“When I first saw you, there was a wildness in your eyes,” he said. “Like you were taking in everything around you, unconstrained. You didn’t flinch—not even with a dakya racing toward you.”
“You want me to be wild?” she asked, skeptical.
He shook his head with an amused jerk. “No. I want to see the force that drives that wildness. That look in your eyes wasn’t chaos; it was focus. Desperation sharpened into instinct. You saw what needed to be done, and you moved.”
Her breath caught. She felt like she’d lost sight of that focus, like all her instincts had fled. Trapped between anxious panic and trying to impress everyone. Her chest tightened. “Didn’t help much on our last mission. Your brother had to save me.”
“Darish told me you held off three dakii before Pyetar could get to you,” Karvek said. “You’ll adapt. Just like you did in the pit.”
She blinked. “You were there?”
“I couldn’t miss it.”
“Why?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He didn’t answer that. “People respect strength here. Loyalty. You don’t have to make friends; you don’t have to play nice. And you—” a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, “you don’t trust anyone half as much as you trust yourself.”
She bristled. “I’m used to being on my own; it’s not that—”
“Don’t apologize,” he interrupted softly, stepping around the table toward her. “That’s not a weakness. Not here. Trust is a dangerous thing to give away.”
He stopped beside her, leaning back against the table, still towering over her. His voice dropped to something quieter, more intimate. “What you want—what youneed—iscontrol.”
Iryana sucked in. Shedidwant control. She felt it slipping even now. The way he looked at her made everything uncertain, too sharp and too close. Her muscles twitched with the urge to move, to avoid being seen. But she stayed.
He looked down at her. “You don’t want the others to see weakness. Because if they do—they’ll take advantage.”
Could he see it? See the thing inside her that didn’t fit? Iryana looked into his eyes, her hands trembling slightly. Everything felt surreal: the grain of the wood under her hands, the weight of his gaze.
Then his voice became lower still, almost conspiratorial.
“We’re more alike than you think.”
Chapter Seventeen
A sharp breath surged into her lungs as she stared into Karvek’s eyes. They were the color of mist; of the palest dakya fur. The room suddenly felt less intimidating, less formal. Lit by lanterns and cloud-dimmed light that left his study soft and glowing. His looming, towering figure next to her now seemed protective. Familiar.
It all clicked into place.
The way he watched her. The way Karvek always seemed to lookthroughher. Maybe some part of her had known all along that he was the same. That it was why she felt so off balance around him.
The only other person who had ever understood her that deeply was her father.
Her eyes dropped to her hands. The room blurred, and her breath grew shallow. She was back in that cottage—her father’s voice tight with accusation, his grip so unyielding on her wrist that she cried out.Look at what you did. Look.He never let her turn away from the truth.
A sharp inhale brought her back.
She blinked, realizing Karvek was back on the other side of the table, looking over his maps again.
Her heart was still racing, so she let her gaze drift to the table instead. A safer place than meeting his eyes.
Many of the maps showed layouts of a castle she didn’t recognize. The parchment was worn at the edges like it had been handled frequently, light paths inked around the outer walls. She leaned in, squinting. There were question marks scribbled in what looked like unguarded zones. Blind spots.
She studied the paths more closely. The movement patterns along the walls mirrored how the soldiers patrolled at the fort. But something felt… off. Different. Her mind reached for the shape of it.
Another map, nearly identical but marked with different times and more details. Guards with arrows branching out from their positions like lines of motion. Then another map, with the guards in different spots with new paths. Subtle shifts, adjustments. Yet they stirred something familiar in her.
“It’s like the dakii in the forest,” she murmured. The words slipped out before she could stop them.
