It would mean failing them. Again.
But staying meant trusting people who spoke in riddles and kept secrets that could get us all killed. It meant believing that their version of protection didn’t come with strings attached.
It meant letting someone else hold the blade.
I looked at the map clutched in my hand, then reluctantly set it back on the desk. “I’ll think about it.”
Brynelle’s smile was small but genuine. “That’s all anyone can ask.”
She moved to leave, then paused at the doorway, glancing back over her shoulder with an expression that was pure mischief. “Oh, by the way, Varyth will be out of the castle for the next three days. Trade negotiations in the Eastern Courts. But when he returns, he wants to assess your combat skills properly. So... be ready.”
Of course he fucking does. “Naturally,” I said, voice dripping sarcasm. “Because what’s a day in paradise without someone wanting to test how efficiently I can kill things?”
Brynelle’s grin widened. “I think you two are going to get along just fine.”
She slipped out into the corridor, leaving me alone with moonlight and the taste of bitter truth.
But the silence Brynelle left behind wasn’t really silence at all.
It was full of song.
The moment her footsteps faded down the corridor, it crept back in, that cursed melody that had been threading through my skull since I’d first set foot in this realm. Beautiful and maddening, like wind chimes made of starlight and broken promises.
It hummed through the stones beneath my feet, whispered along the edges of the moonlight streaming through Varyth’s windows. A lullaby sung by something ancient and patient, something that had been waiting far longer than I’d been alive.
I pressed my palms against my temples, trying to muffle it. But the song wasn’t coming through my ears—it was resonating in my bones, in the marrow, in the spaces between heartbeats where silence should have lived.
“Shut up,” I whispered under my breath, pressing my back against the cold stone wall as I navigated another turn. “Just... fucking shut up for five minutes.”
The melody only grew stronger. Insistent. Like it was trying to tell me something I was too stupid or too stubborn to understand.
My bare feet made no sound on the marble floors, but the song filled the silence anyway, threading through the shadows, curling around the moonlight spilling through tall windows. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly. That was the problem. It was gorgeous in the way that dangerous things often were. Seductive. Compelling.
The kind of beautiful that made you forget to be afraid until the knife was already between your ribs.
“Not tonight,” I snarled at the empty air, quickening my pace. “I don’t have time for your mystical bullshit.”
But the castle didn’t care about my schedule. If anything, the song grew more complex—harmonies layering over the main melody like voices in a choir I couldn’t see. Each note seemed to resonate in my bones, in whatever magic lay coiled beneath my skin like a sleeping serpent.
I turned another corner, then another, the familiar path to my chambers burned into muscle memory from weeks of careful navigation. The song was changing, shifting from ethereal beauty to something else. Something that made the hair on my arms stand up and the fire in my veins stir restlessly.
Warning.
The castle wasn’t just singing, it was trying to tell me something. And whatever it was, I probably wasn’t going to like it.
8
The tunic and pants left for me were simple but practical—fitted, lightweight, flexible. There was no loose fabric that could be used as leverage in a fight, no ornamental details to hinder movement. Whoever had selected them knew what they were doing.
As I stepped onto the training field, I immediately caught sight ofVaryth and Darian sparring with swords, a blur of precision and steel. Their movements wereswift, fluid, deadly, each clash ringing through the open air.
Darian, apparently fully recovered, fought withflashing speed and playful ferocity, his strikes rapid yet infused with an effortless grace. Shirtless, his tawny skin gleamed with sweat, muscles flexing beneath intricate tattoos—vines that curled and twisted across his torso and down both arms, as if the forest itself had claimed him.
Varyth, in contrast, was pure control.He had stripped down to his white tunic, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, the fabric clinging to his muscled frame, damp with sweat.His sword swung withmeasured accuracy, every attackcalculated, efficient, unforgiving.There was no wasted motion, no unnecessary flourishes, justlethal skill honed to perfection.
I slowed my steps, taking in the way they fought, the way they read each other’s movements.
A final blow sent Darian staggering back a step, though he laughed. “You know, you could at leastpretendto struggle.”
