She gave him a fleeting look, a knowing one, before she turned and walked back toward the center of camp with Killian.
After twenty more minutes of testing every way Elva might accidentally cut her own toes off, they finally called it quits.
She collapsed into Verena’s shoulder, her sob muffled by the embrace. “I’m hopeless.”
Verena only held her tighter, stroking long, steady lines down her back. Across the clearing, Ronan’s troubled stare cut to where Elysian stood, tossing his sword onto stone and snatching his water jug.
Drawing a shaky breath, Elva’s fingers found her pendant as she pulled back from Verena’s warmth. “I’ll never be a warrior.”
Gripping her face, Verena gave her a sad smile. “You have strength in you, Elva. We can all see it.”
Sighing, Elva responded, “Perhaps my strength lies elsewhere. In whatever spark may still be hiding, waiting to grow.”
“Steel isn’t the only measure of strength,” Verena reminded her. “The world has enough blades. What it doesn’t have,” she pointed at Elva, “is you. And I’d take your kind of strength beside me over a hundred swords.”
Elva blinked through the tears in her eyes, fingers tightening over the pendant as if she could press Verena’s words into her heart.
Ronan’s stare lingered on the dim glow of Elva’s wrist. The way she wore her heir mark unashamed with honor.
Whereas he would have burned his off, had his flesh allowed it.
It didn’t. He had tried when it first appeared. Had tried again a week later. A month. Only years after did he finally accept the mark was not something to be traded. Not something he could sever.
Ford moved past Killian, fingers catching a loose strand of Elva’s hair. “Fear not, our sweet princess. You walk among beasts now. Ones who’d gladly bare their throats for you.” He flashed a grin, ignoring the growl rumbling low in Elysian’s chest as he approached. Ford lifted his hands. “See?”
Verena scoffed. “Men may bare their fangs, may boast of bite—” Her glare cut to Ronan first, slow and searing, stripping him bare with it.
Then to Elysian. To Ford. To Killian. One by one, all of them caged in the heat of her stare.
Her lips curved, a lethal hiss thrumming off them. “But you and I, Elva, we have the venom.”
Something slid into her then, subtle and slick, as she kissed her fingertips and blew it toward them all, as if scattering the poison across the land.
Ronan swore he felt it seep into him, felt it like fire in his veins, inciting his last shred of restraint ablaze.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Verena
AFTER A FEW MORE DAYS, ELVA WAS GETTING significantly better at almost holding up a sword. Her arms no longer trembled, which we all deemed a massive accomplishment.
I was starting to see some definition there now, faint but real. Even her ivory skin had begun to take on a deeper shade, kissed beige from the sun and travel.
Around us, the Khaos Forest glimmered in twilight. Every trunk and branch petrified into pillars, woven skyward like frozen streaks of lightning. Dusky light fractured through them, scattering shards of silver and pale gold across the ground.
Beneath me, the realm remained stone, too, unyielding as I let it support me. Its coolness seeped through my spine while clouds drifted across a sky bruising with night.
A root cracked beneath Ronan’s boot, only for the fracture to seal itself whole again, the forest refusing to break. The branches above swayed with the wind, their stone leaves singing a hymn, soft and otherworldly.
“How many of those are you going to do?” I asked Ford, loud enough to carry past the sound the stone absorbed.
He was midway through another routine, arms quaking as he lowered into a push-up. For three days now, he’d been stuck between Ronan’s training suggestions and Callum’s corrections. He had been doing both workouts every day, back-to-back, until he inevitably collapsed and would declare himselfdone.
It was, frankly, a joy to watch.
“Ford?” I called his name louder.
He grunted without looking up.
