Soraya's POV
The torches blurred in my vision as they dragged me away from the courtyard, their flames stretching into streaks of gold through the haze of my tears. I stumbled over the stones, chains cutting into my wrists, but I barely felt them. My body was moving, yes — but my mind was trapped, spiraling, drowning in words I couldn't untangle.
Uncle.
Brother.
Blackwood.
The voices still rang in my head. Lucas — the man with the burning crimson eyes — he had called himself my uncle. My uncle? How? I didn't even know his face until tonight. And Leonidas — smug, cruel Leonidas — he had claimed Kael was my brother.
Kael.
The image of him hit me like a blade to the chest: his body pierced with arrows, blood pooling around him as he tried to crawl toward me. His eyes — gods, his eyes — they had burned with something desperate, something raw, something that had pulled at me so violently I almost forgot I was chained.
