Two days of this.
Two days into the Withered lands of the border.
Maris gripped the reins tighter, forcing herself to focus. To be what they all expected her to be.
Not a girl swept up by love and fate.
Not a puppet of gods.
But the Veil Breaker.
The wind shifted, and a low groan echoed through the trees like the land itself was warning her away, she couldn’t help but wonder,
What if she wasn’t enough?
What if even this sword wouldn’t be?
What if Eiren had already won?
The fire crackled low that evening, its embers pulsing like the last breath of a dying star. The wilds stretched out before them — vast, windswept, and unkind. The air carried no whisper of singing insects. Just silence and ash-scented wind.
They made camp along a ridge, their tents surrounded by spell-etched wards, layers of old fae and newer nightbound magic braided together in uneasy unity. And still, it didn’t feel safe. Not with the Veil bleeding just beyond the horizon at their backs. Not with the unknown laying before them.
Maris sat with her knees drawn to her chest, cloak wrapped tight around her shoulders, watching sparks drift upward into the night. Her eyes were heavy. Her bones, heavier. But sleep would not come easy.
Not when she knew Eiren waited behind her dreams like a thief in the dark.
Across the fire, Kael and Alarik murmured with the others, final checks of the wards. The three of them had barely spoken more than a few words since dusk, tension coiled between them like a taut bowstring.
It had been Kael who approached her first after dinner, quiet and grim. He’d knelt at her side, hands resting lightly on her thigh, silver eyes unreadable in the firelight.
“We’ve decided,” he said softly, “that we will take turns sleeping at your side tonight. And every night until we are back within Nerium.”
She stared at him, heartbeat fluttering. “Why?”
Alarik stepped in then, his voice lower. “Because if she comes to you in your dreams, Maris . . . if she tries to pull you into her realm again, we need to be able to pull you back.”
“And that means staying close,” Kael added. “Touch keeps your magic grounded.”
Maris looked between them, Kael’s drawn jaw, Alarik’s furrowed brow. Neither looked pleased. Neither looked like this was a suggestion.
The fire popped. Sparks jumped like startled birds.
Maris exhaled, slow. Heavy.
“Fine,” she said, voice thin. “But no arguing over turns. I don’t care who it is.”
They both nodded.
The first was Kael.
She didn’t turn to face him as she laid down on the bedroll. Didn’t speak when his body sank beside hers, careful not to crowd. But she felt the warmth of him behind her, distant and aching, like a ghost of a bond that used to be, of the early morning hours they had just shared, tangled within each other.
At some point, in the darkness, a whisper of wind brushed her cheek. Her magic twitched, veering toward the tether that wasn’t a dream but a thread.
A tether to the dark.
A cold presence pressed at the edge of her mind.
