Elyssara whirls, blade raised.
But I don’t look at the door.
Something else has caught me—the glint of metal beside the bed.
A ring.
Small, delicate, out of place among the relics and jars. Silver with a single gem set into it, a design I’ve seen before.
The blood in my veins goes cold.
“Elyssara,” I murmur.
She doesn’t answer—her focus is on the doorway, the footsteps approaching.
The sound is soft, familiar.
The door groans open further.
And the voice that follows turns my blood to ice.
“The Starbound,” she says, calm as a prayer. “I thought you’d never get here.”
Mavyrn.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
KAEL
“You?”
My heartbeat riots in my chest.
Elyssara’s confusion scrambles down the tether.
“Yes. Me, boy,” the old woman says, the knotted curtain of her gray hair giving her the look of someone who’s been plotting too long and sleeping too little.
Every memory collides with the truth.
Every interaction with Mavyrn is a tangled web of conflicting truths.
Because I don’t fucking understand.
“You played us,” I grit out.
But her face goes smug. “I played everyone,” she counters matter-of-factly, waving a dismissive hand.
I angle the tip of my blade at her throat. “Speak,” I demand in a growl that rumbles through my chest.
“I’m Maldrak’s Arcanist,” she says flippantly, as if that should tell me everything.
But Elyssara’s hands flare in a glow that almost blinds the room, her temper flaring with Mavyrn’s non-committal answers.
“Youopened the Gateway to take me to Kryntar,” she snarls through clenched teeth.
But Mavyrn doesn’t falter at the accusation. “Yes. And I’d do it again!”
The words echo through the room like a truth that needs repeating.
