Still, suspicion followed.
Veyrion could have killed him. He hadn’t.
It would have been easier had Alaric not told me the truth. Easier to keep him locked in the shape of a monster. Easier to paint Veyrion as nothing but a villain.
Alaric wasn’t the monster I expected. That didn’t make him good—but it made him dangerous in a different way.
But neither picture was true.
Alaric carried his sins like an anchor, drowning beneath their weight.
Veyrion carried his past like a blade—honed, hidden, dangerous. I didn’t trust him. But I no longer believed he was only cruel, either. Even when what he wanted from me, I couldn’t yet name.
When I looked at them, I didn’t see monsters.
I saw men shaped by regret and survival and impossible choices. Wasn’t I the same?
Alaric trusted me with his scars. With rot and ruin under his skin. Now I had to decide what to do with it.
44
Nerina
Skeldrhall, Ymirskald
I needed a plan. A way forward. Confronting the Tidekeepers—and my mother—would require more than fury. It would take strategy. Precision. Control. Two things I never learned.
I am powerful. I can feel it beneath my skin now, humming like a storm waiting to break. But it meant nothing if I didn’t know how to wield it. I wasn’t afraid of losing control. I was afraid of keeping it—and still hurting someone.
If I made a wrong move, it wouldn’t just be me that burned.
Enough. I am done drifting between questions and sorrow. Done waiting for others to decide what I was—or what I could be. Power without discipline was a weapon left to rust.
It is time to sharpen mine.
Magic isn't just power. It is rhythm. Language. Pulse and blade and silence. Precision. And until now, I’d never been taught to wield it with anything other than desperation.
That had to change. I couldn’t afford to let it rule me. I had to learn to rule it.
So I called on Eira.
Eira wielded a different kind of magic—healing. Not wild and destructive like mine, but magic all the same. Her power was a steady current, a balm where mine was a storm.
If there was anyone who could help me tame the tempest inside me—without fear, without judgment—it was her.
She arrived at Skeldrhall not long after sunrise, bright and cheerful as ever, the morning light catching on the silver-threaded ribbons braided into her golden hair. Snow clung to her fur-lined cloak, and her boots left wet prints across the stone as she entered.
“Did you miss me,” she teased, “Finally decided I’m more fun than brooding pirate boys and ancient cursed artifacts?”
I laughed—really laughed—for the first time in what felt like forever. But when it faded, the weight returned, heavy as an anchor.
So I told her everything.
Everything since my birth. The Crescent. The Elders. The Tidekeepers. My mother. The truth Alaric revealed.
And through it all, she listened. Never once interrupting. Never once scoffing at the impossible pieces. Her expression shifted like the tide—curiosity at first, then concern, then quiet, simmering fury when I told her what had been taken from me.
“I need to learn,” I said finally. My voice shook. “Not just to feel it. Not just to survive it. To wield it. My magic isn’t like anyone else’s, and I don’t know where else to turn. I don’t know who else to trust.”
