I thought about that. About being valued only for what you could provide, not who you were. About being trapped in expectations that felt like shackles.
“Who knows?” I asked. “In Varyth’s court, I mean.”
“Fenric. Eilrys. Brynelle.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “That’s it.”
I nodded slowly. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know.” He said it with the kind of certainty that made my chest ache. Not hope. He was too smart for hope. But close to it. Recognition, maybe. As though he’d looked at me and seen someone who understood what it meant to carry secrets that could destroy you if they fell into the wrong hands.
Because I understood secrecy the way I understood breathing, it was knowledge that lived in your bones. Some things you held tight because letting them loose meant giving people weapons to use against you.
And Cindrissian had already been hurt enough by people he’d tried to trust.
“At least you picked a name that suits you,” I said, surprising myself with something almost like teasing. “Very intimidating. Very ‘lurk in dark and make cryptic pronouncements.’”
His laugh startled me, genuine this time, without the usual edge of performance. “I actually didn’t choose it. I had friends, where I lived after my father sent me away. When I told them about who I was, they immediately set about finding a name for me that suited my, as they described it, ‘shadowy personality.’”
The fondness in his words was unmistakable.
“They came across Cindrissian in some old text, something about darkness and secrets and transformation. The moment they said it, I knew.” He shook his head, smiling at the memory. “It felt right in a way nothing else ever had. I knew I was hearing my own name for the first time.”
I tried to imagine him, young, newly arrived at a strange court, finally being seen. Having friends who cared enough to search through texts looking for the perfect name.
“They sound like good friends.”
“They were.” Past tense. The smile faded.
“Where are they now?”
“Gone.”
The weight in that single syllable told me everything I needed to know about loss and time and the price of immortality.
“You were at Nyxaria,” I said, pivoting, because the grief in his eyes was too raw, too familiar. “Before here. Is that the place? Where your friends were?”
He nodded. “Yes. That was before Ashterion rose to power, though. It was different then.” His expression turned distant, like he was seeing something I couldn’t. “Especially before he married.”
“He’smarried?”
“Four centuries now.” Cindrissian’s mouth twisted with disgust. “She’s a vile creature.”
Four hundred years. Four centuries of whatever the fuck they were doing in Nyxaria.
“Do you know why?” The question lashed from me. “Why Ashterion would be sending people after me specifically?”
Cindrissian studied me for a long moment, weighing something.
“The magic that echoed when you crossed the Veil,” he said carefully. “That kind of resonance doesn’t just alert people nearby. With power like that—shadow fire—it would have rung like a bell across realms. And for someone like Ashterion?” His expression hardened. “That signal would have resonated more powerfully with him than anyone else. Because shadow fire was his court’s magic, once upon a time.”
Everything in me went very, very quiet.
“What is shadow fire?” My voice barely rose above a whisper. “Everyone keeps saying it like I should know what it means, but no one’s actually told me.”
Cindrissian’s eyes locked onto mine, and I saw something like pity there. Or maybe fear.
“Shadow fire was the weapon of Nyxaria’s fiercest warriors,” he said slowly. “Ancient magic. Brutal. Devastating. They used it to conquer territories, to break armies, to remake the world according to their vision.” He paused, jaw working. “But they grew too powerful. Too difficult to control. They started turning on each other, on their own court, on anyone who tried to rein them in.”
“What happened to them?”
