“Then I give myself to the ritual,” he said, voice low but unflinching. “Every piece of me. If the realm wants me, it answers. If it doesn’t, it will take my life instead.”
Her throat caught. “Has anyone of royal blood ever died during their Claiming?”
His voice was quiet now. “Yes.”
Ella’s chest constricted. “Even heirs?”
His eyes did not leave hers. “None recently, but I’m sure at some point, yes.”
She swallowed, the sound loud in her throat. “I have to ask…before you heard the words of the seer, before you discovered the role I might play in the fate of our kingdoms…were you just going to vanish into the ceremony and leave me behind?”
His answer came without a blink, dark as the hearthstone. “It may not be for the reasons you think, but even before what I learned yesterday, I would not have let you slip away while I faced the gods. If you tried, I would have dragged you back myself.” He narrowed his eyes a bit, the words settling like iron. “So no. If the Claiming takes me, you will be there to witness. And stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” she asked while bracing for his answer, changing her face into a neutral expression.
“Like I need saving,” he said, voice clipped, almost cruel. “Like you’re planning to throw yourself between me and the High Vexari, just because you don’t like the odds.”
Heat flared behind her eyes. She crossed her arms, covering the ache with more spine than sense. “Maybe I just don’t like being kept in the dark.”
That landed like a strike. He stilled, his jaw working once before his gaze broke from hers and fell to the firelight, and when he finally spoke again, the fight had left his voice. “I know you want to protect your kingdom as much as I do mine, and I’msure you want to put a stop to Threadshifting. But trust is earned with time. It was never my intention to keep you in the dark.”
“Speaking of being kept in the dark, who is the High Vexari?”
His mouth pulled tight, a faint crack in his composure. “She’s the spiritual head of Dravaryn. The kingdom listens to her… sometimes a little too much.”
“That sounds inconvenient for you,” Ella said.
A humorless breath left him. “For my father it was a war. They hated each other openly. The High Cathedral and the Dravaryn Court barely spoke for years.” His gaze shifted to the firelight, jaw tightening. “So I took over the ties between the High Vexari and the castle. Someone had to keep the Crown and the Cathedral from tearing the kingdom apart.”
“So you trust her?” Ella asked.
“I trust her power. I respect her position.”
Ella’s fingers tightened around the arm of her chair. “And what about me? Isn’t she going to question why I’m walking in with your inner circle? If she realizes I’m an outsider, will that put everything at risk?”
He pinned her with a look of determination. “That’s enough questions. I don’t need saving, Ella. I need focus. Control. And the last few days haven’t exactly consisted of training or preparation for the ceremony.”
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t ask to go on your mission. I can’t control the Veil unraveling,” she said defensively.
He studied her, and his expression softened. “I’m not,” he said. “You’re the reason I haven’t drowned in it.”
“Then let me help,” she said at last, the words stripped of all her armor. “I went from your prisoner to your shadow to your guest, apparently. You’ve just started to let me in, probably more than most, if I had to guess. Don’t shut me out.”
Doubt shifted in his gaze, and maybe even acceptance, buried so it wouldn’t draw notice.
“You weren’t all that surprised by the seer’s words. I saw it on your face, Jakobav. You’ve felt the pull too,” she pressed. “Don’t deny it.”
His gaze slid toward the hearth, as if the answer were written in the slow collapse of the charred wood into coal and ash.
“I wouldn’t get too attached to that pull. The rite is meant to test what stands before it. Threadshifting fractures that ground. There’s no way to know what it will demand of me.”
It wasn’t everything, but it was enough to reveal he was already planning for a battle inside the Claiming arena that no seer could predict.
A strange sense of calm opened in her chest at the honesty of it.
She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, the air tightening with unspoken thoughts. “You haven’t let me out of your sight for more than a few hours, and yet I think you were planning on leaving me behind for the ritual. What if I had decided to run, and you never heard from me again?”
A muscle in his hand twitched.
