“As I said in the letter before, when the war is over… Maris comes to Virellia.”
”But due to your obvious… affections, betrothal and all. I won't force her to live in our kingdom. She will only need to be bound to an oath. Ever at the ready, should we need a powerful force to defend us from the horrors that slip through the veil.” He said with a smile.
”I thought this way everyone wins.”
The room exploded in outrage.
Valea stood draw her sword. The general inched closer from behind.
“She’ll be treated with honor,” Thauren replied, calmly. “She’ll be safer with me than with a man who can’t keep her in his bed —much less his court.”
Kael didn’t move. His face didn’t change but the air around him rippled with rage.
“You’ll have your deal,” he said coldly.
“And if I win it,” Thauren said, stepping back, “I’ll have my reward.”
The Sea King turned, cloak swirling like storm clouds as he walked out.
The chamber remained silent for a long, long time.
Then Kael spoke, voice a whip crack.
“Prepare the armies.”
Chapter thirty-seven
Threads Beneath
-Maris-
The chamber was carved from salt stone, walls glimmering with threads of sea crystal and ancient glyphs that pulsed faintly with stored magic. The scholars had gathered in a circle, robed in bone-white, their mouths murmuring incantations too old for common tongues. Candles flickered with a bowl of still water in the center of the room reflected nothing, not even the flicker of her own face.
Maris sat on a low, cushioned dais, her palms upturned, her breath steady despite the chill crawling down her spine. She felt like a sacrifice at the alter of Eiren.
She had agreed to this, not because she trusted Alarik but because she had to know. Something inside her was changing, burning brighter and deeper by the hour. The goddess’s kiss still bloomed against her skin like a celestial bruise.
The eldest of the scholars stepped forward, a woman with cataract-white eyes and skin darkened by time and salt. Her fingers were etched with ink, curling with runes that seemed to shift with her pulse.
Maris swallowed, her voice barely above a whisper. “What are you going to do?”
The woman’s lips curled faintly not unkind. But unreadable.
“You are the seam where gods stitched failure to hope. The child of paradox. Born from bloodlines that should never have crossed,” she added, glancing at the shimmer at Maris’stemple, “touched by the one who sleeps beneath the stars. We will try to probe your power to help you gain control child.”
Eiren.
The scholars continued their rites. One by one, they placed their hands above her skin, never quite touching, but drawing threads of light from her body like spider silk. Her magic responded without command, flickering in patterns they could barely interpret.
“It continues to dream,” one whispered. “Not fully awake but watching.”
Her magic was sentient. That truth struck her with a cold, wild certainty.
And still, something deeper stirred beneath it. A second pulse. One not wholly hers.
She inhaled sharply. Kael.
She could feel him faint and distant, the thrum of his anger and desperation tickling the edge of her thoughts. Like someone knocking from behind glass.
