He didn’t expect the city to becarved into stone.
Bellwind a myth rising along the cliffs, a mid-sized city nestled against jagged rock, water thundering from the heights of a great crescent-shaped fall. The mist was constant, curling along the cobbled streets. Buildings were cut directly into the cliffside, smooth and ancient, their windows flickered with warm light. Rope bridges stretched from platform to platform. Above them all, the falls sang drowning out most noise.
Kael limped along a slate path, hood drawn, blood dried stiff in the fabric at his side. His arm pulsed, veins blackened from where the spawn had clawed him. He should have died in the forest. Would have, if not for the fae trader who found him slumped against a broken tree, sword still clutched in hand.
The male hadn’t asked questions.
He passed market stalls now, tucked under awnings of stretched hide and hanging herbs, manned by merchants whose gazes lingered too long. There was a kind of silent knowing in this place. It wasn’t untouched by war, just cleverly removed from it, hidden behind waterfalls and vertical climbs that only the truly desperate could scale.
He was desperate.
He passed a shrine carved into a cave mouth, dedicated to Thaleia, Goddess of River and Seas. He found it ironic as she was the damned god who turned waters into plague.
Kael knew hiding his identity was wise. He didn’t wear a crown here. No one bowed. They gave him space not because of his title, but because of wild glean in his eyes.
Rellis, the merchant, had dropped him off at a cliffside apothecary and said, “Rest. Move with grace, not haste.”
Kael did neither.
Instead, he wandered.
The city had its own pulse, its own truths etched into basalt and brine. He found lodging in a guesthouse halfway down the falls, nothing more than a carved-out cavern lined with thick pelts and a single window that overlooked the waterfall’s edge.
He sat there as night fell.
Watching the dark water churn endlessly.
Listening for any whisper of her voice through the bond. The silence was beginning to sound like a farwell.
Chapter fifty-three
Pull Between
-Maris-
His hand, warm and steady rested at her jaw, as if he belonged there. As if her skin had been made for his calloused palm. As if they hadn’t just crossed every boundary she had fought to uphold.
Her pulse thundered.
The ship was too quiet. The air too thick. He was too close, eyes flicking from her mouth to her eyes and back again, reading a map he already knew by heart.
She should’ve pulled away. She wanted to say said something clever, something cutting, something that reminded him and herself that this was a mistake.
But her hands were still on his chest.
And the dream hadn’t faded from her thoughts as she had hopefully. Not really.
Not when he looked at her like this.
“Alarik,” she breathed, but it didn’t come out sharp. It came out as a question. A prayer. A warning too late.
“Tell me to stop,” he said again, voice hoarse.
She couldn’t.
Because she didn’t want to.
She hated herself for it but she didn’t.
