“I do,” she said, surprising me again. “Everyone felt… something. The night before last. And again, this morning. The storm…” She swallowed, eyes flicking to the stormglass veins humming faintly behind me. “The castle is unsettled. The ward-witches are whispering. The soldiers are tense.”
She hesitated, then added, almost apologetically:
“It’s not you they’re worried about. It’s what Dawnbreak means. Priests don’t cross borders unless something is deeply wrong—and everyone can feel it in the stone.”
A tight exhale slipped from me.
The tension hanging in the keep wasn’t aimed at me, it was fear aimed outward, toward Dawnbreak, toward whatever purpose brought a priest to the Storm Court’s walls.
“Caelira,” Maren said, softer now, stepping closer, “I know something’s wrong. I don’t need to know what. But I don’t think you should be alone right now.”
The stormglass behind her brightened in a slow pulse, like the castle itself agreed.
I studied Maren, really studied her, maybe for the first time.
She was small, yes, but built of wiry steadiness rather than fragility. Her dark hair, still bound in the loose braid she always wore, had begun to unravel—strands clinging to her temples, cheeks flushed pink from running up and down stairs she probably wasn’t permitted to use. There was a quickness to her, a sharp, instinctive awareness in the way her eyes moved—too perceptive for her own safety in a place like this.
But beneath that was something else.
Something steadier.
A spine most courtiers lacked.
A kind of quiet, stubborn bravery that didn’t announce itself, it just stood there, trembling but unbroken, choosing to walk toward me instead of away. She looked small in the vast stone corridor, dwarfed by stormglass and banners and the weight of the Court. But I had the unsettling feeling she noticed more of this castle than half the officers who commanded it.
She had no reason to plant herself beside me in a moment like this.
She did anyway.
“If you’re going somewhere,” she added, voice trembling only slightly, “I’m coming with you.”
I almost laughed, almost. “You don’t need to follow me.”
“Maybe not.” She lifted her chin a fraction. “But I’m still going to.”
My throat tightened, not with weakness, but with something dangerously close to gratitude. I didn’t have space for that. Not yet. Not when the storm was clawing at the walls and Dawnbreak was crossing the wardline.
“Suit yourself,” I said, turning down the corridor before she could see too much.
She fell into step two paces behind me, small, steady, determined.
Unasked for, but unwavering.
The stormglass flickered overhead.
Footsteps pounded somewhere ahead.
Voices rose in sharp commands.
Another horn cry rolled up the spine of the keep.
And with Maren’s quiet presence at my back, I walked straight toward the heart of the gathering storm.
The deeper we moved into the keep, the more the corridors changed shape around us. The narrow servant halls gave way tobroader passages lined with carved storm-vines and high-arched windows that channeled the wind like a living thing. The castle was awake, fully, sharply awake, and every stone seemed to hum with tension.
Maren remained behind me at first, quiet and unwavering. But as the shouting grew louder and the stormglass brightened along the walls, I felt her come closer. A small shift of steps. A breath drawn too quickly. A silent decision to stay within arm’s reach.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.
