A tingle raked over the small silver crescent at her pulse, and memory uncoiled—wet stone and a terrace of stars, jasmine in the air, a pendant beating violet, and eyes like ice-cut green answering a thought she hadn’t spoken. Echobinder. Stalking. Waiting.
She wondered if she should tell Jake right then, the confession pressing against her tongue until she bit it back.
“I understand better than most,” she said, her frown softening as she chose to ease rather than burden.
He raised a brow. Clearly waiting for her to elaborate.
“What happens today,” she said, “happens with you at my side and we face it together.”
His hand stroked her temple, a gesture of comfort and protection. “I’ll follow your lead in your hall,” he said, quiet and sure. “But if something reaches for you, I’ll end it. Quickly.”
“I’d expect nothing less, Commander,” she replied with a smirk.
He smiled back, breath drawing for a response—then a brisk knock came at the door.
“Your Highness?” Marisol’s voice carried through the wood. “Crown fittings in a few minutes. Breakfast first. Then the council meeting at second bell.”
Ella closed her eyes and opened them again, the world waiting while the crown called. “Come in,” she called as she eased out of bed and reached for her robe. Then, lower to Jakobav, she murmured, “Try not to look like death incarnate in my sitting room.”
He lay back on her pillow like a storm pretending to be a man. “I can’t help how I look,” he said, smiling with his eyes.
The day began with Marisol sweeping in, carrying a tray piled high with sugared fruit, dark bread, and a small pot of tea.Nira followed, hair pinned and dress immaculate, and—because he had never learned the meaning of a dignified entrance—Demetrius breezed in on a current of his own making.
“Good morning to royalty and whatever he is,” Demetrius announced, tossing Jakobav a salute before striding straight to him and catching his hand in a firm shake. “Demetrius. Floral arsonist. Terrible influence. For the record, never had a crush on Ellandria, don’t plan to mate her, and have no delusions about destiny. Clear?”
Jakobav’s mouth actually twitched. “Clear.”
“Excellent,” Demetrius said, satisfied. “I like your terrifying face. Very inspiring.”
“Demetrius,” Marisol warned, half-laughing as she set the tray on Ella’s desk. “Manners.”
“I have so many,” he said solemnly. “I just rarely bring them all at once.”
Warmth loosened something tight in Ella’s chest and held for exactly three heartbeats before the glass vase by the window cracked with a sound like ice under a boot and burst into a scatter of bright shards across the floor, the orchids on the sill slumping over.
Demetrius’s hands went up at once. “Not me.”
Ella’s gaze cut to Marisol. “Was that you?”
“Absolutely not,” Marisol said, eyes wide.
The candles on the mantel answered as if to argue, thin flames leaping into spears and climbing to lick the carved edge. Heat rushed across the room, the nearest curtain blackening at the hem. Before Ella could move, Nira stepped forward, her palm lifting as the fire collapsed into smoke with a soft, shocked sound, the air going gray as she waved her fingers and coaxed the smoke to twist and coil and sift into a neat spill of ash on the hearth.
“Bad candle,” she told it, dusting her hands. “We do not eat drapery.”
Demetrius let out a low whistle. “Show-off.”
Nira arched her brow without missing a beat. “Says the one who lights roses on fire for applause.”
“Art,” he corrected, and to prove his point he flicked two fingers toward the wilted orchids. Flame shimmered delicately along their petals until the flowers rose on their stems and rebloomed in leafed tongues of fire that did not consume but only burned beautiful, living cinders that glowed against the dim chamber.
Ella stared despite herself, her throat tight as the room seemed to thin around her, stretched taut like a drumskin drawn too far. “Marisol?”
Marisol lifted her hand over the mantel, and the nearest flame leapt half a length taller. “I might be able to amplify a small flame,” she said carefully, her eyes fixed on the blaze-touched orchids. “But I didn’t touch those.”
A cold thought sliced through her. What if the Fae man had somehow sensed Jake on her again, and these were the first signs of his retaliation? What if she’d brought devastation home to her people without meaning to?
Fuck. This can’t be happening.
