Malrik POV

Zebulon exhaled a long, weighted breath, the kind a man releases only after carrying a truth too heavy for too long.

“Everything unraveled after Fiji,” he began. “Tavrix vanished. My cousin might’ve been private, withdrawn even but he wasn’t violent. He left home to escape the Moonchild extremists. He wanted peace, not blood.”

His eyes lifted to mine, shadowed and hollow.

“Orielle might’ve had it in her,” he said quietly, “but not Tavrix. The destruction in ...