She’ll breach the wards that none may cross,
And restore what kingdoms thought was lost.
The spot between her collarbone and chest where her sigil usually marked her felt strangely awake, burning as the words pulsed through her skull. Each word seemed elusive, impossible to hold, and yet the prophecy lived in her marrow all the same.
She stepped into the corridor, the door to Jakobav’s chamber clicking shut behind her. The stone beneath her bare feet was cold and uneven, the air damp with iron and wet rock, and her skin prickled with the uncanny sense that this castle remembered every secret ever whispered within its walls. She had once imagined the prophecy would point her toward a single object, something she could steal and be gone within days, but now she was beginning to suspect otherwise.
She steadied herself against the wall, fingers brushing a warped mirror that caught her reflection: hair tangled, shoulders drawn tight, blood still seeping faintly through her bandage. A woman frayed but not broken. So she straightened, smoothing her face into something capable.
“You keep doing that,” a voice said, smooth and low.
She spun.
Jakobav stood half in shadow, one boot crossed over the other, arms folded as though he had been waiting.
“Doing what?” she snapped.
“Shaking your head. Like you’re swatting at ghosts.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Or maybe you’re clearing your thoughts before someone reads them.” His head tilted.
She stiffened.
“You think I’d allow an Echobinder in these halls?”
The word cut, but not for the reason he accused.
Actually, she hadn’t worried about an Echobinder since the first night she broke in. She couldn’t believe she’d been so careless.
Had anyone been inside her thoughts?
Her chin lifted. “Is that how your father has kept control for so long? Spies crawling through minds, stealing secrets no one ever meant to give?”
The idle ease left his face. He stepped closer, shadows bending with him.
“There are no Echobinders in Dravaryn anymore,” he said. “Powers like that do not survive here. The soil rejects them. Many share your disdain.”
His eyes locked on hers, dark and unyielding. “Although I’m the last person who should ever complain about intrusion.”
Ella stilled as his words clung to her, heavier than he seemed to intend, and she wondered whether the soil itself remembered what it had rejected. Laws that once held the world steady were fraying now, powers buckling as the weave beneath them slipped loose.
In Orchid, whispers had curdled into reports. Powers flickered at the margins of spells, heat flared where it shouldn’t, and whole fields crisped to ash, while behind closed doors theroyal council finally dared name what all four kingdoms had begun to fear: Threadshifting, the slow unraveling of seams and the opening of breaches where none should exist, with rumors that sealed realms were stirring after five centuries of silence.
In other words, Threadshifting meant the Veil was beginning to crumble.
Her pulse quickened as she watched him, unsure whether he was testing her and weighing what she knew or speaking a truth he did not fully grasp.
There are no Echobinders in Dravaryn anymore.
Had they vanished before the realms sealed or because of it? And if Dravaryn denied Threadshifting, were they spared from it or merely hiding it?
She refused the spiral and rebuilt her calm, holding it like a shield. He was only a curious prince and not a predator laying a trap. She steadied her breath and stilled her hands even as she felt his gaze on her, piercing and far too observant.
She turned before he could read the flash in her eyes, unsettled by his quiet certainty that there were no Echobinders left. It hadn’t sounded performative or defensive but simply like the truth.
Honestly, that might’ve been worse.
