I remember the fractures I saw in his aura when we first met. The old wounds where the Arbiter’s magic had tried to grab hold and failed. “Your power rejected it.”
“Violently.” A ghost of dark humor crosses his features. “The crown shattered. Three city blocks collapsed from the backlash. I ran while the Arbiter was recovering.”
“You ran.” I study him—this man who killed six Ice Sentinels in under two minutes, who took wounds that would’ve dropped anyone else without flinching. “From one fight.”
“From a fight I couldn’t win.” No shame in his voice. No false bravado. Honest assessment. “My power lets me disrupt the Arbiter’s control. Reject crowns. Shatter divine ice. But the Arbiter’s more than ice and crowns. It’s partial divinity. And right now, I’m not strong enough to wound that.”
Right now.
SIX
ZEPHYRA
The words snag in my mind. “You think you could be? Strong enough?”
He holds my gaze. “I think power evolves. I think there are ways to become more than what you started as. And I think the Arbiter’s been the gods’ executioner for too long.”
The objections line up in my mind—belief isn’t evidence, hope isn’t strategy, we’re two people against a divine creature that’s never been defeated.
None of them make it past my teeth.
“The magic’s building again.” I turn back to the path, breaking the intensity of the moment.
He doesn’t argue. Falls into step beside me, our arms brushing with every few strides. I could create more distance. Move faster, force him to trail behind.
We travel in silence for a while. The ley-roads twist and branch around us, crystalline walls pulsing with corrupt blue light. I navigate by instinct and Auric Veil, choosing paths that won’t collapse under our feet or discharge magical energy without warning. Tyr follows my lead, trusting my sight the way I’m starting to trust his violence.
The realization sits heavily in my mind. I’ve spent years avoiding exactly this—relying on anyone, letting anyone rely on me. Dependencies are vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities get you killed.
But here I am, leading a dragon through corrupted ley-roads, and he’s following without question. Here I am, trusting.
Twice, I guide us around sections where the magic’s built to dangerous levels—pockets of energy that would’ve fried us both if we’d walked through them. Once, he catches my arm and pulls me back from a floor section that collapses into a void three seconds later. No warning from my sight—the collapse was too sudden, too random. His instincts saved us.
“How did you know?” I stare at the gap in the floor, at the darkness yawning beneath where I would’ve been standing.
“Felt wrong.” He releases my arm, but his fingers linger for a moment before pulling away. “Can’t explain it better than that.”
I don’t press. Some survival instincts can’t be articulated. They exist below language, in the animal parts of our brains that recognize danger before our conscious minds catch up.
An hour passes. Then another. The ley-roads seem endless, paths looping and reconnecting in patterns that defy normal geography. My eyes ache from reading the magic. My bones feel brittle from the divine pressure bearing down. Even my breath’s coming harder, lungs struggling against air that’s thick with the Arbiter’s magic.
“There.” Tyr’s voice breaks my concentration. His hand touches my arm—brief, deliberate contact that sends heat racing through my veins despite my efforts to ignore it. “Alcove ahead. Left wall.”
I follow his gesture. He’s right—there’s a wider section where the ley-road walls curve outward, creating a sheltered space. Big enough for two people, barely. No corruption that I can sense. A pocket of relative safety in this frozen hell.
“Good eye.”
“You’re exhausted.” His voice carries no judgment, just certainty. “The Auric Veil takes a toll.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” He moves toward the alcove, not waiting for my agreement. “We rest here. Thirty minutes.”
Every instinct bristles at taking orders. I’ve been navigating these kinds of dangers since before he decided to make me his project.
Instead, I follow him into the alcove.
The space is cramped. We have to sit close—shoulders touching, legs aligned. The blue light from the ley-road walls casts strange shadows across his features, highlighting the sharp planes of his face.
