The boy opened his eyes like someone who had already died once and found the experience educational.

Gold. Pure, unmarked, and exactly the shade Kael’s had been before the first betrayal taught them how to harden. He stood between the pup and the girl with their small hands still linked through his, the three children forming a closed circuit of living name. The sixth syllable burned under his skin in clean, sharp lines that had never passed through Zelda’s mouth or the older version’s scored blade. It was a syllable made of Kael’s choices, not hers.

Adult Kael made a sound that was not a word.

He took one step...