Maris would study until her head pounded, tracing maps of kingdoms long lost, reading stories of monstrous gods who split rivers with their rage or scorched whole cities to punish the nightbound. She learned of storms that stripped entire harvests bare, of nightmares that clawed into children’s minds until they never woke again, of entire fae forests burned by divine wrath. And through it all, Aldwyn watched her, a hawk measuring prey.
“Commit these to memory,” he ordered, tapping a heavy finger against one battered book. “Lore is the only armor the gods have not yet stolen from us.”
Evenings stretched long and silent, and gods she was ashamed of how she missed the sharp spark of a voice that could match hers in wit. She turned, searching the shadows like they might whisper his name. Kael. Why did it feel like the air shifted with his continued absence?
Whenever she asked where he had gone, Valea’s expression would ice over.
“Our king is occupied with matters that do not concern you.”
No explanation, no hint of when he might come back. And so Maris spent her evenings reading by the hearth, the flames cracking and whispering, a constant companion through the hollow silence of the enormous room.
Sometimes, she found herself longing for the King’s gaze, as brutal as it was protective. At least then she felt seen.
By the seventh day, the quiet felt like a punishment.
The only warmth was the glow of the fire on her pale skin, books stacked like sentries around her, their ink as dark as the nightbound kingdom itself. Even the silence began to feel like a living thing, breathing against her throat, reminding her of everything she had lost.
As she turned another brittle page that evening, slumped on a velvet cushion by the hearth, her tired eyes caught a scrawl of ink that should not have been there.
It was squeezed in the margin of one of Aldwyn’s assigned tomes, so cramped and thin it nearly vanished among the printed text.
“The fifth god is not dead, only dreaming.”
Maris froze, heart thrumming.
No chapter she’d read — not a single lesson under Aldwyn’s harsh gaze had ever mentioned this. The lore insisted the fifth god had fallen silent, lost to the ages, her name struck from even the oldest records.
But this? Someone’s careful hidden hand had written a warning. She ran her fingertip over the words, half expecting them to burn her.
Dreaming?
She swallowed, glancing toward the locked chamber doors as if Aldwyn himself might storm in to catch her discovering what he had meant to bury.
Goosebumps prickled along her spine, uninvited and immediate.
What did it mean, that a god still dreamed? That something so powerful, so ancient, might yet awaken?
She closed the book carefully, but the letters seemed to echo inside her mind, as if they were only meant for her eyes, they rung against her skull until she could barely think of anything else.
The fifth god is not dead, only dreaming.
Chapter seven
Echoes of Ash
-Kael-
The noble’s fingers trailed down her spine when Kael saw red.
He’d felt it across the ballroom, through the press of courtly masks and candlelight. That unworthy touch. That presumptive, daring hand on his.
A claim. A challenge. And then he wasn’t thinking. He was moving, rage singing in his blood like it had been waiting for an excuse. Only Riven’s firm grip on his arm stopped the first explosion.
“There’s a breach,” Riven had murmured, low and grim. “We’ve received word there’s a spy in the castle. Corin’s confirmed it. We need you. Now.”
And for one breath Kael hesitated. That hesitation had cost him.
By the time he returned to the ballroom, Maris was dancing under the chandeliers. Lit like a sacrificial flame in her moonlit gown, her cheeks flushed from wine and stolen joy and the noble’s hands were still on her waist.
