I pinched the bridge of my nose, resisting the urge to throw him overboard before she could. “Yes,” I growled. “Like she was measuring where best to put the knife.” Of all the cursed times for him to grow smitten.
Veyrion stopped a few paces away, glacier eyes locked on me. “Is she here?”
I tilted my head, feigning ignorance. “I’m not in the habit of harboring strays. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Nerina.”
The name hit me, but I forced my face blank. The sound of it in his mouth made something feral stir. “No,” I said flatly. “She isn’t here.”
He exhaled, caught between a sigh and a curse. “After the council, I went to find her. I meant to tell her about the Veil—what’s coming.” His attention shifted to the sea, then back to me. “But when I reached her room, she was gone. She is nowhere in Skeldrhall.”
“What’s happening at the Veil?” I asked.
Veyrion didn’t smile. “It’s failing.”
My pulse spiked once. I forced my expression into something bored. Unmoved. “Define failing.”
“The seam is thinning, soon it will be gone completely.” he said.
Damn it. My thoughts didn’t go to the Veil. They went to her.
If Nerina heard this—
A cold, familiar dread slid down my spine.
She would run toward it. To protect her people. To prove she wasn’t something fragile. To prove she belonged.
Reckless. Infuriating. Stupid.
I dragged a hand through my hair, already pacing. “She cannot know.”
Veyrion’s straightened. “She deserves to know.”
“I know her.” My voice came out tighter than I intended. “If she finds out the Veil is weakening, she’ll head straight for it.”
“And you would keep this from her?”
“Yes,” I snapped. “Throwing yourself at a collapsing barrier without understanding what’s tearing it apart isn’t bravery. It’s suicide dressed up as virtue.”
The image burned behind my eyes anyway—her chin lifted, light gathering beneath her skin like she was born to stand in the center of disaster.
Before he could answer, boots thundered up the gangplank. One of his men appeared, breath clouding the air. “Commander,” the soldier said, bowing his head. “A ship is missing.”
Veyrion’s voice snapped like ice. “Which one?”
The answer dropped like an anchor. “Your lead vessel.”
For a moment, silence stretched. Then Veyrion’s lips curved into the ghost of a smile—wry, humorless. Not anger. Not disbelief. Almost impressed. “She took the largest ship in the fleet,” he murmured, half to himself. “Alone.” His eyes flicked to the horizon, glacial and unreadable. “Bold. Smarter than half the men who’ve ever served under me.”
My blood burned. “Bold? She could be killed.”
He faced me fully. “You still don’t understand, do you?” Respect edged his tone, tempered by something darker. “You keep underestimating her.”
A beat.
“You see a girl playing at bravery. I see something the world should be praying never turns against it.” His voice lowered. “She doesn’t need commanded. She needs freedom. And gods help the man who mistakes one for the other.”
The name hit me like a fist.Neri. As if he had the right to shorten it, the right to make it his. “Stop calling her that.” The words snapped out before I could stop them.
