I take another step toward her, slow and measured. “Harper, stop. Look at yourself. You’re shaking.”
She ignores me entirely. Instead, she runs a hand over her temple as if wiping away heat, then levels her eyes, those drifting violet embers, back on Theo.
“So,” she repeats, quieter now, voice thickening with that Firelda-root fog. “Where did he run off to?”
The dangerous softness of the question lingers in the air.
Theo’s fingers sift across the surface of the desk behind him as he steadies himself to answer. His pale eyes shift, searching the room’s vibrations, and he draws in a breath.
Myrindale,” he says quietly. “He went to see his sister.”
The reaction is immediate and sharp.
Harper freezes mid-step, the haze in her eyes clearing as if the very name punches through any trace of Firelda root clouding her mind. It’s as though someone has reached inside her chest and pulled taut every nerve. Her shoulders stiffen first, then her jaw. She doesn’t speak, but something shifts in her, something fierce and instinctive and frighteningly focused.
I feel the change in myself only a moment later. My stomach drops, tightening into a knot so familiar it almost makes me nauseous. Myrindale. Thevery sound of it stirs old memories, ones I have spent years burying under the noise of survival. The kind that do not fade even when you try to forget.
Our father’s scouts used to haunt the woods outside that village like hunting dogs. They dragged their shadows through the outskirts, searching for anyone tied to Vireldan, anyone whose bloodline offended the man we were forced to call father. His hatred seeped into the soil there. Into the trees. Into us.
So when Harper speaks again, there is no hesitation in her voice.
“We’re going.”
Her tone slices through the room, focused and clear. She moves toward the hallway with a steadiness she lacked moments ago, as if fear has burned off every trace of imbalance in her step.
“Harper-” I try, but she doesn’t turn. Doesn’t slow.
“Now,” she says, disappearing down the corridor with all the certainty of someone walking toward a burning building because they refuse to let someone inside die alone.
I move after her without thinking. Instinct, worry, memory, all of it pushes me forward. But I barely make it two steps before a hand clamps around my arm.
Theo.
His grip surprises me with its strength; he halts my momentum in a single, deliberate motion. His brows draw together slightly, his head angling toward me as if listening to something just beneath my skin. His grip isn’t harsh, but it’s firm enough to tell me he won’t let me walk away without an answer.
“Liam,” he says, voice low but urgent. “What is going on? Why does that place matter?”
I swallow hard. The words sit heavy on my tongue, weighted with years of fear neither Harper nor I evermanaged to outrun. Theo’s pale eyes search for my reaction, unfocused, yet somehow landing close enough to make me feel exposed.
Harper is already gone down the corridor, and every second I stand here feels like another second she slips out of reach… yet I know I have to explain something, anything, before he follows us blindly into danger he has no context for.
“Our parents’ scouts linger near Myrindale,” I finally say, my voice low but steady.
Theo’s grip tightens just slightly, surprise, fear, and understanding flickering across his face in rapid succession.
“Scouts?” he echoes, almost under his breath.
I nod once, the motion heavy with things I can’t say aloud. “To kill Vireldan,” I whisper.
The truth hangs between us like a blade, and somewhere down that hallway, Harper is already walking straight into the shadows we spent our childhood trying to escape.
17
HARPER
The portal tears open with a rippling pull that feels like my ribs are being threaded through a needle. Cold rushes along my spine as silver light folds over the three of us, carrying us out of Vireldan and depositing us onto uneven stone. For a breath, the world is silent before sound and scent crash into me all at once.
Myrindale is suffocating.
