A Court of Rage and Fire

Chapter 22

A ragged scoff escaped Lucien's throat when he finally raised his arm to brush Helion's warm hand from his face.

"That seems hardly the sort of joke that earned your amusing reputation, High Lord," Lucien said coldly.

"Ask your mother then. Better yet, look in a mirror. Her eyes, her hair, but you have my bones, my skin, my power. Repressed as it is." Helion let out a quiet scoff. "Hidden in plain sight..."

Helion's words cut like a—no, not a cut. On his hands, his fingertips... Was he falling ill? The seconds continued to slow. Unable to look Helion in the eye, or perhaps just unwilling to trace whatever similarities Helion saw in their faces, Lucien's gaze fell to the hand still on Hybern's spellbook. Brown-skinned, deeper than Lucien's, but more like Lucien than any of Beron and Ada's other sons, who had been known to turn red and sprout freckles even on cloudy Autumn days, while Lucien drank in the sunshine, had even once glowed with it, before his fingers—

Spell-Cleaver.

He'd glowed—

"Are you listening, Lucien? If you didn't have my blood, the library wards would not have opened for you."

The flickering memory instantly retreated far from Lucien's grasp. A frozen chill bloomed in his chest and radiated down his limbs and spine, even while his hands burned as hot as the lingering phantom of Helion's hand on his cheek.

Helion was rambling now, his eyes desperately darting all over Lucien's face, searching for reaction, for acknowledgement. "Gods, I should have recognized when you stood up to Amarantha like that. Like I always wanted to. Like my—your uncle did."

Lucien blinked, vaguely recalling the High Lord who died for his rebellion against Amarantha. Older brother to the irreverent Helion, who had never expected to rule the Day Court. He thought he remembered the Lady and their golden-eyed grown children, and perhaps a Dowager Lady as well—but he couldn't be sure. He'd traveled through their Day Court, so splendid before Amarantha's sacking, in his youthful days as a wandering scholar and emissary. But even as Tamlin's emissary, he had paid the nobles of Day little mind until they were all slaughtered Under The Mountain, never considering they might be relatives.

Family.

If what Helion said was true—and there was a part of Lucien that somehow knew it was—then Ada had kept this secret from both of them. For a reason.

Being a High Lord's son was dangerous. Being a High Lord's bastard...

He knew all too well how that went. All the Vanserras did.

"I have to go," Lucien interrupted whatever Helion was saying.

Helion looked stricken. "Let me explain. There's so much that I—"

"I'll take the spellbook and my leave. With your permission, High Lord." Long gone was any fear of sounding like Eris. Perhaps the mask was more useful than he'd given Eris credit for.

Slowly, Helion slid the book across the table, though his hand lingered on the open page as he wrestled with the decision. So unlike every other High Lord that Lucien had ever known—brash, so mirthful one moment and so anguished the next, every emotion crossing his face, every thought pouring from his lips.

Beron would call Helion weak. Foolish, to spill such a valuable secret so willingly. Pathetic, to leave emotions unshielded.

But unlike every High Lord that Lucien had ever known, whether Tamlin or Rhys or Beron, who might have commanded him to stay, or put up an impenetrable shield to keep him contained, Helion released both the spellbook and Lucien.