But it’s Rian, the serious one, that laughs, the sound rumbling through the room like a waterfall. I feel the weight of a gaze and turn.
Thane is watching me, smiling—not the sharp smile he shows his men, but something softer. I can’t help but smile back, small but real, the warmth in his expression tugging me out of my grief for a breath.
“It’s okay, Amara. Our mother was sure she was having twins,” Jarek explains, tone steady, hazel eyes lit with humor. “She had our names already chosen. When Garrick showed upalone, she was determined to try again until I arrived.”
Garrick snorts. “Unfortunately for our father, our mother always got her way.”
Rian laughs at that, along with the rest of the men.
As the laughter fades and the table settles into that easy rhythm of full bellies and shared memory, I find my gaze drifting across the table to Valen. He’s quiet, as always. But there’s something in the way he watches the others—soft, knowing. Like he’s seeing more than what’s in front of him.
“How did you end up in the Fire Clan?” I ask. “Working with Thane, I mean.”
The table quiets, all eyes falling on the mage.
Valen meets my eyes. His expression is as calm as always—warm, composed—but something flickers behind it. Older. Wiser.
“I sought him out,” he says simply.
That surprises me. I glance at Thane, but he says nothing. Just watches Valen with a quiet deference I hadn’t expected.
“I spent most of my life in the Air Clan,” Valen continues, “studying elemental balance, ancient texts, and . . . prophecies. Some are long lost, others preserved only in fragments—riddles written in fading tongues, half-truths woven into verse.”
He doesn’t look at Thane, but I can feel the weight of the moment shift toward him.
“But one prophecy stayed with me,” Valen says. “It spoke of a figure who would rise in a time of unrest. Someone who didn’t fit the mold of any one path. Someone who would carry a burden no one fully understood.”
He pauses.
“It wasn’t clear—not like the Spiritborn—but the signs were there. Enough to follow.”
My breath hitches at the word, Spiritborn.
“But you found Thane,” I say quietly.
“I looked for a young man trying to learn every path without losing himself to any of them,” Valen says, finally glancing at Thane. “And I knew—whether the prophecy meant him or not—he would shape what came next.”
Thane doesn’t speak, but his jaw tightens faintly. He looks away, just for a second.
I look at him—really look. Not at the warlord. Not at the trainer. But someone who’s been walking a path he may not have chosen, like me.
We don’t always get to choose what calls us,he’d said.Only whether we answer.
I turn to him, voice quieter now. “You’re in the prophecies?”
Thane’s eyes meet mine, steady and unreadable. He doesn’t answer right away. Across the table, the others have gone still—watching, listening.
“It appears I might be,” he says at last.
Then he lifts his ale, takes a slow sip—his eyes never leaving mine over the rim.
A quiet admission wrapped in layers of things he’s not ready to say. And somehow, it says everything.
My eyes flick between Valen and Thane.
“You didn’t tell me.”
Valen sets his cup down gently. “You needed time,” he says, his voice calmly. “You’d already been told so much—and gone through even more. We wanted to give you space. A chance to process, to breathe.” He pauses, the flicker of something softer in his eyes. “Tochoosefreely.”
