He pointed lazily toward my head, one brow arched. “You’re aware you’re not currently wearing it, then?”
My hand shot to my face.Fuck.
Maybe I had forgotten ripping it off before slicing my dagger clean across that guy’s throat. To be fair, the thing was impossible to breathe in.
“I’m not the only brunette in Csolenia,” I reminded him. “Red hair, however...”
Only one man wore flames that bright. Only one whose magic burned to match them. The commander of the king’s guard, my brother, and the leader of our Order.
Callum only scoffed, his smirk fading when the wind shifted, brushing cold against our skin. A low howl rolled through the trees, not wolf, not mortal—
My stomach tightened. “Cal…” I whispered. “Did you feel anything different? Any sign of the Bale?”
The fall of the three kingdoms came faster than anyone expected. The gods had warned us, if we became divided, we would crumble.
Yet still, greed triumphed.
So, a sickness spread through Selvarra. Despite the rumors against the curse, the sickness, the rot, was not me.
“Nothing.” His voice came steady, though his flame wavered. “Just the usual hum. Magic feeding, yielding. No Bale though.” His stare cut to mine. “Butyoufaltered. Keep your shields tight, Verena. Don’t let them slip.”
I gave him an assessing look. “No one can be as precise and perfect as you, every godsdamned second.”
He only lifted his chin, smug, that familiar spark lighting his face. “Perfection runs in the Hale veins.”
My face betrayed me, a flicker of fracture that never quite healed.
Perfection didn’t run in my veins. I wasn’t a Hale. I wasn’t anyone.
Once, I had been an orphan no one remembered. Until Callum had found me in a wicker basket in this very forest, with an ivory blanket and a name stitched into its seam.
Verena.
I became Verena Hale that day, twenty-six years ago. Until I was old enough to decide to change the H to a V.
Vale. The one part I had made my own.
That’s all I had left of who I was. No faces, no feelings, no memories. Just a single piece of fabric and the echo of a name to hold me together.
Callum’s eyes caught mine, narrowing as he noticed where I was staring— far west, beyond the trees, beyond the veil of night.
“You’re not searching for those damn Nyctom stars again, are you? You know no matter how far you reach, you’ll only see Luamis’ sky.”
The Bale was rumored to have begun the moment King Kairos of Nyctom fell twenty years ago.
The night their stars went dark.
My voice was an intimate murmur as I asked, “Don’t you ever wonder if they still litter the dark kingdom’s universe, or if the Bale plucked them out one by one?”
Callum let out a strenuous exhale. “I do.”
I sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to answer further. We’ve had this same conversation many times before.
“I wish I could have seen if the rumors were true at least.”
He looked to me. “Which ones, exactly?”
“The ones that swore their endless nights withered any dreams, letting their nightmares breathe strong and deep.”
