Kael turned, silver eyes burning. “Then at least I die before her.”
Behind them, the great doors opened again—Thauren stood in the threshold, arms crossed over his storm-scarred chest, brow furrowed.
“You’re abandoning the plans,” Thauren said evenly, but not without emotion. “We need you here. She needs you here.”
Kael stalked past him.
“No. She needs me there.”
Thauren’s voice deepened, thunder stirring behind his words. “You think this is how you win her back? By vanishing into shadow and leaving us to hold the line?”
Kael stopped at the corridor’s end. For a moment, he didn’t speak. And when he did, it was soft.
“I should’ve never let it go this long. I was a fool not to see it.”
And then—he vanished.
A sweep of smoke. A hiss of cold wind.
Gone.
The generals stared at the place where he had stood.
Thauren exhaled harshly. “We need to hurry the formation along, join him as quickly as we can with what forces we can muster.”
Chapter forty-nine
The Return
-Maris-
The morning was quiet. She stood at the edge of the ship’s gangplank, salt wind tugging at the edges of her cloak her boots planted against the deteriorating black stone dock. Behind her, the Hollow’s silver-veined temple glimmered faintly in the rising sun. No longer ancient and asleep, but reborn and watching.
The Argo waited before her, sails half-furled like a creature not quite awake.
She should’ve been proud. Victorious.
Instead, she felt… empty.
The sigil on her hand no longer pulsed. Her magic was calm. A river no longer rushing but simply existing. She should have found comfort in it. But sleep hadn’t come easy. Not with the silence in her chest. Not after the realization that the bond between her and Kael was simply… gone.
Maris’s fingers curled around the railing. She hadn’t told Alarik. Not Serenya. But she knew and that was enough she felt it in the stillness of her veins, where once his emotions had echoed distantly. She’d reached for him again last night in a moment of weakness, of ache. And felt only her own mind. Her own despair. Her own grief.
The words of the sickening creature echoed again, cold and prophetic.
Lose your bonded.
Behind her, the others bustled— crew loaded supplies, Serenya issued clipped commands, Alarik spoke quietly to Vireth and Kastor near the helm. But it all sounded distant, like she stood behind a pane of glass.
Her stomach twisted. A deep grief she didn’t know how to name.
He’d never seen her. Not for what she was. He had loved her as a woman. As a tether. As something warm to press against the chill of his throne. But had he ever bowed to her the way Alarik had in the Hollow? Had Kael ever truly believed in what she might become?
Maris swallowed hard, blinking against the wind.
You were always a conquest in his war.The thought was cruel. But cruel things had a way of ringing truest when whispered in the wake of loss.
“Are you ready?” Serenya’s voice pulled her from the storm of her thoughts. The warrior stood beside her, calm blue eyes scanning her face.
