Kael didn’t look up. “No.”
Silence.
Corin cleared his throat. “You brought a mortal girl into this castle. You claimed her in front of your court. That alone could spark a rebellion among the bloodlines who already question your reign.”
“She is not just a girl,” Kael muttered, almost to himself. “And I did not claim her.”
“Then what would you call it?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
Because the truth was, he didn’t know.
On the sixth night, when the wind howled through Calyrix like a dirge, Kael stood alone in the tower chambers beneath the Temple of Whispers, where Nythra’s Seer resided in silence, her tongue sacrificed at birth for her Sight.
He almost opened the iron doors.
Almost asked what fate had entwined his darkness with her pale, trembling light. But he turned away.
He told himself that if the gods had a truth to deliver, they'd make her the message.
Every night, as Maris slept, he stepped through the shadows he had been born with. A nightbound gift twisted into something more intimate, more forbidden.
In darkness, he traveled as mist and shadow. Magic seeping through cracks in stone and firelight. He used it to cross her threshold unseen —and then he watched her in obsession.
She slept curled on her side, fists tangled in the sheets, always slightly furrowed even in dreams. As if some part of her never stopped fighting.
The wraith-twins kept her well. Valea had not been gentle in her training. But it was not the bruises Kael noticed. It was the quiet things.
How she whispered to herself while reading.
How her fingers hovered over the edge of a goblet before choosing not to drink.
How she stared at the moon some nights like it owed her answers.
He watched. And cursed himself for it.
She is just a mortal.
But her scent had changed.
Something beneath her skin was stirring.
She bled red, yes, but her eyes shimmered with threads of silver even under torchlight.
Maybe she had a touch of nightbound blood. Too distant to awaken magic. Too potent to ignore.
And still… the gods had whispered nothing.
On the seventh night, the stars burned cold.
And as he stood at the edge of her chamber, cloaked in shadows, she stirred in her sleep. Her lips parted.
And she whispered his name.
He vanished before the ache in his chest could become a wound.
Chapter nine
