Page 69 of Blade of the Nightking

A faint embarrassment crept beneath his scrutiny, my thoughts turning unwillingly to my magic—to the way it had risen when I touched him, to how little control I still had over it, how it seemed to move with a will entirely its own. Would I ever learn to wield it properly, or was there something broken within me that would always keep me from mastering it?

“El.” His voice pulled me back, low and suddenly grave. “I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything,” I breathed.

“No matter what happens,” he continued, “no matter what the cost… Rìan cannot know the truth. He cannot know what happened to Dannis.”

A frown pulled at my brow, and I regretted the movement instantly as the tender skin of my cheek protested.

“But Aedric… I don’t know the truth. I don’t know what happened to him.”

He scrutinized me for a long moment, his face unreadable. “Promise me.”

I hesitated only a moment before nodding.

“On your life,” he pressed. “And on mine.”

The intensity in his gaze sent a chill through me. “I promise.”

He exhaled slowly, some of the tension easing from his shoulders, his expression warming.

“Thank you,” he said, then gestured gently to the side of my face. “Now let’s take care of that.”

In the room, I moved immediately toward the vanity, wanting to see what was causing the persistent pain in my cheek, but Aedric stopped me with a soft sound of disapproval, angling the mirror upward before guiding me to sit at the edge of the bed instead.

He leaned down, pressing a brief kiss to my forehead, his familiar scent wrapping around me—burnt amber, rain on stone—but the smoke beneath it made my stomach roil.

“Don't touch it,” he murmured. “I'll have a healer send something up.”

I sank back against the pillows, forcing my hand to remain at my side.

He paused in the doorway. When I turned my head toward him, I found him watching me, and the look on his face—heavy with something like regret—caught me off guard.

“What is it?”

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “I didn’t mean…” His voice trailed off, and after a moment he offered a small, careful smile. “Get some rest. I’ll be back shortly.”

He closed the door behind him.

I tried to rest, but my mind refused to quiet. My thoughts churned restlessly, circling back again and again to Levinica—to the way she'd reached for me, the desperation and savagery with which she'd lunged to seize me. How unimaginable her suffering must have been, to drive her to madness over the loss of her son.

I sat up straighter. Something Hyperia had said in Thistra surfaced then, unbidden. When Veylan had spoken of Levinica's visions, Hyperia had dismissed them outright, calling them unreliable.

My pulse quickened.

If that was true… then what did it mean for the vision Veylan had shared with us? The one in which Levinica had foreseen my bond with Rìan being broken? Had that been one of the unreliable ones?

A quiet panic began to take hold as the thought unfolded, slow and insidious. I needed that vision to be true—needed it to mean something, to be more than the fractured remnants of a mind unraveling. But what if it wasn’t? What if we’d come all this way for nothing?

I was so lost in the spiral of it that the soft knock at my door startled me, my body jolting as though I’d been pulled suddenly from deep water.

“Come in.” I pushed myself upright, already expecting to see Aedric with something in hand to soothe the throbbing in my cheek.

But it was Hamish who entered.

“Elowen?” he began cautiously as he stepped inside, but whatever he’d meant to say died the moment he saw my face.

In two strides he crossed the room, his fingers closing gently around my chin as he turned my face toward the light. His expression hardened at once, his jaw tightening. Then his eyes met mine, and what I saw there was infinitely worse.