Thorne straightened. “Not yet. They’ve sent for Kranon.”
“Good.” She moved past him, already raising her hand. “Then tell no one what you are about to see, especially not your father. He doesn’t know about all my gifts.”
A hush rippled through the healers. Elyria placed her palm over Darian’s chest. Light spilled from her fingertips, a pale violet glow that pulsed in rhythm with his faltering heartbeat.
Darian’s body eased. His breathing steadied, his color returning faintly beneath her touch.
When she looked up, her gaze caught his, knowing, weary, endless. “Stay by him. This is all we can do for him today,” she said softly. “Prepare your squad, Thorne. This was no random strike. Darkness has already crossed the Veil.” Her hand lifted, brushing once against his arm with a mother’s touch.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
The healing chamber smelled of blood and storm. Moonlight bled through stained glass, cutting pale ribbons across the floor. The air itself trembled, humming with suppressed energy, like a thunderhead seconds before it split. Queen Elyria stood beside the warded bed, her silver robes shadowed by exhaustion, her face a mask carved from calm and fear.
Kranon’s voice rasped low beside her. “The corruption grows roots. Another day and the boy’s flame will go out.”
Elyria didn’t answer. Her eyes followed the twitch in Darian’s fingers, faint, involuntary, the only sign he was still fighting.
Then the doors opened. Thaelyn stepped inside, shoulders squared, though her pulse was a drumbeat in her throat. She’d expected soldiers, or reprimand, not this room filled with silence and ruin. Her gaze landed on Darian first, his skin grey, breath shallow, then on the other cot. Thorne.
His shadows clung to him like smoke that refused to die, curling and writhing whenever she moved closer.
“Thaelyn,” said the Queen. Her voice was soft, but it carried command. “Come.”
Thaelyn approached slowly, the echo of her boots too loud in the stillness. “What happened?”
“Dark magic,” Kranon said without preamble. “Necromantic residue bound into the flame within him. Ordinary healing can’t touch it.”
Her stomach turned. “And Thorne?”
Elyria’s eyes flicked to the second cot. “The darkness grazed him. If we delay, it will take root as well.”
Thaelyn’s breath hitched. “Then tell me what to do.”
“You must help by reaching for the Aether,” the Queen said. “Aether can heal, even bring people from the brink of death. We’ve tried everything, but our magic is not working.”
Thaelyn froze. “I can’t. I barely controlled it during the trials. I don’t know how to.”
“Youlearn,” Kranon snapped. “Or he dies.”
His words hit like a slap. The Queen’s gaze softened, but she didn’t intervene.
Thaelyn swallowed hard. “Then show me.”
They guided her to the circles etched into the floor, three intertwined rings faintly glowing with power. Darian lay in the center of a bed. The walls whispered with the pressure of contained magic.
“Do not command it,” said Elyria. “Let it find its path through you, reach for the thread first.”
Thaelyn knelt, pressing her palms to the cold marble. The runes beneath her skin warmed like a pulse. Her heart hammered. She couldfeelthe Aether waiting. It was vast, ancient, and alive.
“Find him,” Elyria murmured. “Reach for the part that still burns.”
Thaelyn closed her eyes.
At first, there was nothing. Then, a flicker. A dying ember in a sea of ash. She pushed toward it, teeth gritted, the way she had reached for Nyxariel that first night.
The ember flared, then screamed.
