Inevitably, the walls would start to feel more suffocating than protective, the silence more oppressive than peaceful. I shot tomy feet, accidentally dislodging Batty from her slumber on my shoulder. She squeaked a rebuke as I reached up to steady her, while Lumen let out a snort that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Draven was still busy in the war room, and I didn’t want to bother him, but I couldn’t stay in these rooms another minute.
“Lumen, are there back hallways to Nevara’s suites? Ones where we wouldn’t be seen.”
He narrowed his eyes in suspicion, and I sighed, crossing to the dresser and buckling my dagger around my thigh while I talked in a tone I hoped was convincing.
“Look, I’m being extra careful, and my mana never surges quite this close together. But if it does, I’ll call Draven to hide me.”
Lumen tilted his head as though he was considering. Finally, he let out a huff of air, turning toward the door.
Slipping my shoes on before he could change his mind, I followed the massive wolf out the door, past the surprised guards, and down a back set of stairs.
Other than the two guards outside mine and Draven’s sitting rooms, Lumen had chosen our path well. We didn’t run into a single other person until we reached Nevara’s door.
Glimmering runes had been carved into the pale stone around the frame, their lines sharp as fractures in ice. I recognized the outer ones from the wards that protected the palace, but the central mark, the one shaped like a crescent moon carved through two parallel lines, was different.
Specific to this room and the Visionary that slept behind its doors.
The rune hummed faintly beneath my mana, as if aware of my presence.
Draven had called it the Aurelcár Rune.To Know and To Deny.
With a distaste that suggested he wanted no part in preserving their traditions, he’d explained how the old kings used it to keep their Visionaries locked away in this tower.
But considering the vulnerable state she was in, he had reconfigured it, repurposed the lock that once imprisoned Visionaries to protect the one currently lying unconscious on the other side of the door.
As such, Draven had only woven a few of us into the rune’s recognition.
Himself, of course. Amias and Wynnie, Mirelda, myself… and then, reluctantly, Soren. Anyone else who tried to cross the threshold would find themselves plucked off the doorstep and deposited directly into the dungeons, making the need for guards unnecessary.
I lifted my hand and pressed my palm to the crescent groove. Frost bloomed outward in a delicate pattern before recoiling, recognizing me. The rune warmed beneath my skin, and I traced the two inner arcs in the sequence Draven had taught me.
A soft click sounded as the frost along the door’s edge dissolved, retreating like ink sinking back into parchment.
Soren wasn’t in his usual chair. A note on the bedside table in his sharp, slanted hand informed the room at large that he had been dragged away by Amias for food, a bath, and “what one might romantically refer to as sleep.”
Judging from the dried tea stains and new pile of books stacked beside the chair, he had been awake far longer than was healthy.
The room was dim, lit mostly by the soft glow of lanterns that pulsed like slow, steady heartbeats. Nevara lay motionless beneath pristine sheets, her silver hair streaked through with that awful venom-black, but arranged in her usual artful braids.
Mirelda dressed her with care every day, insisting she would never be seen in any state close to dishevelment, unconscious or not.
Her delicate hands rested atop the blanket, still and cold as carved marble with the same obsidian streaks staining her fingernails. They were carefully manicured, her skin shining with a faint sheen of oil. Her dress was deep purple today, the lines perfectly pressed like she was going to court instead of wasting away in this bed.
My stomach twisted sharply. Somehow it was worse seeing her like this without Soren hovering or Draven pacing a trench in the floor with his worry. Without their presence to fill the silence, it was just me. Just her. And the awful stillness.
I approached on quiet footfalls, as though any noise might tip her deeper into whatever abyss she was suspended in. But nothing changed when I reached her bedside. Nothing changed when I sank into Soren’s usual chair, or when Batty crawled down my sleeve and tilted her head toward the Visionary with an earnest chirp.
Nothing changed at all.
Batty tried to nose her way beneath Nevara’s palms, then made soft, mournful trills when the female didn’t respond.
I swallowed against the sudden well of helplessness rising in my chest. My mouth opened and closed, words failing to escape my parted lips.
Why was the idea of talking to her so difficult now? Was it because I wasn’t sure if she could hear me? Or was it that I didn’t know what to say, or that I wasn’t sure she would want to hear me say anything at all?
Silence stretched between us, growing heavier with each unspoken word. And it was ridiculous. Hadn’t I spent a lifetime talking to myself? Was this really all that different?
