Stars, I didn’t know. Only that whatever Calder had put inside me was still there. Coiled. Patient.
The poison pulsed once beneath my skin. The black veins deepened.
Veyrion tightened his grip instantly, anchoring me to him as though sheer force could hold me together. “Stay with me, Neri.”
The command cracked at the edges. Not a warlord now. Not a rival. Just a man trying not to lose someone.
My vision blurred. The edges darkened.
The battle dulled to distant thunder.
Through the haze, I caught flashes—
Bodies strewn across the deck. Torn sails whipping like wounded wings. Fire licking greedily up splintered wood.
“Look at me, Neri,” he said, voice rough as winter wind, fingers bracing my jaw until my eyes found his. “I will drag you back from whatever abyss dares claim you.”
The words felt far away. The poison pulsed again. This time colder.
My body went heavy in his arms.
The last thing I saw—
Not the fire. Not the blood. Not the broken sails.
But Veyrion’s eyes.
Not shocked.
Not afraid.
Certain.
As if this was the girl he had been speaking to all along.
Not the one who doubted.
Not the one who hesitated.
But this one.
The one who burned.
And the truth in his eyes made me understand something that frightened me more than the power and poison tearing through my veins—
He had never been trying to change me.
He had been waiting for me to stop holding myself back.
Epilogue
Once upon a tide, the world was divided.
Sea below.
Sky above.
A Veil between.
