“Caelira—”
“No.”
She stepped closer, so close the air between us crackled. Shadows rippled across the stone in a pulse that matched her heartbeat. “No more half-truths. No more walls. I have spent my entire life being treated like a danger or a burden or a problem. Told I must be protected from myself, from my magic, from what I might become.” Her breaths shook. “I am done being small, so I don’t frighten anyone.”
The stormglass lantern beside the balcony door exploded in a burst of crystal. Wind slammed into the room as if the entire keep had sucked in a startled breath. Lightning sparked in the walls, the very air trembling with strain. Deep beneath the stone, the stormcurrent pulsed in recognition, answering her like a heart answering another.
I reached for her, reflex, instinct, something older than fear.
“Caelira,” I said urgently, “I’m not telling you no because you’re wrong. You’re not. I’m telling you no because this is not how I want you learning the truth.”
But her shadows were fully awake now.
The air pressed in.
The floor groaned.
Magic gathered like a storm inhaling.
And then the horn blew.
A long, resonant blast from the eastern watchtower, one meant to echo through mountains. Caelira froze, her rage thinning, cooling, sharpening. The storm outside seemed to still, listening.
A second blast followed—short, sharp, urgent.
Bootsteps thundered through the castle halls. The door slammed open, and Calder Rhyne strode inside, built like thekeep itself—broad, solid, unshakeable. His armor was half-buckled from the rush, his hair still damp from drills, and a scar ran from collarbone to jaw, a mark earned protecting others.
Calder never hesitated.
Ever.
Not unless the situation was truly dire.
He hesitated now.
His eyes swept the room, the shattered lantern, the cracked stone, the air vibrating faintly around Caelira, but he said nothing.
“Commander,” he said instead, voice steady. “Movement at the eastern wall. A Dawnbreak party crossed the ward-line. They brought a priest.”
Cold dread ghosted down my spine.
Caelira didn’t flinch. Her expression didn’t crack. Instead, a slow, contained rage settled over her skin like frost forming on glass. Beneath it, exhaustion—deep, bone-worn, the kind only someone who had been mistrusted her entire life could carry.
Wind curled gently around her wrists.
Her shadows thickened, rising behind her like something ancient stirring.
She looked at me one last time. Quiet. Sharp. Absolute.
“This conversation is not over.”
She swept past Calder into the inner room, her shadows trailing after her like storm-torn banners. Maren stood frozen just inside the sitting area, wide-eyed, tray trembling in her hands. Her gaze flicked between us, but it lingered on Caelira with something like dawning awe.
A single feather drifted onto the balcony stone, pale gold at the tip.
A Dawnbreak omen.
The horn sounded again, echoing through every corridor of the keep. The Courts had felt the current awaken andDawnbreak had come hunting. I stood in the wreckage of the quiet we’d almost managed, the taste of prophecy bitter on my tongue, knowing two truths with perfect clarity:
