“Yes.” She couldn’t look away. “I thought it was a fever. He looked exactly like this, only alive, speaking as if he knew me.”
Jakobav’s voice cooled, each word precise. “That painting predates the Veil. His name is not known. He’s Fae.”
“Fae portraits are banned. Why is this painting here at all?”
“Because we don’t erase what shaped us,” he said.
Ella watched his hand close behind his back, fingers curling into a fist so tight his knuckles cracked. He did not look at the painting again. He only looked at her. But she glanced back at the picture, unable to stop looking at the raven-haired man.
“You sure you spoke withhim?” His words fell like iron, quiet but scathing. “Tell meexactlywhat was said.”
She barely heard him and didn’t answer, entranced by the painting. Up close, the details multiplied. A high-collared coat tailored with ruthless precision. Midnight trousers pressed into perfect lines. A belt with a silver buckle. Rings on each finger like quiet commands. Nothing about him was accidental. Not like Jakobav, whose power was all fury and scars and strength carved into living muscle.
This man didn’t need to prove anything; he pulled at her like a different realm’s gravity, unfamiliar and impossible to ignore.
Gods, he frightened her.
He felt like a secret her soul already knew.
“I argued with him,” she said, voice thin with disbelief. “He told me I was never meant to kneel. He said I move between veins.”
A low snarl broke from Jakobav behind her, snapping through the air and sending her pulse stumbling.
She tore her gaze from the portrait, but the image stayed lodged behind her ribs like a blade she couldn’t pull free. Heat stirred where her sigil lay hidden beneath her skin. She didn’t dare look down to see if the ink had surfaced. The pendant, the words, the certainty in his voice when the Fae man had spoken to her—all of it gathered into a single echo that would not quiet.
Not all roots are buried.
Even now, his words thrummed through her, quiet and relentless, as if something ancient had opened its eyes and was watching her remember.
Jakobav was still looking at her, unyielding. Yet she still sensed the Fae man’s gaze following her from the wall, eternal and knowing. Ella felt the weight of both, certain that whichever one she turned from, the other would still be watching.
28
THE BLADE AND THE BOND
JAKOBAV
The moment Ella looked at the painting, something inside him cracked.
She’d gone utterly still, which was unusual for someone so hell-bent on pulling trouble from thin air and dragging it straight to her feet. It was that rare kind of immobility he’d only seen in her a handful of times: once when she was half-dead in his bed, once when she’d accused him of betrayal, and once when the seer had spoken a truth she believed belonged to her alone.
But this was worse.
It wasn’t fear that froze her, nor fury, nor even shock. It was awe. Reverence. Something dangerously close to longing.
And he wanted to fucking shatter it.
She looked at that portrait like she was remembering a kiss. Not just anyone’s. His.
The Fae staring down from the canvas was polished and infuriatingly well dressed, every line of him was meticulous. His godsdamned clothes were tailored, pressed smooth as if no wrinkle could touch them. Smug bastard. He probably had some servant—or some trick of magic—to keep them flawless.
Jakobav wore nothing like that. He carried blood on his boots, dirt under his nails, and scars scored into skin that he’d never given time to heal soft. He didn’t own a single garment that fit like that. Not one piece of silk that gleamed like armor. Or any fucking silk at all.
That pendant, glinting at the man’s throat, was likely what had made her sigil respond.
He knew that kind of pendant.
Old magic clung to them. Fae magic. And nothing good ever came from it waking.
