Home, he thought, and then corrected himself. The place that holds the people I can’t afford to lose.
On the way up through the inner courtyards, he caught sight of Ryder.
The Crown Prince stood under one of the east colonnades, coat off, shirtsleeves rolled. Serenity sat on the low wall beside him, her skirts gathered up out of the stone dust, her hand resting light on his forearm as he pointed something out over the rooftops. She laughed at whatever he said, tipping her head back in a way Jayce recognized from a very different girl at a very different inn table years ago.
Ryder looked… softer. Still taut with responsibility, jaw set in that familiar way, but there was a looseness around his eyes that hadn’t been there the last time Jayce rode out. The sight hit him in two directions at once: relief for his friend, and an old, quiet ache that had learned by now to share space with that relief.
He didn’t call out. Ryder hadn’t seen him yet, and Serenity’s face was turned toward the view, at peace. Jayce let them have the moment and slipped inside by a side door.
His own room greeted him with the faint smell of oil and paper and the particular dust that collected when you left a place empty for more than a week. He set his satchel on the trunk, leaned his head against the cool wood of the door for a heartbeat, and just breathed.
Brindlecross clung to him: the sound of Kairi laughing in the workroom, Rush’s rasped curses over sign drills, Tessa’s joy someone wanted to learn sign, Kylar’s voice going hoarse saying It’s a lot.
He stripped off travel-stiff leathers, washed with water that wasn’t quite hot enough, and put on a clean shirt and jacket, the familiar weight of palace expectations settling over his shoulders with the fabric. The satchel on the trunk rustled when he opened it, Rush’s letters, sealed and blunt; Kairi’s neat script addressed to Damon.
He thought about going to hunt Damon down first to give him the letter, but he was probably running Fenway ragged through the city right now in one of his gambling dens. He tapped the letter lightly on his knee and turned and headed back out into the halls. He made his way toward Damon's rooms and caught him near them. "Damon, delivery."
Damon perked up and practically ran to Jayce and took the letter. "My future potential wife wrote!" He looked over the neat script and eyed Fenway standing there wary. Damon ran. Fenway cursed and took after him.
Jayce stood there for a moment and decided that was Fenway's problem now and returned back to his room. He would need to find Ryder, but, before that he sat on his bed and let himself fall back onto it. His mind wandered to Darius and if he already had the escort ready to go. Hopefully, then they could quickly get back and get them back. His ride back through the small towns gave him updated news of more bandit attacks on the roads. That didn't sit well with him. He closed his eyes and let himself take a small nap.
By the time he reached the Prince’s study, the lamps were lit. A guard at the door nodded him through without ceremony.
Ryder sat at the big table near the windows, boots up on a chair, shirt changed but sleeves still rolled. Serenity occupied the seat nearest him, a book open and forgotten in her lap. Maps and dispatches were spread across the table in a controlled sprawl, the topmost bearing Brindlecross in neat ink.
Ryder looked up first. “You made good time,” he said, a smile ghosting over his mouth. “Either the roads were kind, or you bullied the horses.”
“Little of both,” Jayce said, bowing his head in brief respect to Serenity. “My lady.”
She rose, smoothing her skirts with one hand, the other resting for a heartbeat on the table’s edge near the Brindlecross dispatch. “Welcome back, Captain,” she said, voice warm and even. “Is Brindlecross well?”
“As well as it can be,” he answered. “They sent their regards.” He held up the packet of letters. “In triplicate.”
Her gaze flicked, just once, to the seals, Rush’s bold hand, Kairi’s smaller script, before she pulled her attention back to his face. “They’re kind to think of us,” she said. The book in her lap was still open; she closed it now, fingers lingering on the cover as if weighing whether to sit back down.
“I’ve been keeping him from his work all afternoon,” she added lightly, glancing sidelong at Ryder. “I should let you two conspire properly before your ink dries in the wells.”
Jayce caught the faintest hesitation in the way she said it, like someone offering to leave but perfectly willing to stay if asked.
Ryder’s mouth tilted. He reached over and caught her hand, brushing his thumb over her knuckles in a gesture so un-royal and unguarded Jayce had to look away for half a heartbeat. “You’re not keeping me from anything,” he said quietly. “You’re the part that keeps me human. Logistics can wait an hour.”
Her cheeks went pink, though her eyes cut once more to the letters before she could stop them. “Flatterer,” she murmured, then added, a touch more carefully, “If you’d rather I stayed to help you make sense of it all—”
“I’ll drag you into the dull parts tomorrow,” Ryder said, letting her hand go with a squeeze. “Tonight I want your opinion when I’m less likely to fall asleep on the map.”
That earned a softer, more private smile. She inclined her head to him, then to Jayce. “Very well. I’ll leave you to your —”
“If I may, my lady,” Jayce cut in, the words out before he entirely thought better of them, “were you working on becoming queen? All this—” he nodded at the spread of maps and dispatches “—you seemed very intent on it, earlier.”
Serenity’s fingers tightened just a fraction on the back of her chair, then relaxed. “If I am to stand beside him,” she said, careful but not coy, “I would like to understand what that truly means. Matters of state, troop movements, grain tallies… all of it. If I’m allowed to learn, I want to.”
Ryder went very still for a heartbeat, something unguarded flickering through his eyes. “You are always allowed,” he said quietly. He reached out and caught the empty chair beside him with his foot, dragging it a little closer. “Join us, then, Serenity. Better you hear the dust and dragons as they are, not polished secondhand.”
She hesitated just long enough to make it polite, then gathered her skirts and sat, laying her closed book carefully on the table’s edge. “Then I’ll try to be more help than hindrance,” she said, folding her hands in her lap and turning her attention toward the maps.
Ryder tipped his chair back onto all fours and scrubbed a hand over his face, the moment of softness tucked away as he shifted back into the Crown Prince. “Sit,” he told Jayce, jerking his chin toward the opposite chair. “You look like you’ve been riding with ghosts.”
Jayce dropped into the seat with less grace than usual, the joints in his knees complaining. “Not ghosts,” he said. “Just updates and my sanity.”
“So, ghosts,” Ryder said dryly. He reached for a quill, gave Serenity a brief, wry look as if to say you asked for this, then focused on Jayce. “Start at the beginning.”
Jayce set the letters on the table between them. “Brindlecross is still standing. Rush is still swearing. Kairi is still… Kairi.” His mouth tugged. “They’re packing. Quietly. Herbs, books, tools. Trying not to scare the town.”
Ryder nodded, expression sharpening. “And Kairi?”
“Managing everyone else’s panic so she doesn’t have to look at her own,” Jayce said. “The usual.”
Something in Ryder’s eyes warmed with a familiar, aching fondness. “She wanted to go,” he said, half to himself. “For years. It's been a slow dance with Rush"
Serenity’s gaze, which had been skimming the edge of the map, shifted back to them. “If she wanted to come,” she asked, tone mild, “why would she be afraid now?”
“She’s leaving her whole world behind,” he said instead. “Town that knows her and Rush. In exchange for a palace she’s never seen and rules she hasn’t learned yet. Wanting something doesn’t make it less terrifying when it finally arrives.”
Serenity nodded slowly, accepting that. “Change rarely does,” she said quietly.
“Rush sends you this,” Jayce said, pulling them back to safer ground. He slid the outermost letter across the table. The seal was plain wax, already smudged from the journey. “His words, not mine. You’ll want a drink with that one.”
Ryder arched a brow. “Promising.” He broke the seal with his thumb and scanned just far enough down the page for his mouth to twist. He refolded it, setting it aside within reach but not yet within arm’s length of his attention. “And my brother?” he asked. “Did he behave himself?”
Jayce blew out a breath. “Define behave.” Ryder’s gaze sharpened. “Alive?”
“Barely,” Jayce said. “Through no fault of his this time.” Ryder’s chair came down fully to the floor. “What happened?”
Serenity straightened a little, the book in her lap forgotten. “Ambush on the road,” Jayce said. His fingers curled on the table’s edge, knuckles whitening briefly as the memory sharpened. “Magical blast, not steel. He shoved me out of the way.” He exhaled through his nose. “Took the hit, went into a tree. For a heartbeat I thought…”
He let it trail. He didn’t need to finish; Ryder’s jaw had gone tight, and Serenity’s hand had risen, almost unconsciously, to press against her sternum.
“Tessa and I got him to the next town,” Jayce went on. “Local healer did what she could. Set the worst of it, kept him breathing. He was pretty much blind by then—swelling from the fractures, face bandaged to hell. We rode slow the rest of the way to Brindlecross.”
Ryder’s fist had closed on the table now, tendons standing out. “And Kairi?” he asked, voice low.
A ghost of a smile pulled at Jayce’s mouth. “We found her in the town square,” he said. “Sitting on a wall, reading like the world wasn’t tilting. Slate made a beeline for her, horse's favorite healer. Onyx also claimed her as his before we even stopped moving.” His eyes softened at the memory. “She looked up, saw this very well-bandaged guard trying to pretend he wasn’t about to pass out, and that was it. Mother hen mode. She took one look at him and started issuing orders.”
Serenity’s lips quirked despite the tension. Ryder’s fist eased half a degree. “She checked him over,” Jayce continued. “Eased what she could without burning herself out. Then over the next day, kept working at it. Little bits at a time, whenever she thought he’d let her get away with it.”
He hesitated, a small frown knitting between his brows as one particular moment rose clearer than the rest.
He paused, frowning slightly as the memory settled more solidly in his mind. “That’s where it got… interesting.” Ryder’s brows rose. “Go on.”
Jayce tapped a finger against the wood. “I’ve seen her heal before. Gods know she’s patched me up enough times. I always watched her hands, the wounds, the light. You…” he tipped his chin at Ryder, “watched the way she swayed, when she’d gone too far.”
Ryder nodded, slow. “Yes.” Serenity’s attention sharpened. “So she is a talented healer,” she said, almost idly. “Is that why you wanted her brought here?”
Jayce and Ryder exchanged the briefest glance. “It’s one of the reasons,” Ryder said. “The capital needs healers who aren’t afraid of blood.”
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“And she’s already proven herself loyal,” Jayce added. “To Naberia. To people we care about.” Both statements were true enough to sit easily between them. Serenity seemed satisfied with that for now. She lowered her gaze to the map again, but the angle of her head said she was still listening. “Dato,” Jayce said, “watched her eyes.”
Ryder stilled. “He let her work,” Jayce went on. “Let her take the worst of it down. Then, right when I thought she might finally push herself too hard, he stopped her. Gently, but firm. Grabbed her wrist, pulled her hand off him, said her name. Told her it was enough.” The scene played behind his eyes as he spoke. “Before that, when he couldn’t see, he kept tilting his head toward her when she moved. Listening. Tracking her. Once he could see again… he watched her like he knew exactly where the cliff edge was and wasn’t going to let her go over it.”
Ryder’s fingers drummed once on the table, then stopped. “How would he know when to stop her?” he asked quietly. Jayce opened his mouth, closed it again. He’d filed it away as Dato being careful, attentive—a prince learning fast where other people’s edges were. Hearing Ryder say it out loud made the hair on his arms rise.
“Ryder,” Jayce said slowly, “we told them in Brindlecross that we were sure the dream boy was on the escort. As you know Rush already knew that."
Ryder’s eyes flicked up, narrow and keen now. “Yes.”
“Kairi got upset,” Jayce said. “Stormed out. I thought that was because… well. Because Kairi.” His mouth twisted. “What I didn’t expect was that Dato got upset too. He said it felt like a trap with his name written on it.” Jayce swallowed. “And riding back the past couple days I thought on that. He would only feel like its a trap, if you’re the one being trapped.”
The realization hit both of them in the same heartbeat.
“It’s him,” Ryder said. “Dato,” Jayce echoed. His voice had gone thin.
Serenity stared between them. “Your little brother is… what, exactly?” she asked. There was no mockery in it—just sharp curiosity and the faintest thread of alarm.
For a breath, nobody moved. The study suddenly felt too small for the shape of what they’d just named: Brindlecross, the meadow, six years of a dream-boy Kairi had never brought into waking conversation willing, and Ryder’s youngest brother dropping, potentially quite literally, into her storms.
Jayce met Ryder’s eyes. The shared look said a whole conversation: how much do we tell her, how much sounds like we’ve been drinking, how much do we owe the woman you’ve asked to stand at your side? Ryder exhaled slowly, turning a fraction toward Serenity without quite letting Jayce out of his peripheral vision.
“There are… bonds,” he said carefully, “that our god-beasts favor. Some of them touch dreams. Kairi’s had that kind of bond for years. We’ve always known there was someone on the other end of it.” His mouth twitched, humorless. “Jayce and I have been trying to make sure that someone wasn’t a lunatic or an enemy.”
“And now you think it’s your brother,” Serenity said. “We’re… reasonably certain,” Ryder answered. “We’ll know more when they reach the capital and we can speak to them both somewhere the walls don’t have ears.”
Jayce let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. That was, he thought, as close to the truth as they could get without dragging the whole story into the light before Kairi and Dato had a chance to stand there themselves.
Ryder’s fingers tapped a slow, thoughtful rhythm against the edge of the desk. He let it run for a few beats, then turned fully toward Serenity.
“I think that’s enough for tonight,” he said. “I have a lot to think about. Would you like me to walk you to your rooms?”
Serenity rose, smoothing her gown back into place. She took her time straightening a sleeve, then looked up at him with a small, composed smile.
“I’ll be all right,” she said. “Catch up with your captain. I know you both probably want to drink now, after… whatever revelation you just had.” Her eyes flicked between them, curious but not prying. “Even if I don’t exactly understand what it is.”
She reached out and laid her hand over his where it rested on the table, giving a small, steady squeeze.
“Don’t stay up too late wondering what-ifs,” she added, tone light but kind.
It pulled a warmer, unfiltered smile out of Ryder than court usually saw. He turned his hand under hers to return the squeeze.
“I’ll try not to,” he said.
She inclined her head once more to both of them and slipped toward the door. It closed softly behind her, the latch catching with a quiet click.
For a moment, Ryder watched the empty doorway, the smile fading back into something more strained. Then he dragged a hand through his hair, turned back to Jayce, and let out a breath that sounded like the start of a very long night.
After Jayce returned from the kitchens with a platter of snacks—cheese, crackers, little cakes, some fruit, nuts, and a bottle of wine—he set it down on the table in Ryder’s solar and watched him pace.
Ryder had that look again, the one that meant the gears in his head were in overdrive. Jayce started pouring the wine into two cups and glanced toward the small guard room connected to Ryder’s rooms. “If you don’t mind, I’ll crash here tonight once we’re done.” Ryder nodded without really looking, then finally stopped, sat, and stared at the food like he’d forgotten what to do with it. He took a long drink of the wine and slowly set the cup back down. Jayce stared at him waiting for whatever thought caused him to need wine before snacks. " I shouldn't of let Dato go" He stated.
"You didn't know before we left. And we didn't get any reason to really think it was him till he was there" Jayce pointed out.
Ryder rubbed at his temple. “How does Rush treat him?” he asked at last. The question was simple; the weight behind it wasn’t.
Jayce dredged through the days in Brindlecross. “He’s been… polite,” he said, sounding a little surprised even to himself. “Wary, but not hostile. They’ve talked. A lot. Rush pulled him aside more than once. And before I left, Kylar—Dato—said Rush had… spoken to him.” He seemed stressed about it. Said it was a lot"
Ryder let his hand drop. “Tears, teeth and scales.” he muttered. “Of course he has. We left Dato with one of the most dangerous people on this planet"
Jayce blinked. “I’m sorry, what? Rush is scary yeah, but he doesn't seem like one of the most dangerous people on this planet scary."
Ryder sat with that for a moment looking at Jayce. Jayce took a drink and wasn't fond of how Ryder was staring at him. Finally Ryder pointed at his own temple. “He reads minds,” he said. “Or hears thoughts. He explained it once. It's constant noise. But some people are yelling and some aren't" Ryder raised his hand as if to illustrate what he meant with it and then let it drop. "His God-beast, the dragon, it made it happen. Like how the wolf helps me focus better when I'm thinking."
Jayce took that information and started to wonder. "So." He stared at his cup. "You....let me. ME. Go to that house. Alone. For. Years"
Ryder winced. "Before you blame me for lack of information, let me throw the rest out there."
Jayce downed his drink and grabbed the bottle to refill. " If there is more besides Rush can read my unfiltered thoughts because I might be mentally yelling them, we need something stronger than this wine."
Ryder laughed kinda, it may of came out like a sob. "He can talk in your head, teleport and go invisible. Maybe some more things, but it costs him."
Jayce just stared. “He’s never talked in my head,” he said, a little hoarsely.
Ryder stood up and went to his personal stash and found a good year and came back and gently placed it on the table. Jayce’s chair scraped back an inch. “Ryder,” he said with slow horror, “I have been going to that house alone for years. With thoughts. And wants. And potentially walking up to a man who could burn me alive for having those thoughts alone. And you’re only telling me this now? He is very, very protective of Kairi. And...AND, I do NOT have a God-beast like you dwelling in my soul to maybe make the dragon think twice about burning me alive."
Ryder winced. “In my defense, I thought you knew."
Jayce dropped his face into his hands for a moment, then dragged them down. “I am very grateful not to have experienced whatever you’re describing.” Ryder picked up some cheese and started eating it when a thought came. He leaned back and reached for Rush's letter and pulled it over to them. He opened Rush’s letter at last, smoothing it flat. The handwriting was blunt and practical, all edges and very little grace. His eyes skimmed down the page, then stopped. He went very still.
He took a breath, laid the page on the table between them, and tapped one line with his finger.
DB is little cub. Altar may be forced. Or dead. Haven’t decided. Little bird might notice dead.
Ryder laughed once, disbelieving. “May be forced,” he read under his breath. Like this was a great piece of news.
Jayce’s gaze flicked from the letter to Ryder. “He could have teleported me to some unknown hole in the ground and left me there Ryder. I would like to stay on the fact I could have disappeared in the past handful of years and no one would have known."
Ryder’s mouth quirked despite himself. “You’re still breathing, he likes you” he pointed out. “If he wanted to disappear you with what he found in there, he’d have done it already. And the fact he’s joking about altars with Dato means he’s… processing.”
“Processing killing your brother or marrying him off to his sister,” Jayce said. “Comforting." His knee started bouncing as he grabbed some crackers and eating out of nerves. "Years Ryder. " Ryder leaned back, rubbing his face. “He didn't mean to tell me about it. We were drinking...he accidentally didn't speak out loud. Lots of questions later and I learned a lot more about Rush. King to King talk. Very fun."
Jayce laughed a little. “Well,” he said faintly, “he hasn't threaten me or told me never to return. So maybe I am one of those quiet voices he ignores."
Ryder let his hand fall and looked at him properly. “He tries to ignore most people from what he told me. Anything else?” he asked. “Anything Dato did that felt… wrong for a man who met her five minutes ago?”
Jayce sifted through the memory of the house, the yard, the couch, Kylar’s drawn face, Kairi leaning against his shoulder without thinking. “He kept the perimeter,” he said slowly. “Even inside. Checked the doors, the windows. Normal guard behavior. But when he looked at her…” He exhaled. “He looked like a man trying very hard not to give something away. But I tossed that up to be 'I'm a Prince, please don't notice that'”
Ryder tapped his fingers once, twice, then stopped. “Jayce,” he said, “what if she’s healed him before.”
Jayce let out a short, helpless laugh. “He met her for the first time there.”
“In the waking world,” Ryder said. “What if she has healed him in the dream meadow for years. What if he’s seen her push too far there, watched her telltales there. Of course he’d know to watch her eyes here. or just watch her in general. You said he was listening before he could see."
Silence pulled taut between them. Jayce stared down at his hands. “Saints,” he whispered. “If he’s her dream boy, Damon has no chance.”
Ryder’s mouth twisted. “No,” he said. “Unless Dato manages to piss Rush off badly enough. Then his chances increase dramatically due to the technicality that he has a pulse still.”
Jayce huffed. “You know if Dato and Damon were switched right now, we would have sent riders already to retrieve Damon's body."
Ryder glanced at the letter again. “Dato is a quiet man. Hopefully his thoughts are too." He then noticed he didn't finish reading the letter.
So he continued as Jayce refilled their glasses. Jayce’s laugh came out strangled and real. Ryder looked at him.
“What?” he asked. “What if he’s already married off to her by the time we get there?” Jayce said. “Rush did write ‘altar may be forced.’” Ryder groaned and ran both hands through his hair. “Don’t say that out loud,” he said. “If my father hears that, he’ll be planning celebrations before their even through the gate.”
Jayce scrubbed a hand over his face, still laughing under his breath. “Before I left,” he added, “Dato asked me to save him when I came back. Very dramatic. ‘When you return with the escort and I’ve been tragically kidnapped, please save me,’ that sort of thing.” His smile went lopsided. “Do you think that was a call for help and I missed it? Do you think he assumed Rush was talking in my head too?”
Ryder snorted. “If Rush was in your head, you’d have moved to Saebria by now.”
“Fair,” Jayce said.
Ryder drummed his fingers once more, then shook his head like a man clearing water from his ears. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “you’re not the only one who’d save him. Tessa would. She’s his shadow. She’d drag him out of a burning house and then yell at him for making her do it.”
Jayce nodded and sobered. "She is sure loyal to that man." He muttered. Ryder waited a moment before he asked. "She making it hard on you?"
"She is acting like nothing happened. So I know she is hurting. She always makes an effort to act like nothing is wrong when something is. Always has." He said as he slowly spun the cup in his hands. Ryder nodded and took a drink and eyed the other bottle. "She'll eventually tell Dato about it. When he finally asks her."
Jayce pushed his chair back and stood. The room felt smaller now that the words were out, but also… clearer. "When he isn't worried about his own problems. He will remember to ask her about hers." He crossed to the inner door that led to the little guard room, hand finding the latch by habit more than sight.
“One more thing,” he said, without turning.
Ryder’s brows lifted. “You have magical powers that I don't know about and are ready to confess them to me?” he murmured.
Jayce paused then continued “That letter you told me to write,” Jayce said. “To her.”
Ryder’s gaze sharpened. “I remember.”
“I burned it,” Jayce said. “In Rush’s hearth. Thought it was better that way.” He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Rush asked me why I didn’t give it to her. I never told him it was for her.” Ryder exhaled through his nose, not surprised. “He didn’t need you to,” he said. “If he wanted to flay you with it, he’d have done it that night. The fact you’re still breathing means he filed it under ‘things that matter to my sister’ and left it there.” He stared at the wine. "Or, he knew you would never act on it. So he never had to act on it either."
“That is a horrifyingly specific filing system, and that is probably the truth of it.” Jayce muttered.
“And yet,” Ryder said, mouth crooked, “you are already planning on heading back there with all you know.”
Jayce huffed a reluctant laugh. “Apparently I like living dangerously.” Ryder leaned forward, forearms on his knees. The lamplight caught the tired lines at the corners of his eyes, the ones that never quite left anymore. “Go rest,” he said. “Then start thinking about how we ride into that town without getting my brother killed or married before we’re through the gate.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Jayce said dryly. “I can't promise anything before we get there.”
He turned the latch. “Jayce,” Ryder said. Jayce glanced back over his shoulder.
“If you had given Kairi that letter,” Ryder said, voice gone softer, “I don’t know what would’ve happened. But I do know this: she trusts you now. Rush trusts you. That might matter more than anything you could’ve written.”
Something eased, just a fraction, behind Jayce’s ribs. He gave a small, crooked nod. “Like family, like a brother” he said. Ryder’s smile finally reached his eyes. “You’re already family.” Jayce rolled his eyes, but there was no heat in it. “Get some sleep yourself,” he said. “If I wake up to find you still pacing holes in the carpet, I’m tying you to your bed."
“Kinky" Ryder said, but he was smiling.
Jayce slipped through the inner door into the narrow guard room. It smelled faintly of leather, steel, and old smoke, his kind of chapel. A small bed, a peg for his coat, a stool with a half-melted candle. He set his sword within easy reach, toed off his boots with a sigh that came from somewhere down near his bones, and let himself fall back onto the mattress.
On the other side of the wall, he could hear Ryder moving, chair legs scraping, the soft rustle of paper as he folded Rush’s letter again. Then quiet.
Jayce stared up at the low ceiling, listening to the muffled heartbeat of the palace around them: distant bells, a guard’s laugh in the corridor, the whisper of wind against stone. He blew out a breath and shut his eyes.