“Priests don’t cross borders without cause,” another snapped. “Something happened under the castle the night before last?—”
Their words rose and fell with the wind, broken by distance but sharp enough to lodge under my ribs.
Something happened under the castle.
My stomach dropped.
Atlas and I had woken the current beneath the castle. We had felt it turn toward us, seen the trapped lightning in the stormglass ceilings stutter and flare like a creature taking its first breath in a century. We had stood there in that chamber thinking—for a heartbeat—that it was ours.
It was never going to stay ours.
I stared down at my hands. My fingers flexed once, twice. Shadows clung stubbornly to the edges of my vision. The air around my wrists felt charged, as if invisible threads had wound themselves there while I wasn’t paying attention.
For a breath, I wondered if Verdant had been right. If I was the problem. The danger. The flaw in the pattern everyone had been waiting to fracture.
The thought made anger ripple sharp through my chest.
I turned away from the courtyard and kept moving, deeper into the keep. The corridors narrowed, then widened into grander halls where carved storm-vines climbed the walls and thick carpets muffled the sound of my footsteps. Servants moved with their heads down and their eyes sharp, the way people always did during moments like this.
The stormglass embedded in the stone brightened as I passed. Tiny veins of light chased one another through it, like lightning searching for ground. I exhaled carefully and attempted to push the storm back.
It resisted.
Of course it did.
I lifted my chin and kept walking. If Dawnbreak had come because something under the castle had stirred, the Courts would circle like birds of prey. They would ask questions. They would assign blame. They would search for the easiest piece to move on their board.
For the first time in my life, I knew exactly where I fit on that board.
I also knew I wasn’t going to let them move me.
I had almost reached the next archway when a startled gasp snapped my attention sideways.
“Caelira—!”
Maren nearly collided with me as she rounded the corner at speed, skirts gathered in her fists, breath coming fast from running somewhere she probably hadn’t been allowed to be. She skidded to a halt, wide-eyed, hair escaping its braid in frantic curls.
For half a heartbeat, she just stared at me.
Not like the guards had.
Not like I was a threat creeping loose in the hall.
But like she was afraid for me.
“Gods,” she breathed, pressing a hand to her chest. “I’ve been looking everywhere—are you alright?”
The question caught me so off guard I almost didn’t recognize it. People didn’t usually ask if I was alright. They asked if I was stable, contained, or safely tucked out of the way. They asked if I needed escorting or watching or praying for.
They didn’t ask like this—raw, unscripted, human.
“I’m fine,” I said, though my voice sounded sharper than I meant. “You should be with the others, Maren. The keep’s in chaos.”
“So are you,” she said softly.
It wasn’t accusation. It was observation—quiet, honest, and somehow worse for being true.
I let out a slow breath, pressing my fingers briefly to my temple. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
