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9. Florian

Chapter 9

Florian

I’d always known that none of my cousins liked me.

They didn’t like each other either. They allied together sometimes when the other could help them or had something they wanted, but it never lasted long. They always ended up stabbing each other in the back eventually.

To have the lot of them show up to try to...what, attack Cove Moonstriker? When he’d come to our lands for justice? He was trying to get Father to pay for murdering a man, and they cared more about the goddamned house.

Of course they did.

Cove had stumbled and nearly fallen into his chair at the breakfast table after that, but there hadn’t even been any servants in the room at the time. Only we had witnessed it, me and Fawn and Frost. Only we knew that his show of power in the foyer had cost Cove more than he’d let on to my cousins.

Fawn didn’t really know what she knew, and even if she did, my cousins would never listen to a word she said.

Frost had met my eye, unflinching, and I...had nodded. Acknowledging. I had information I could use to hurt his family.

Information no Dawnchaser would ever hear from my lips.

In less than a month, I liked Frost Moonstriker more than every one of my cousins combined, multiplied by...well, anything, because zero times anything was always zero. In a single day, Cove Moonstriker had shown more kindness to my sister—and to me—than any member of my own family other than Aunt Ivy.

Maybe I wasn’t thrilled with how things were. I wasn’t happy that my future was out of my hands. But my future had always been out of my hands, and I trusted it with Cove Moonstriker more than I’d ever trusted it with any member of my family. It was an odd feeling.

I saw Fawn back to her room after breakfast and asked her to stay there. Then, since it was the nurse’s day off, I asked one of the maids to stay with her, make sure she stayed there, and call me if something changed or anyone came to bother them. Most of my cousins had slunk away with their tails between their legs, but I didn’t doubt some were still lurking. Waiting for their chance to do something vile.

“I always knew you were too weak to bond Soz,” a voice said behind me as I got back downstairs, proving me right. Adger, of course.

I turned and raised a brow at him. “Why, have you bonded them? Oh no, silly question. Of course you haven’t. You’d have done something instead of nearly pissing yourself when the Moonstriker tapped you on the forehead if you’d bonded Soz.”

“I couldn’t move,” he said stubbornly, glaring. He crossed his arms over his chest. What was he, a toddler about to throw a tantrum? “Fucking ice bitch froze me in place.”

I almost snorted at that. Ice bitch. It was rather like the epithets he’d used to refer to any woman who’d rejected him over the years, so it made sense to me. It was the first time in his life that a male authority figure hadn’t been impressed by Adger’s blustering, and his immediate response was that the problem had to be Cove, not him. “He’s a family head. He could have killed every single one of you. You should be grateful he didn’t.”

“He would have if he could have. He was just trying to scare us.”

I had started to turn away, to head out toward the garden, but at the words, I spun back to face him. He’d been joined by another cousin, Courtney. Great. Even if it was doubtless temporary, the alliance of my two biggest childhood bullies didn’t give me nightmares at all.

“It seemed like he succeeded to me,” I said, scowling at them both. “And that’s good, because he’s fucking dangerous. By far the most dangerous man in this house right now. You’re welcome to piss him off some more if you want, but you’ll forgive me if I think it’s a terrible fucking idea. If you’re smart, you’ll both go home right now.”

“If Moonstriker is going to kill your father, someone will have to bond Soz,” Courtney reasoned.

That was always the problem with Courtney. He was smaller than the others, and pretty, but not one of the beauties of the generation. No, he was smallish and bookish and just the tiniest bit smarter than most of them.

He knew a little, and for some reason, it made him think he knew everything.

I shrugged, pretending I didn’t care. “Maybe the Moonstriker will succeed where Father failed, and bond all the family stones himself.”

Adger’s upper lip curled in a snarl, and he stepped forward as though he would hit me. Oddly, Courtney held him back. “You think what you want. What matters is that when Soz does need to bond someone, a real Dawnchaser will be here to do it. You certainly couldn’t do it. You can barely handle your little dancing rock.”

Navia giggled in my mind, never one to take offense even when she was being directly insulted. Your cousins sure are ridiculous, Lucky. Imagine thinking Soz would willingly talk to either of them .

No one would talk to them unless forced , I thought back.

But I wasn’t as optimistic as Navia. I’d learned a lot from her, and most of the time I didn’t let my family get me down anymore, but...fuck I hated these two especially.

Still, there was no point in talking to them. No purpose to arguing that they were wrong, and that I was as worthy and capable of hearing Soz’s song as they were. That my father certainly had no intention of leaving Soz to either of them.

Sure, I doubted he intended to leave Soz to me either, but sometimes, I wondered if Father planned to die at all. He was just the kind of arrogant that would struggle with the concept of his own mortality. There I was, twenty-two and well aware I could get hit by a bus crossing the street tomorrow, and Father was forty-seven and...he still acted like Adger and Courtney. Like he thought he was perfect and immortal and even death wouldn’t dare come for him.

Hells, I’d arranged a will for myself, so that Fawn would be taken care of and get mother’s land if I died. I didn’t think Father had one even now. Legal documents were usually found invalid if written under duress. Would any will Father made now, while Cove Moonstriker was hunting him down to end him, be invalid too?

Oh who was I kidding? He wasn’t going to do it now. He was going to be shocked the moment he died, convinced right up till then that it couldn’t possibly ever happen.

Instead of arguing with the two of them, I turned around in the direction of the garden, where I’d been planning to go to begin with.

Adger grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t you fucking turn your back on me you little pissant. When I’m head of this family, I’ll kick you out. Maybe you and your stupid sister can go lick the Moonstriker’s boots some more. If I don’t kill him first.”

I ducked out of his hold, stepping forward and then turning to stare at him, incredulous. I wasn’t going to bother addressing his insult of Fawn. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, and it wouldn’t be the last. Reacting to that only told him that his insult had hit the mark. “Are you kidding right now? He’s here to kill Father because of Oberon Gloombringer’s murder. You think trying to murder the Moonstriker is going to make this better? If you even try it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the other family heads declare the lot of us too dangerous and just have us fucking wiped out.”

He scoffed, waving me off. “Moonstriker was wrong. Barry isn’t the coward in this house. You are. A fucking waste of space not even worthy of the family name.”

The family name.

I shook my head, turned, and walked away from them.

Worthy of the family name. A name that meant petty backstabbing, constant infighting, and now, murder. The day I wanted to live up to that was the day I deserved what I got.

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