“If it comes to it,” Kael said lowly, “I’ll burn Nerium and the rest of Calanthe to ash.”
Thauren nodded once, stormlight dancing in his sea-glass eyes. “Good. I’ll raise the sea to drown what’s left.”
Chapter forty-one
Mark of the Goddess
-Maris-
The light filtered softly into the study chamber, dust drifted through the thick beams from the arched windows. A map of the known world sprawled across the table before them, the inked lines curling like ancient vines —cities circled, mountain ranges labeled in delicate script, old roads bleeding into unexplored margins, islands and continents were depicted off the coasts and across the sea.
The sigil on Maris’s palm glowed faintly, a soft white burn beneath her skin. She kept her fingers half-curled to conceal the strange power it exuded.
But the voice still echoed in her mind:
The Crown will steady the storm within you. It will keep you from burning in your own light.
She shivered at the thought.
Zairon leaned over the table, his brow furrowed in concentration. His braids had been pulled back into a knot, and the worry in his golden eyes reminded her strangely of Kael in one of his rare, unguarded moments. Except this concern wasn’t shadowed by jealousy or rage. It was soft and honest.
“We believe the Veil was not only a boundary, but a tether,” he said, tapping the brittle parchment. “This relic she spoke of, this Crown of Bones, if it’s connected to your powerand the Veil’s original rift. It will be more powerful than any God anchor a kingdom has held before.”
“Anchors?” Maris asked, adjusting the thin, sea-colored wrap Serenya had dressed her in. Her skin still tingled with strange new awareness. She felt… too full, like the magic inside her was beginning to outgrow her body.
Zairon nodded. “Like moorings for a ship in a storm. Without them,”
“It drifts. Cracking apart slowly,” Alarik finished, his voice low from where he stood near the window. He hadn’t looked at her since he entered —she was thankful because the idea of sharing his gaze after her outrageous dream overwhelmed her. She couldn't when the heat of her imagined touches and god-sent revelations had melted into one confusing, shame-colored blur. But she could feel him, he wore tension like a second skin, and his magic hummed when hers flared.
Serenya, seated beside her, gently rolled out another scroll, this one older— so aged the edges crumbled slightly beneath her touch. “If the crown can stabilize your power,” she said softly, “we must find it quickly. Especially now.”
Maris blinked at her. “Why?”
The warrior’s blue eyes, deep as the sea, layered with darker hues flicked toward the far window. “The Veil terrors are growing bolder. We've had three attacks in the last five days. They aren’t random anymore. They’re targeted.”
Maris’s stomach turned. She didn’t ask what they were seeking. She already knew.
Her.
The air prickled around her and the sigil on her palm pulsed hot and insistent. She gradually released her fist, easing her fingers back and raised it parallel to the tables top to examine it. In that moment, a wisp of white glowing magic spooled from her hand and pointed across the map like a compass needle. The beam hovered about an area of jagged cliffs off the coast of the southern wilds. A region long abandoned — known throughoutscattered myths as The Hollows, a shoreline rumored to be where the gods first blessed their world.
Alarik stepped forward, voice careful. “Did you do that?”
Maris shook her head slowly. "In my dream, I was told it would lead us to the crown. This must be what it meant.”
Zairon’s eyes snapped toward the door as a soft knock echoed through the chamber. A soldier entered, cloaked in travel-dirt and Calanthe armor, bowing low before Alarik.
“Forgive the intrusion, Your Majesty,” the scout said, voice hoarse from travel. “News from the eastern river border.”
Alarik’s expression didn’t shift, but his posture sharpened.
“Well?” he asked.
The scout nodded. “The King of Nythra is calling his banners. Ships have been spotted in the western harbors, flying the silver crescent moon of Nythra and the Leviathian of Virellia.”
“Fuck,” Zairon muttered darkly.
“They’re uniting?” Serenya asked, her brow furrowing.
