Before she could summon a response, he was already disappearing into the Void as though he had never been there at all.
“There was a boy looking for you,”Reynnar said, his voice tight as he wiped the blood pooling above her eye with a damp cloth.
“A boy?”
Elara frowned, glancing up at him.
Malak dragged her back to her cell with his usual rough efficiency, barking for her to move without so much as a glance in her direction. He seemed irritated—like her growing silence,her refusal to fight, had stolen the pleasure he once took in watching her struggle.
So when she didn’t resist this morning—didn’t give him even a single protest—he made up for it. He shoved her down the winding steps into the Pit.
Her head struck stone. Her knees cracked hard against the uneven ground, pain flaring sharp and bright.
When she looked up at him, she smiled.
A bloody, wicked grin.
Because she knew the day would come when she would kill his master.
And if Malak stood in her way, she would kill him too.
Soon, his entire world would crumble, and she would be the one to watch it burn.
When they reached her cell, Reynnar was already on his feet. As if he’d been waiting—attuned to her footsteps, listening for the moment she’d emerge from the tunnel. His gaze swept over her, cataloging every bruise and scrape before Malak had even turned away.
“I’m okay,” she’d murmured—though the lie had sounded thin, even to her own ears.
She remembered the tension coiled in Reynnar’s frame, the anger simmering just beneath the surface. Without a word, he’d motioned her closer, his hand slipping through the bars. He tore a narrow strip from the hem of her tunic—cleaner than anything else he had—and dipped it into the murky water pooled in the corner.
Then, with a gentleness she hadn’t expected, he wiped the blood from her face. That was when he mentioned, almost casually, that she’d had a visitor.
Reynnar nodded, his expression unreadable. “Soft face, looked like he was drowning in his armor.”
Her stomach turned. Dario.
“What did he want?”
Reynnar shrugged. “Didn’t say much. Barely looked at me. But he came back four times, asking after you. Kept pacing, wouldn’t sit still. Then someone told him you’d been bought for the night. He went so pale, I thought he might lose his guts all over his boots.”
A pang lanced through her chest, and she glanced out of her cell, half expecting to see him standing there.
“Is he your lover?” Reynnar’s voice was measured, but there was a strange undertone to it.
Elara turned back quickly, caught off guard by the question. “Once,” she said, though the word felt strange on her tongue. It was the truth, but it wasn’t enough to explain everything.
Reynnar didn’t speak for a long moment, his gaze searching hers. Finally, he nodded. “Then he’ll be back.”
For three days,Elara straddled two worlds—her cell and Ivan’s manor—the passage of time blurring in the constant push and pull of their efforts.
Her days were spent with Reynnar—wrestling withTírrísh, weaving the thread of theDraoth Carafrom a distance. Each practice drew her closer to the language’s patterns, her tongue stumbling less over unfamiliar sounds.
The link with Ivan grew stronger each time she reached for it. The gap between effort and execution narrowed, bringing a fragile sense of control—and pulling her toward something she didn’t yet understand. Something that felt as automatic as reflex, and just as dangerous.
Her nights, though, were spent with Ivan and Tristan, pouring over dusty tomes, hunting for any mention of theWound of Light. Whatever the Hunter's reasoning, there hadn’t been another moment alone between them. Whether deliberate or not, Tristan acted as a buffer—a presence that Elara couldn’t decide if she was grateful for or frustrated by.
Her evenings blurred into a race against time, a frantic pursuit of forgotten knowledge and the perfection of the indicator and reactor spells. They were close—so close that, for the first time, a spark of confidence flared in her chest. It felt like she was standing on the edge of something monumental.
Maybe, just maybe, they could pull this off.
