A knock sounded at my door—measured, deliberate.
Before I could answer, it opened. Veyrion stepped inside.
He moved with the confidence of a man who had never been told no—and had punished anyone who tried.
He scanned the space once, assessing, then looked back at me. “Are you comfortable?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
He didn’t press. Just watched, as though my silence itself were a response he’d expected. “Good,” he said at last.
He smiled, politely. “Join me for dinner.”
“I decline.”
“You misunderstand,” he said quietly, correcting me. “That wasn’t a request.”
My stomach turned—not at the command, but at the precision of it. He didn’t need to raise his voice. Control like his didn’t come from volume. It came from certainty. From deciding the shape of my next hour before I’d even opened my mouth.
I could end this here and now. My mark burned at my brow from the frustration. I kept my hands still. Kept my breath shallow. I kept myself contained. I felt my power stir and I froze—not because I couldn’t use it, but because I wouldn’t.
Veyrion’s quarters were unlike anything I’d seen at sea.
Dark timbers arched overhead, carved deep with serpents and runes that caught the firelight and glimmered like watching eyes. The air was thick with pine smoke and roasted meat, heat rolling off the walls where heavy pelts dulled the edges of stone and wood.
A massive hearth dominated the far wall, its fire crackling as though it had never once gone cold. Runes burned faintly intothe stone. Axes and shields hung above it like trophies of old wars—edges blunted, history still alive.
At the hearth’s edge lay a massive creature, curled in sleep. Its coat was a mantle of frost and shadow, each strand of fur catching the firelight in silver and storm-gray—northern, wild, unmistakable. Even at rest, it radiated power. Shoulders broad as a man’s chest. Paws heavy enough to crush bone. The resemblance wasn’t comforting. It was a warning—two predators shaped by the same instinct.
Veyrion stood at the head of the long table. Broad, weathered, relentless. His skin bore the bronze of sun and salt. Shaggy blond hair was tied in a knot. His eyes—stars, his eyes—were glacial. Not quite blue, not quite silver, but the cold in between. They didn’t simply look at you; they saw through you. Calculating. Eternal. Not a man who seized power—but one born from it.
There was charm, yes—a smile that curled easily into mischief—but beneath it was steel, wickedness that waited. He was beautiful the way an avalanche is beautiful—distant, lethal, and never concerned with what it buried.
“Welcome,” Veyrion said, voice low, like he was sharing a secret.
He pulled out a chair for me with a little flourish—mock chivalry. I didn’t thank him. I sat, spine straight, eyes forward, refusing to let his presence take up more space than it already did.
The table between us groaned under the weight of the meal—meats seared and dripping, shellfish arranged like jeweledofferings, vegetables shimmering with herbs, bread steaming under its crust of coarse salt. The scents curled through the air, smoke and spice weaving into the warmth until my stomach betrayed me with a slow, twisting ache. Not comfort.
He poured deep red liquid into my glass. “Pulled from the northern highlands,” he said. “Brewed in ice-hollowed barrels, frostroot berries.” His mouth quirked. “I make it myself.”
I looked at the glass, then back at him. “You make poison sound very romantic.”
His mouth twitched.
“Eat,” he said, flicking his hand toward the spread. “The Black Marrow can’t offer more than salted fish and stubbornness.”
The jab stung—not because it wasn’t true, but because it yanked my thoughts to Alaric. We’d been fighting when I left, spitting words that cut deeper than they should have.
“I’m not hungry,” I lied, keeping my hands in my lap.
I hated that he chose the simplest battle. Hunger. It was hard to be defiant when your body was the one begging. He didn’t need chains if he could make my own instincts turn against me.
Without asking, he reached across the table and began filling my plate. His movements were deliberate—almost ceremonial.
“You’ll need your strength,” he said, sliding the plate toward me.
“Strength for what?” I asked.
