When she tried to open a rift back into her cell, she felt it—a brief pull, the seams of the world loosening beneath her touch. It wasn’t much. Just a spark, a hairline tear between realms before it snapped shut.
But it had worked.
For the first time, she had touched the Void and bent it, if only for a heartbeat. Afterward, the Hunter slipped her back into her cell, vanishing through a fissure in the stone as swiftly as he’d arrived.
She had surprised him. Apparently, opening a rift with only hours of practice wasn’t something most could manage.
Now, as the moment replayed in her mind, she couldn’t stop the surge of pride warming her chest.
She couldn’t try again here—not with guards loitering outside, not with iron bars hemming her in. Still, as she sat across from Reynnar, trying to eat dinner, her mind stayed locked on rifting. The precision of it. The strain. The way it demanded exactness.
The bread crumbled under her touch. She grimaced at her plate. After a week at the Hunter’s, the meal was nearly inedible, every bite tasting of damp stone.
Reynnar fared little better, despite forcing the food down. They’d spent the day combing through what they knew of the Aelfhenge, the dagger, the night he was taken—the one near his village, dormant for centuries until it called them from their homes.
His voice had dropped as he explained, as though he still couldn’t quite believe it himself—how they were pulled from their homes before they could even grasp what was happening, time stuttering, then snapping forward. And then he was gone. Taken.
Elara turned the description over in her mind. It was uncomfortably familiar. Too close to the trance the Druids used on Summons Day—your body obedient, your thoughts dulled, awareness reduced to a hazy echo. It had taken her years to learn how to push back, to anchor her mind and resist, even a little.
The Hunter had said she could still reach for the Draoth Cara from a distance. Not impossible—just difficult. He’d been right. After nearly an hour of meditation, she’d managed to sense it: a faint thread grazing the edge of her awareness. She could tug, coax the connection into place, but it was fragile—barely there. In an emergency, she doubted it would hold.
It frustrated her, but she kept practicing. Slow or not, faint as smoke, the effort itself mattered. Focusing on that fragile thread—however briefly she could hold it—gave her something solid to cling to. A task. A rhythm. Proof that she wasn’t entirely helpless.
“You’re thinking too hard, Eilíara. I can practically see the smoke coming out of your ears.”
Elara’s gaze snapped up from where she had been staring at the floor, her eyes narrowing, but her lips betrayed her withthe slightest twitch. Now that she could understand him more clearly, she’d come to realize just how much of a smartass he could be. It was something she’d suspected for a while, but actually hearing it in the words, in his tone...
“You’re one to talk. I’ve seen you?—”
Before the noise registered, she saw it—the way his body tensed, muscles coiling, alert. That split-second of warning was all she had before Malak appeared at her cell, leaning casually against the frame with that twisted, cruel smile that made her skin crawl.
Her pulse quickened as he pushed through the wards, the creak of her cell door echoing through the corridor.
“Let’s go.”
Elara felt Reynnar rise behind her, felt his presence at her back like a wall of tension. She swallowed hard but didn’t move.
Malak’s laugh was a low, dark rumble that sent a chill down her spine.
"Some highborn pricks paid for a night with you. Guess you’re worth something after all."
Chapter 51
Malak led her back to the same room—the one where she’d been taken before, when Tristan had won her for the night. A part of her, larger than she cared to admit, had hoped he’d be there again, that lazy smile making everything feel a little less dire.
But instead, Lady Calista Thorne sat by the fire, regal in a high-backed armchair. The flames cast a warm glow over her red hair, molten copper in the firelight, while her emerald gaze cut to Malak with such cool, haughty indifference that Elara flinched on instinct.
“Leave us, guard,” Calista ordered, her tone crisp, like she was flicking dirt off her shoe.
Elara caught the way Malak tensed—his shoulders locking, his jaw grinding as if he were biting back a snarl. It was becoming clear he didn’t take well to being dismissed by women—even highborn ones, it seemed.
“Aye, my lady,” he muttered through clenched teeth. Then, with a curt nod, he turned and stalked out, the door slamming behind him.
The room fell into an uncomfortable silence, the crackling of the fire the only sound that remained.
“Sit.”
The command came crisp, and Elara hesitated only a moment before stepping forward. She could feel every inch of herself—her dirty clothes, her hair an untamed mess—starkly out of place next to Lady Calista’s polished perfection. It was hard not to feel small under that kind of scrutiny, but she forced herself to keep her chin up as she sank into the armchair.
