For the first time, something flickered across his face—not anger. Surprise. “I said no,” I said, chest tight.
He stepped closer. Too close. His presence swallowed the space between us. I became acutely aware of how close he was—of where the warmth of him brushed my ear, of how easily he could touch me if he chose to.
“You don’t have to walk,” he said quietly. “I’ll carry you if I must.”
I stilled—not because I was done fighting, but because I knew he meant it. My mark burned at my brow. I could feel my magic stir, but I couldn’t risk reacting. Not again. “Why?” I demanded, the question breaking loose, low and jagged. “Why are you doing this?”
His grip loosened—not releasing me, but no longer restraining. “Because you look like you’re about to shatter,” he said.
The truth of his words gutted me more than the Elders had. Still, I hesitated. Trust was a currency I no longer dealt in. And Veyrion was the last man I would spend it on.
I blamed him. Unfairly, perhaps. But anger was easier than grief. Than heartbreak. Than whateverthisfeeling was.
The path narrowed, forcing me close behind him. It wound through crystalline tunnels that shimmered with frost, each jagged step slick beneath my boots. The walls glistened like powdered starlight, catching the faint glow of the torches we carried.
Maybe this was it. Maybe he meant to lead me to my end, to slit my throat in some forgotten cavern and let the snow swallow me whole. He could. Easily. And perhaps he should. Because wasn’t I the fool, still trailing after him? I didn’t trust him. I couldn't trust anyone. Not anymore. And yet, my feet moved when his did.
Neither of us spoke. The silence stretched, heavy but not unbearable. Only the crunch of boots, the harsh pull of cold air, the soft groan of shifting stone. I tried to steady myself in the cold, to ground the fracture splintering me apart.
When we emerged, it was onto a ledge carved high into the mountain’s side. A frozen overlook opened before us beneath an endless sky. Stars burned bright as shattered glass. Ribbonsof emerald and violet bled through the darkness, the starlight twisting like it was alive. Silver stars dusted the air, caught in those ghostly waves. The wind bit hard at my cheeks, but the sight below left me reeling.
The tundra stretched white and endless, a sea frozen mid-surge. Ice fields mirrored the sky, scattering moonlight into cold, glittering shards. The air tasted of frost and stone, hushed but for the deep, distant groan of ancient ice shifting beneath the glacier.
And far below—half-swallowed by frost—stood the ruins of a temple. Broken columns. Fractured arches. Preserved, not by reverence, but by cold.
It was silent here, but not the suffocating silence of the Elders’ chamber. A silence that asked for nothing. A silence that did not require answers. I had never seen a sky like this.
“It’s…” My voice caught, torn between awe and grief. I shook my head, forcing the word down. Beautiful. That was what it was. But I would not give him the satisfaction of hearing it.
Because beauty did not erase anything. And even here, even with the sky torn open above me, I couldn’t shake the thought: perhaps this was only a prettier place to die.
“I think they’ve been taking from me for a long time,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “Not just memories. Maybe dreams. Instincts. I don't know.”
The thought hollowed me out. How much of me had ever truly beenme?
The Tidekeepers with their sacred chants, their endless rituals that tasted of salt and reverence. Masks, all of it. Disguises for the theft. What had they stolen that I would never even know to mourn? I realized then that they hadn’t been afraid of my power. They’d been afraid of me realizing it was mine. A fury stirred in me, violent and molten, but it faltered against the grief that followed close behind. Because if they had taken everything, what did I have left? Who was I now—Nerina, or only a collection of fragments stitched together by lies?
Veyrion exhaled slowly, a plume of frost curling into the night. “Then maybe it’s time you started taking back.”
I turned to him, truly turned, to see whether he meant it or if this, too, was another illusion. Another trick. There was something different in him now. Not softness—a kind of reverence, a quiet gravity that pulled at me.
I sank onto the frozen stone beside him.
My mark pulsed—once, twice—an insistent throb beneath my skin.
Above us, the stars shifted. Not in the way they always did across a clear night sky, but with intent. I inhaled, the sound catching in my throat. Veyrion’s attention snapped to me. He saw it in my eyes.
The words burned on my tongue before I could swallow them. “I need to go back.” My voice cracked on the word. “To Thalassia. To her. To them. That’s all that’s left. I can’t… I can’t keep running. I have to face them.”
The tide in me surged, fierce and unrelenting. My mother. The Tidekeepers. Their faces rose unbidden in my mind—their chants, their touch, their masks of reverence and devotion. If I didn’t confront them now, I would drown in the not-knowing.
Veyrion studied me, his expression unreadable in the starlight. “You will face them,” he said at last. “And when you do, the mountain itself will shake with the reckoning. But not like this.”
I whipped toward him, anger spiking hot. “Not like what?”
“Not broken,” he said evenly. “Not half-healed, half-aware, half-ready. They stole pieces of you, Neri. If you charge into their grasp now, they will steal the rest. And then there will be nothing left to reclaim.”
The truth of it cut, because part of me knew he was right. But the thought of waiting twisted me into knots. “You don’t understand—”
