It all made sense now. His sudden disappearance the day she’d left her journal out and rushed to training. His brutal appearance when he burst into their chambers hours later. His loaded questions. The way he’d touched her like she might vanish.
He knew who the male had been.
And instead of telling her…
He proposed. A council tactic after all.
Maris ran both hands through her tangled hair, dragging her nails across her scalp in frustration. The ache was better than the burn in her chest. The betrayal. The hollow, cold realization that she’d been left in the dark. Like she didn’t deserve the truth. Like she was some pawn they could maneuver to suit their own will.
Maybe you are,whispered a bitter part of her.
She shook her head — no — she knew better.
Not after everything. Not after what the goddess had shown her. Not with the way power now rippled through her fingertips like lightning trapped in skin.
Maris moved to the wide, arched window that overlooked jagged sea cliffs. A salt-heavy wind whipped her hair around her face. Her body ached.
Not just from anger, stolen sleep, or the magic trying to reforge her bones.
She missed Kael. Despite herself.
That cold, possessive, infuriating man who’d made her feel safe and seen for the first time in her life and then hid the truth of her dreams like a dagger under her pillow.
She hated him.
She missed him and through the bond she could feel him.
A dull warmth. A low hum like a heartbeat far beneath the earth. Quiet. Not panicked. Not torn apart with rage.
He was still sleeping.
He didn’t know she was gone. Not yet.
Her stomach twisted.
Would he even care?
Of course he will,something in her whispered.
That part of her bonded soul that had started to learn the shape of his, remembered how he trembled when he kissed her. The part that still tasted his name like honey and ash —licking up his thoughts as they came undone.
But none of it mattered now because she wasn’t beside him.
She was here.
The realm of King Alarik of Calanthe.
Real. Alive. And far more dangerous than she’d ever imagined.
There was a quiet knock at the chamber door polite but firm.
Maris didn’t answer. But unlike in Calyrix the door did not open anyway.
She let out a huff, annoyed that this wretched place respected boundaries, ironic.
But she stood and made her way to door, as she turned the knob and pull the door back it revealed Serenya standing just outside the frame. She smiled at Maris, her blonde braidglinting like woven sunlight against the soft blue of her tunic. Her eyes, so vividly blue they bordered on unnatural, took in her appearance with a warriors precision.
“You’re up,” Serenya said gently, hands clasped behind her back. “That’s… a good start.”
