No one answered.
Because the answer was truth. She was gone in the way that mattered most. Unbound. Unreachable.
Kael caught himself on the edge of the table, panting. He had not known such helplessness since the night he killed Elenwe. When the gods had coiled their will through his bones and forced his hand into ruin.
He should have told Maris the truth sooner. Should have explained the man in her dreams. Should have said Alarik’s name. Should have guarded her with more than walls and generals and hollow plans.
But he had waited to control her. Force his own narrative, so she wouldn't run from him. He had played the long game with councils and strategy. He had begun to build an army the likes of no other to destroy Alarik and save her from his grasp. He had waited with restrainedcalucation.
And now he had lost his tether to her soul.
"This ends,” he breathed.
Kael stood slowly, every inch of him trembling—not with fear, but with terrible certainty. He turned to the window, to the lands that spread below Calyrix's high towers. The skies already dimming with storm and war.
He could not storm the gates of Nerium, yet. His forces were not aligned. The ships would take weeks to cross and return. A coordinated siege was out of reach.
But Kael could not wait.
He could not go with banners and blood. That would lose her forever.
He would go alone.
Not to fight.
But to see her. To touch her. To beg her, if he must.
For the first time in his long, cursed life, Kael felt the awful taste of desperation.
He had to find her.
He didn’t stop moving. Down the tower steps, boots thundering against stone. Rage consumed is shadows.
The twin generals caught him at the armory threshold, both armor-clad and breathless, having chased after him—the shift, the vacuum, the unnatural silence in their kings moments.
“Highness, what’s happened?” Corin said, his voice grim, expression unreadable.
“Maris,” Kael bit out. “I can’t sit on my hands any longer.”
Riven stepped forward, jaw tight, “We just need a little more time. You’re assembling the largest allied army in two centuries. You can take her back—”
“Two months,” Kael snapped. “Alarik was already in her dreams. Now he has her in the flesh.”
He stopped, voice breaking before he could tame it.
“And the bond…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
The room fell deathly quiet.
Riven looked down.
Corin said nothing.
“I don’t have a choice, I have to go to her.” Kael continued, gathering weapons, wrapping himself in smoke-threaded leathers rather than regal robes. “Not with banners. Not with blood. I go alone.”
“You can’t mean that,” Corin growled. “You know they've raised new wards against your shadows, you can't leap between the realms to his gates. If you go like this he could have you killed — ”
“No happy ending begins with you walking through the front door and playing nice.” Riven added.
