Lyria’s fingers trembled as she clutched the edge of the couch, her breathing uneven. She stared at her son as though seeing him for the first time.
“No…” she whispered. “That plan—if it fails—”
“It won’t,” Kaden interrupted calmly. His voice was steady, frighteningly so. “Father is desperate. BloodFall is pressing from one side, and Philipa’s disappearance is strangling him from the other. He won’t think clearly.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“It means,” Kaden cut in, straightening, “that we give him exactly what he expects to see. Not the truth. A version of it.”
Lyria swallowed hard. “You’re asking me to betray my own daughter.”
Kaden’s jaw tightened for a brief second. “Philipa betrayed us first by running away.”
The words tasted bitter, but he forced them out anyway.
“She chose hersel
