I wasn’t sure why I asked,Is she young?
A rune caught my eye off one of the pages, a single vertical line, split once near the center before ending inside a broken circle. My pulse twitched, slipping out of repetition once.
Same age as Wells,Ronan said.But Veyari’s age unusually. She could be eight thousand years old, and we’d never know the difference.
Likely as beautiful as she is unique,I thought, and the thought tasted like worry.
Nothing to be jealous of, love. She won’t be sleeping in my bed tonight.
There was heat threaded through that scrape of humor. Gods dammit these shields.
We’re approaching Ryuu’s borders.Do me a favor and barricade that beautiful mind of yours before I check in tonight. If I’m able to read your dirty thoughts,he teased,I’ll take that as permission.
I shot a rude gesture at his presence.Go away.
This time I was met with actual resistance. A bloom of black, scale-hard wards rising between us. It wasn’t subtle.
Bastard.
I flipped lazily through the rest of the tome, my eyes getting noticeably heavier each turn. They shot open when I came across a map sprawled overone page. It was Selvarra but drawn…broken, kingdoms shattered like floating shards.
A future? A past? I didn’t know which was worse.
We sat gathered around the pixie’s eternal fire, a grey sun breaking through the morning, while we waited for Ronan and Elysian to return the following day.
Killian had incessantly dragged steel against stone while Elva worried a curl around her finger repeatedly.
“What is that?” Inessa asked, chin tilting toward the delicate square parchment clutched between Wells’ hands.
It was small, but his lips lifted, just in the corner. “A portrait of my family.”
She leaned in, breath grazing the paper’s edge. “I’ve never seen one so small and realistic. Whoever drew it must be gifted.”
His thumb brushed the crease where it had bent, worn soft by his pocket. “It’s not a drawing. It’s a real portrait. They captured it on something called an ikon when we were in Amarrow visiting my aunt and uncle.”
He was younger there, no more than ten, his father’s hand resting on his shoulder with a grin that nearly split the frame. His mother’s straight hair, the same shade as his, fell over her cheek as she gazed down at him. Pride softened every line of her face, a love caught mid-breath.
“Amarrow?” Ford lifted a brow, waving both hands over his ears. “As in the continent?”
“Will you stop doing ear shields?” I snapped.
Mostly because it wasn’t fair that he could mute the world whenever he wanted, and I had to deal withmultiplevoices haunting my own.
“Yes,” Wells' tone roughened.
“That’s where my brother ended up after he left Selvarra,” Ford muttered, pretending to flip through the manuscript sprawled across his lap that he was meant to browse last night. The dust was barely disturbed; he wasn’t fooling anyone. “With no magic over there Amarrow doesn’t ask anything of him.”
Killian leaned back against a tree, head tilted toward the sky, displaying the ragged scars that crossed his jaw. He let out a long, piercing whistle. “Heard they’ve only got one ruler there. An emperor. And an army to match the title.”
Wells gave a small nod, eyes tracing the portrait one last time before he folded it with care, returning it to the safety of his pocket. “It’s beautiful there,” he spoke quietly. “A different world.”
Inessa’s hand found his shoulder, eyes lingering on him. A mirror of the faces he’d just tucked away. His father’s steady weight, his mother’s tender pride. “Do they have one as well? To look at while you’re away.”
He exhaled as he said, so faint the words barely reached her, “They’re gone.”
Inessa’s eyes dipped, the sadness there but contained, as she gave his shoulder a light squeeze.
The weight of loss sat in every corner, stretching between us as my thoughts slipped to Gemma. If she hadn’t died, would we even be here, chasing Nyctom’s shadow? Or would another tragedy have drawn a different path beneath our feet, dragging us onward all the same?
