Rafe was born, the wound opened anew. Word traveled up from the servants’ quarters that the king had been by his mistress’s side and had proudly declared his bastard son his namesake, Aleksander Pallieus, gifting him the last name of a prince of the House of Prey. As soon as his mother found out, she shifted the paperwork, changing his surname to Ravenson, the one given to orphans and bastards in the House of Whispers.
Xander, of course, didn’t remember any of that—he’d been nothing more than a baby. But he heard the rumors growing up. And he remembered, as a boy, thinking that the way his mother resolutely called him Xander seemed to originate in spite rather than affection, especially as her eyes sharply slid to his father with an aura of victory. It was only after his father died, when his mother switched to calling him by his full name, Lysander, that he understood she’d only used the nickname so that Rafe couldn’t. They called him Alek back then, a time so long ago he hardly remembered it. As soon as Rafe had been old enough to understand the problematic history behind his true name, he forsook it, shortening Ravenson to Rafe, and he’d gone by that single defiant word ever since.
Even as a boy, Rafe had seen how his very existence had stolen something from Xander. And that was why he pushed everyone away—he didn’t want to take any more. For that unnecessary sacrifice, Xander loved him, and always would.
“Thank you,” Lyana murmured as he dropped her back at her chambers, pulling him from his thoughts. She stepped closer and leaned on the tips of her toes, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek, a mark that tingled even after she eased away. “Thank you for showing me your library, Xander, and thank you for sharing a bit more of your world.”
A mystified grin settled on his lips. “Thank you for accepting it.”
Her shy answering smile was visible only for an instant before she slipped into her rooms, but it left him buoyant.
Maybe she hadn’t loved the books.
Maybe she had only loved the view.
But it was something.
Even if he went there to read and she went there to wonder, they might go together. It could still be their place—a place where they were honest and open with each other, a place where companionship and perchance love might grow.
41
Cassi
The waterfall was like a beacon on the horizon as the moonlight turned the cascade to flowing silver. Cassi made her way swiftly across the valley, caring little about the sleeping town below, mind on her mission—on the god stone. Truth be told, she could have closed her eyes and still found it. The power tugged on her soul, exerting a magnetic pull that would have been impossible to ignore. But this wasn’t about shooting her dream-spirit through rock and air. It was about finding a path a solid body might traverse in the bright light of day. She used the information Lyana had so freely given and slipped beneath the falls, finding the entrance to the sacred nest almost immediately.