His silence made it clear the subject was closed for questions.
“You said earlier,” I began, then stopped, choosing my words carefully. “You said Rydian will not return to this place.”
“Did I?” His voice was mild, but his jaw tightened.
“You said it like you knew something.” My fingers curled around the edge of the table. “Is he never coming back to Frithhold then?”
The question felt like yanking a splinter out of my own chest. I hated that he heard the thread of rawness in it.
Thorne studied me for a long moment. In that look, I caught something I hadn’t expected—understanding. Maybe even a flicker of sympathy. It made me want to lash out.
Instead, he glanced down at the book again.
“Rydian has his own path to walk,” he said finally. “Destiny tugs at him, same as it does the rest of us, even if his power runs darker than most. I can’t tell you where he is right now.”
“Can’t?” I pressed. “Or won’t?”
“Both,” he said simply.
I scowled.
The fire cracked, a coal collapsing in on itself.
I stared at the rune on the book, at the mark on my wrist, at the faint outline of my neck tattoo reflected in the polished metal of a nearby sword.
Life. Favor. Debt. Gods-touched power that felt more like a curse.
“You’re reassuring, you know that?” I said.
He huffed out a quiet laugh. “It’s a gift.”
“Another one you didn’t ask for?” I asked.
“That one I might have,” he said, and there it was again—that almost-smile, gone as quickly as it came.
He rose. The faint hum in the air diminished as he straightened, as if he were taking it with him. Maybe he was. If the ley lines were something he took into himself, maybe that was why it felt like he always sucked the air from the room.
“You should sleep,” he said. “Training starts early.”
“You’re very confident I agreed to that,” I muttered.
“You said you’d stay,” he reminded me. “And you don’t strike me as someone who likes wasting time. Or potential.”
He had me there, damn him.
He took a few steps toward the archway, then paused. “If you’re set on that book,” he said without looking back, “start with the illustrations. The text will give you a headache.”
“And if the book bites?” I asked.
“Then you’ll have learned something from it,” he said. “Which is more than most can say.”
He left me with that and the lingering hum of his power, the room feeling both emptier and more crowded in his absence.
I looked down at the book, at the rune for life glinting faintly in the firelight. At the mark on my wrist, warm and waiting.
Slowly, I opened the cover.
The first page was an illustration, inked in elegant detail. Seven thrones, each carved from different elements—stone, ice, oak, ivy, and something that looked like solid flame—spread out in a circular design. Lines threaded between them, a web of power, the same inky threads I’d seen under Thorne’s skin when he’d drawn power from the ley lines.
