“I’m saying that if Merrick told you Varyth isn’t giving you the full picture?” Cindrissian’s expression fell into neutrality. “He’s probably right.”
“What does Varyth know that he’s not telling me?” My voice came out rough, scraped raw. “About my power. About why Ashterion wants me.”
Cindrissian was quiet for a long moment, weighing something. Then he sighed. “I have a theory.”
“Then share it.”
“I can’t prove it. Not without access to information I don’t have.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “I’d need to look at Braerlith bloodlines. The families who crossed the Veil. The lineages of those who survived the transition between realms.”
Ice slithered down my spine. “Why bloodlines?”
“Because magic like yours doesn’t just appear.” The certainty in his voice made my fire flicker beneath my skin. “It’s inherited. Passed down through generations. And you’re carrying Nyxarian fire, specifically the kind that was supposed to be extinct. That means somewhere in your ancestry, someone crossed the Veil carrying that magic with them.”
“I’m human.” The words were hollow. “Was human. My family?—”
“Your family likely crossed the Veil millennia ago.” Cindrissian’s explanation was gentle, which somehow made it worse. “Which means they came from here. From the fae realm.And they brought something with them that shouldn’t have survived the transition.”
The room was spinning. Or I was spinning. Or the entire fucking world was spinning and I was the only stable thing in it except I wasn’t stable, I was fracturing, splintering, coming apart at the seams.
“There’s a book,” Cindrissian continued. “Chronicles of the Veil-Crossed. It catalogues every known family that made the journey, traces their bloodlines, documents what magic they carried. It’s the only comprehensive record of its kind.” He paused. “And it’s vanished from the library.”
My heart stopped.
Like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed.
The book. The one Varyth had been reading in his chambers. The one with the family trees and bloodlines and information he’d clearly been trying to keep from me. The one I’d taken and hidden because I was petty and angry and?—
Fuck.
“What would bloodlines have to do with anything?” The question came out strangled, desperate, buying time while my mind raced through implications I didn’t want to face.
Cindrissian’s eyes narrowed. “I take it you know where that book might be.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Answer me first.” I forced steel into my words, even as panic clawed at my throat. “What do bloodlines have to do with my magic?”
Cindrissian tilted his head, considering me with that unnerving focus that made me feel like a specimen under glass. “He may suspect you have a gift.”
“The fire?” My hands flexed, black flames already stirring under my skin like they’d been waiting for acknowledgment. “I know it’s?—”
“No.” He cut me off with a shake of his head. “Not the fire. That’s just magic. Powerful, yes. Rare, absolutely. But not a gift.”
I stared at him. “Then what the fuck is a gift?”
“Something like mine.” His smile went predatory. “Or Fenric’s. Or several of the others at court.”
Before I could ask what he meant, Cindrissian dissolved.
Just fucking dissolved. Like smoke caught in wind, like shadow unravelling into nothing. One moment he was sitting in that burgundy chair, solid and real and smirking at me. The next he was gone.
His voice drifted from everywhere and nowhere, surrounding me like the castle’s song. “People like me are called Ilvane.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. I spun, searching for him, but there was nothing. Just empty space where he’d been sitting and a voice that seemed to come from the walls themselves.
“We can move through shadows. Become them. Slip between spaces that shouldn’t exist.” The voice moved, circling me like a predator. “Exceptionally useful for someone whose job involves extracting information from people who’d rather die than talk.”
Then he was there again. Materialising in the same chair like he’d never left, that infuriating smirk firmly back in place.
