Her mouth parted with a soft inhale. “You knew?”
“I suspected…” Caelum said hesitantly. “I overheard the queen speaking. She said … you were dangerous.”
The word fell like a verdict.
“My mother said that?”
“Delphi.”
Alora exhaled faintly. “Of course she did.”
She sat on the bed, folding her knees against her chest.
“What else did she say?”
Caelum’s blue eyes held hers a moment. “That one day a great darkness would come for you.”
A darkness did come.
“Do you remember,” Alora murmured, “the summer my father sent us to visit the United Crown? It was beautiful. White walls on the edge of the sea. Golden spires on the coast, endless forest and snow in the north. There was no true night there. The sun never set.”
“The Kingdom of the Dawn,” Caelum said, though it sounded like a faraway memory even to him.
She still remembered that endless light, lingering on the horizon like a promise that never faded. A land of long summers, warm hearts, and steady peace.
The opposite of everything that had claimed her.
“We pledged to return,” Alora said, her smile trembling. “Can we go back?”
Caelum shook his head. “Perhaps one day. But… have you ever wondered why you were sent to live in the Midlands?”
Alora looked away. Her mother had died after that summer. “I was banished.”
His blue eyes didn’t waver. “You were hidden.”
She sat up straight. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know,” Caelum admitted, glancing warily at the door, as if he could feel the mountain listening. “Only that you are special and it puts you in danger.” His gaze dropped to her markings. “That kind of power draws eyes from every corner of the world… and from places beyond it.”
A shiver slid down her spine.
“The Midlands is the one place that could shield you,” Caelum continued, “and keep your magic dormant.”
Yes. She had suspected as much.
“I always thought it strange Calveron sailed across the seas to conquer Argyle,” Caelum said, brow furrowing. “But this conquest isn’t led by the Summer Queen. Eldrik came for power. And when you resisted, he took your father’s head.”
Alora flinched.
After everything, she’d nearly forgotten.
Eldrik’s laughter. The throne room. The wet sound of steel. The sickening thud.
Alora rubbed at her face, trying to tear free of the memory, but she could still smell the blood.
“What happened after I vanished at the altar?” Alora asked quietly. “Is Theia all right?”
“She’s safe,” Caelum said, but the pause that followed made her stomach tighten. “The night of your wedding, Eldrik sent his men to ransack the city searching for you. Many were lost in the bedlam.”
