Fenric made a sound, pain and fury wrapped together. His hands clenched into fists on his knees.
I stared at Cindrissian. Eight hundred and sixty-seven years. He’d been counting. Every single day.
“How did you survive it?” The words escaped before I could stop them.
For a moment, the Master of Interrogations fell away entirely. What looked back at me was raw and bleeding and so young it made my throat tight.
“You learn to become what they need you to be,” he said quietly. “You learn to bury everything that matters so deep they can’t find it. And you count the days until you’re strong enough to leave.”
“Or until someone comes for you,” Fenric added, the words jagged with old pain.
Something passed between the brothers, a look weighted with history I couldn’t begin to understand. Gratitude and guilt and love all tangled together into something too complex for words.
“You came for him,” I said, understanding flooding through me.
Fenric nodded, his steel-blue eyes distant with memory. “When Driss finally managed to get word to me—gods, it took him centuries to find a secure way to communicate. I was positioned high enough in Varyth’s inner circle to actually do something about it.” His voice went rough. “He’d found someone. Eilrys. And he knew if they stayed, Ashterion would eventually use her against him. Or worse.”
Cindrissian’s jaw tightened at the mention of her name, but he didn’t interrupt.
“The extraction took months of planning,” Fenric continued, his hands clenching and unclenching on his knees. “We couldn’t just walk in and demand their release. Ashterion would have killed them both out of spite. So we had to make it look like an escape, like Driss had overpowered his guards and fled with Eilrys in the chaos of a border skirmish we orchestrated.”
I tried to picture it, Cindrissian trapped for centuries in a court of evil, finding someone to love in that darkness, then planning an escape that could have gotten them both killed if discovered.
I looked up at them. Fenric with his forced composure, Cindrissian with his unreadable stillness, and I realised something I hadn’t before.
This court wasn’t built on strength alone. It was built on endurance. On the broken pieces of boys who had every reason to become monsters and chose, every day, not to.
Cindrissian’s jaw worked, Fenric’s hands trembled slightly as he reached for his glass, the crushing weight of their shared history pressing down on the room in a way that made breathing difficult.
I needed to shift this. Pull them back from whatever precipice they were teetering on.
“Are there other courts involved in this?” I asked, letting my voice carry just enough curiosity to sound natural. “In whatever game Ashterion’s playing with this meeting?”
Both brothers blinked, the question clearly catching them off guard. The dangerous tension in the room shifted, refocusing on something concrete and tactical rather than the bleeding wounds of memory.
Fenric cleared his throat, grateful for the redirect. “No. Luceren and Nyxaria’s history runs too deep. The others mighthave interest in the power you hold, but they aren’t foolish enough to insert themselves into conflict between Varyth and Ashterion.”
I frowned, trying to summon the list I’d been given during my early briefings in the court. “I’m trying to remember the names of the other courts, but…”
Cindrissian’s answer slid in, as precise as ever. “Aerith, Heliora, Orelith, Vintera, Sylvan, and Emberon.”
“And Pelagicias,” Fenric added quietly.
Something shifted in Cindrissian. A twitch. A flinch. He didn’t speak, didn’t meet anyone’s gaze, but his jaw flexed as he gave a single nod.
“Right.” I swallowed. “But for now, it’s just us and Nyxaria?”
Fenric let out a long breath, rolling his neck as he leaned back in his chair. “For now. But war has a way of bleeding across lines, no matter how careful the courts pretend to be.” He tapped a finger against the map. “That’s precisely why we need this meeting to go well.” His finger traced the borders between courts. “If other courts start to see weakness in Luceren they might decide to use our distraction with Nyxaria as an opportunity to strike.”
“Or,” Cindrissian added, carrying that razor-sharp precision that meant he’d already calculated the worst-case scenarios. “They might decide to ally with Ashterion. Nothing would please him more than having legitimate backing for whatever he’s actually planning.”
The thought sent ice down my spine. “So no pressure.”
“None at all,” Fenric said dryly, but his attempt at levity fell flat. The weight of what we were discussing, what I’d volunteered myself for, hung heavy in the air between us.
I set down my glass and leaned back in my chair, trying to process everything they’d told me. A meeting with a master manipulator who’d spent centuries perfecting psychologicalwarfare. Political implications that could destabilise multiple courts. And me, sitting in the middle of it all like some kind of unpredictable weapon no one fully understood how to use.
“We should probably stop here.” Fenric’s voice was hoarse, scraping against the air like gravel. He ran both hands through his hair—already destroyed from Lincatheron’s fingers earlier—and let out a breath that sounded like surrender. “We all need sleep.”
