The Raven and the Dove (The Raven and the Dove #1) - Kaitlyn Davis Page 0,19

had a few white plumes. It would be impossible to find the owner of the ivory feather crushed within his fist.

Impossible.

“Lysander?” a suave voice called.

He didn’t move. “I’ve told you not to call me that a thousand times, Mother.”

“Why?” Queen Mariam asked, wings carrying her swiftly across the room to land by his side, her ruby gown vivid against the snowy landscape before them. “It’s your name. Lysander Taetanus, Crown Prince of the House of Whispers. And you’ll be hearing it quite a lot over the course of the next few days.”

Xander sighed. His wings drooped so low that his primaries dragged along the floor, but they sank further still when he turned to look into her brilliant violet eyes. “I’m not giving up on him.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

His laugh was a sad, dark sound. “Please, Mother. You think I didn’t see the way your face lit with the briefest spark when I told you of the dragon’s attack, when you saw the blood for yourself? You wanted Rafe gone the moment he was born, whether he was my brother, my best friend, or not. You’ve only ever seen him as a bastard.”

“That’s what he is,” she said simply, but Xander heard the undercurrent of hatred in her tone—the undercurrent that was always present when she spoke about his brother. He understood why she spoke of his father in that tone, but not of Rafe, who had been nothing but an innocent child at the time and a loyal companion to her lonely son ever since.

“Well, if you’re not here to tell me I’m on a fool’s errand, what are you here for?”

“I’m here to tell you to believe in yourself.”

Xander switched his attention to the world outside the room, which suddenly had become suffocating. “To believe in myself? That’s what I’m doing.”

“No,” she countered, her voice never rising, though it felt as if she were shouting all the same. “You are depending on him, relying on him, and you don’t need to.”

“We've already discussed this,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“No, you spoke to the advisors behind your queen’s back and turned them all against her to get your way. The two of us have never spoken about this.”

Xander rolled his shoulders, unable to deny that he’d gone around his mother in this one thing. She was queen, yes, but the courtship trials were about him, and for once he wanted to have the final say. The only say. “You’re right, Mother. And I’m sorry for that. But I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“Why don’t we sit?” she asked, motioning toward the chairs on the other side of the room, away from the window, away from the view, away from thoughts of Rafe. “And discuss it as two sovereigns should.”

Again, he didn’t move. “You’ll never understand, Mother, no matter how many times I try to explain. Rafe and I? We’re two sides of the same coin. Where I’m patient, he’s rash. When I plan, he acts. If I smile, he frowns. At home, I possess every trait of a king. Here, on the other side of the coin, in this foreign land, Rafe has everything I need for success. We balance each other. I can’t do this without him.”

“That’s not true,” she insisted, and lifted her wing, brushing her obsidian feathers against his, trying to soothe him. But he stepped out of reach.

In truth, his mother had given him every opportunity and every choice in life. She’d had special weapons made—shields that attached to his forearm, swords that strapped to his wrist, hooks, wooden hands, and metal fingers. Anything and everything that could be conceived, she’d ordered to be fashioned.

He’d hated them all.

The uncomfortable way they dug into his skin, the blisters that formed along his forearm, the way the sight of them made him feel somehow diminished, especially when his studies required no special tools or craftsmen. The books accepted him into their folds, their pages, and he in turn loved them. Mental exercise had always been his favorite thing. And even if he’d had ten fingers instead of five, Xander didn’t think he would have been any different. If anything, his disability just made it easier to follow his passions by providing an excuse people were too afraid to challenge.

Rafe was the fighter, gifted with a raven cry.

Xander was the prince, the peacemaker, the scholar.

Unfortunately, the trials were a battle, and they required a warrior.

“Not all of the trials are about physical strength,” his mother pressed, reading his