“There has to be another way. I wouldn’t sacrifice you on a whim to restore balance. I will not do that to any of my kin.”
Behind him, Elora stirred. The man murmured something gently, helping her shift her weight. She groaned softly, and Viliam’s heart clenched again.
Kaela looked past him, her golden eyes landing on the girl in the dirt. “So, what do we do?”
Viliam turned back to face her fully, shoulders squared. “We find another way. We go back to the council.”
Viliam turned, the tension in his shoulders easing, though not by much. The man still crouched beside Elora, fingers clenched around a short blade slick with someone else's blood. His eyes flicked between Viliam and Kaela, reading the danger in the space between them.
But Elora didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Her gaze was steady, even through the fog of pain in her expression. He saw no fear in her eyes, only that quiet awareness. That pull. Shefeltit too. The tether.
He stepped toward her and the man shifted protectively, blade rising slightly. Viliam met his eyes with only the slightest shake of his head.
Not your fight.
Elora reached out and placed her hand on the man’s arm. It wasn’t forceful. She barely had strength left. But it was enough. He stopped. He trusted her.
Viliam dropped to one knee in front of her, his breath shallow as he took her in—mud clinging to her legs, a bruise blooming across her collarbone, blood dried along her temple. She looked like she was barely hanging on. And still, she looked at him like sheknewhim.
Slowly, he reached out and cupped her cheek, just as he had in the institute, when he had first spoken his name. Her skin was warm beneath his calloused hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. One of the few words he had learned in the common tongue.
Her eyes searched his.
In Al’teran, he murmured, “There is not time to explain. But I will be back.” He hesitated. “I don’t know when.”
Kaela, still standing behind him, frowned but stepped forward. She translated softly, her voice clipped but clear.
Elora blinked slowly. Her brows pulled together, but she didn’t pull away.
Viliam let his hand fall from her face to rest over his heart. He swallowed. Then, broken but sincere, he said,
“Promise.” A beat. “You… my kin.”
Elora’s lips parted. She didn’t fully understand. But she heard the truth in it. In him.
Her hand, trembling, lifted—only inches—and touched his wrist, where his hand still hovered at his chest.
The pain in her body still echoed in his bones like an old wound flaring up, but now it wasn’t agony. It was… connection. Not just a bond of blood or magic, but somethingolder, deeper. Whatever bond had formed between them, it was more than magic. It was a call of spirit. And he would answer it.
He stood.
Kaela said nothing as he turned to her. The look on her face was unreadable, somewhere between a warning and a question. But she didn’t argue.
They moved without speaking—trained, instinctual. Kaela rolled her shoulders back, flexed her arms, and dropped into a crouch. Her skin shimmered faintly as the shift overtook her. Bones popped. Muscles stretched and reformed. Wings unfurled.
Viliam followed suit.
He launched upward with a powerful beat of his wings. Kaela joined him a second later, her smaller form gliding in close behind.
The trees dropped away below them as they soared above the canopy, rising into the cool dusk air. The Empire lay stretched behind them, a corrupted land of smoke and silence.
Elora still breathed. And Viliam would return. When the time was right.
When he had a way.
Chapter 26
