“Apologizes your highness, I shouldn't have spoken so plainly. You are still unsure of what drew you to her?”
Kael said nothing.
Three days ago, he had cursed her existence, cursed the ache she stirred, the old hungers she woke like forgotten ghosts beneath his ribs.
And now?
Now she haunted him. He could still smell her on his cloak. Still hear the defiant way her voice had broken.
Kael gritted his teeth.
You should’ve called a seer the moment you saw her.
You should’ve demanded the truth.
You should’ve . . .
But he hadn’t.
Because some part of him didn’t want to know why. Didn’t want a prophecy whispering in his ear. Didn’t want fate to speak what he already feared.
She is more than she appeared and she was never meant to belong to him.
Corin interrupted his thoughts.
“She’s a weakness,” he warned. “Or she will become one.”
Kael looked out the tall windows of Calyrix, his castle and cage both. His eyes tracked the faint candlelight from her chamber windows.
To him she is a spark in a chamber of ash. And he was already burning.
Chapter eight
Watcher in the Dark
-Kael-
For days, Kael kept his distance. Not out of punishment. Not out of guilt. Out of necessity.
Because if he saw her again too soon, if he heard the sound of her voice, still hoarse from the way she’d cried his name in fear, he might undo what little control he had left.
And so he stayed away. Physically. But not entirely.
His court believed he’d buried himself in strategic planning to deter Calanthe and that was partly true.
The spy they’d dragged to the dungeons had not been alone.
A second had been caught slipping coded parchment through the kitchens, intercepted only because Corin had replaced the cellar staff with loyal ghosts from the Eastern ranges, warriors who owed Kael their lives from another war, another life.
Kael had the body burned before the dusk bell tolled. He let the ashes blow into the eastern wind. No one would bury spies in Nythra, they didn't deserve the space they took up.
His council had met every night since. Tension hung heavy between them like an executioners axe ready to strike a killing blow.
“Calanthe’s movements grow bolder,” Corin said, slamming down a parchment sealed in rose-gold wax. “Alarik has doubled his borders’ defenses and called a diplomatic envoy from his north western tribes. It’s not a skirmish he wants. It’s a war.”
Kael didn’t flinch. “Let him try.”
Riven shifted beside the hearth. “You should consult the Seer, try to understand your connection to Maris. The magic that brought you to her.”
