Sorren does not look at me when he speaks.
“What you say is true,” he admits, voice steady. “Yet you twist it. You paint strategy as weakness. Patience as cowardice. Love as defeat.”
His hands flex at his sides.
“My father did not raise me to be ruled by rage. He raised me to be a king. One who places the safety of his court above his own desire for vengeance. One who accepts aid when it is offered, because doing so is the greatest strength.”
Now he looks up at me.
“One who understands that survival is never a solitary act. Two are always stronger than one,” he says. “Especially when one of them is as worthy as Nora.”
The way he says my name, with such pride and tenderness, almost undoes me.
Not mate.
Not heir’s mate.
Nora.
Like I’m not a title. Not a tool. Not a weakness.
Just…me.
My throat tightens, something fragile and fierce blooming behind my ribs. I press my hand to the bars before I can stop myself, ignoring the cold that bites into my skin.
“I’m here, Sorren,” I say, my voice shaking. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Emotion flickers across his face, but it’s not relief like I expected. This is something softer.
Sadder.
Like I’ve just promised him something he already knows he cannot keep.
“Will you fight for the sword and the amulet? For your kingdom? For your love?” the voice booms.
Sorren does not hesitate. “Always.”
He shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet, knees bending, hands lifting, as his shoulders square toward whatever comes next. The movement is smooth. Practiced. Familiar in a way that has nothing to do with panic and everything to do with training.
With war.
This is where he belongs.
In the dirt.
Between violence and the people he swore to protect.
“So it will be,” says the voice, but I almost don’t hear it because another sound rends the air.
A ripping. A snapping.
A wet, splintering crack that sends a shiver of revulsion through my body.
The walls move.
At first I think it’s a trick of the light. That the strange brightness is playing with my eyes, but the packed earth of the walls surrounding Sorren bulge outward as something beneath them pushes free.
The thick roots threaded through the dirt twitch.
