Something inside me tightened at that, an instinctive shiver, not of fear, but of awareness. The careful thread of hunger tugged again at the base of my ribs, sharp and bright.
“I didn’t cause anything,” I said.
“Perhaps not alone,” Veylan replied, tone unchanging. “But the storm does not react without reason.”
The implication hung heavy in the air.
A few of the officers shifted uncomfortably.
Kastor’s eyes narrowed, calculating.
Atlas stepped closer, not enough to shield me, but enough to signal that he would if it came to that. Veylan’s gaze flicked briefly to Atlas, only long enough to catalog that closeness, and then returned to me with renewed intensity.
“There are records,” he said quietly, “of lineages that once walked between storm and shadow. Buried histories. Lost Courts. Broken bonds.” His voice softened, but somehow, that made it worse. “And Dawnbreak keeps excellent records.”
My heart thudded hard.
He was fishing.
Or hunting.
Either way, his net was wide, and I was already inside it.
“What is it you’re truly looking for?” I asked.
Veylan bowed his head ever so slightly. Reverent. Formal. Terrifying.
“The truth,” he said. “The one the storm has already begun to reveal.”
High Priest Veylan’s certainty didn’t land like truth.
It pressed, quiet and insistent, as though he believed he had the right to name me, to interpret me, to claim understanding of something he had never touched. And beneath that pressure, something in me tightened in answer.
Not hunger.
Not recognition.
A sharp, rising refusal.
Whatever I was becoming, he was not going to be the one to define it.
Atlas shifted beside me subtle and instinctive, the kind of protective motion he probably wasn’t even aware he made. His weight angled forward, shoulders tightening just enough to make the Stormguard straighten.
“High Priest—” he began, voice low with warning.
I lifted my hand.
The motion was quiet, deliberate, and it stopped him far more effectively than any words. Atlas froze mid-sentence. He didn’t argue, didn’t try to continue. He simply obeyed the silence I placed between us.
I stepped forward. The air felt charged when I moved into it, as if the castle itself leaned closer to hear what I would do next. Maren remained steady behind me, but I didn’t look back. This moment was mine, and I stepped into it without hesitation.
My eyes locked on Veylan’s.
“What exactly do you think I am?”
The words left my mouth softly, but they struck the hall with the force of a lightning bolt. I didn’t raise my voice; I didn’t need to. The question itself carved through the air, sharp enough to make every conversation die, every breath hitch.
I felt the shift around me as it landed. The Stormguard went still. Kastor’s attention sharpened, recalibrating in that quiet, dangerous way soldiers had when they realized the battlefield had changed shape. Even the storm in the walls seemed to draw closer, the faint rumble in the stone deepening as though it, too, were listening.
