“My fever is tolerable,” she frowned. “But what happens to you during such times is…” The words dried in her throat. “Have you never wondered what the cause may be? Perhaps there is a cure.”
“Had there been one, We would have found it.” The corner of his mouth lifted in something like amusement. “Is this pity?” he asked, and for a breath, his voice darkened just enough to chill the heat of the flames. “Pray,spare Usthat.”
She shook her head. “Not pity. Just…” Her arms wrapped around her torso. “I know what it is like, to be bound in such chains.”
“There is your answer,” he murmured. “As to why We have shared our pain with you. Our secret. Not even Iridias is aware.”
“Why haven’t you told him? He might understand—”
“He would not believe Us,” Shu’Khan cut in. Not frustrated. Not sorrowful. Just truth.
And once again, Auryn shied from the growing guilt in her stomach.
That they werewronginghim.
“Do not look so troubled, child. We have lived for millennia with this pain, and We have learned to master it.”
And everything else beneath it.
Auryn didn’t know how to reply to Shu’Khan’s words, so she let them go—filed them away like so many of the other things he said that hovered somewhere between sincerity and his unique poetic cadence.
“I received your gift,” she said instead. “How do you find such rare tomes when it seems I’ve excavated half the Umbral Archive and haven’t found as much?”
Shu’Khan drifted to a nearby divan, his movement like oil across water. He didn’t simply sit—hesprawled,lounging across the cushions with the entitlement of a deity whose temple was his birthright. The silver embroidery of his robes caught the firelight, sparking in sharp relief against the ink-dark silk.
He raised a single, languid finger.
Auryn approached, but only halfway. She stopped at a respectful distance—close enough to converse, far enough that he could not reach her without effort. A boundary.
He noticed, of course. His smile was faint. Practiced. “We look outside the borders of the Shields.”
She tilted her head, puzzled. “Outside? You mean…the Surface?”
“Indeed.”
A beat.
“Trade and communication with the Surface is riddled with tension,” she said. “Father…I didn’t know you went to such lengths.”
“We do many things that go unspoken,” he replied. He traced a pattern idly into the velvet arm of the divan, the gesture too casual for the weight of his words. “All for knowledge. For legacy. And, most recently, for you. Our Sokâr.”
The fire cracked in the hearth, casting gold and crimson across the mosaic floor. Somewhere deep in the walls, mana pipes hissed, like breath behind stone.
“And how is your research on the Runesgram?” Shu’Khan’s voice was gentle, but his eyes—when they met hers—were anything but. Empty. Hollow. But within: a glint. A poised barb, needle-fine and waiting.
Should you tell him about me? About…us?
Auryn didn’t flinch. Not anymore.
“I understand its workings well,” she said, careful. “But in practice…”
She let it hang between them. Let silence veil what she would not share.
His gaze sharpened.
“The Wolf,” he said. “Yes. We are certain those howls are not easily tamed.”
He stood, uncoiling from the divan like a shadow might rise from its caster. Crossing toward the hearth, he reached out—not for her, but for the flame. His fingers hovered just close enough to feel the heat.
