I swallow.
“A warning,” I say.
Outside, thunder rolls. And I know, deep in my bones, that the bond didn’t show me a possibility. It showed me a path. And if we’re not careful, she will be crowned in ash.
The room erupts. Voices rise. Accusations fly. Someone shouts that the vision is a manipulation, an illusion, Vrakkentrickery. Others look sick, shaken by what they felt through the backlash of the bond.
They felt it. That’s the problem. I straighten slowly, placing myself half a step in front of Amelia without thinking.
“The vision was not an attack,” I say. “It was a warning.”
Fear ripples through the council like rot spreading through grain.
Her mother looks at me for a long moment. Measuring and calculating.
Then, quietly: “If this is what’s coming… we need your help.”
I smile because this is going exactly according to my plan.
9
AMELIA
The archive smells like dust, pressed flowers, and secrets no one meant to survive. It’s one of my favourite places.
I stand at the center of the circular chamber, surrounded by shelves that curve upward into shadow, each carved from living rootstone. The Wildspont hums faintly beneath my boots, quieter here, muffled by centuries of wards and reverence. This place was built to remember things the coven prefers to forget.
Zeidan stands across from me, one hand braced against a stone table layered in scrolls and bone-bound tomes. He looks wildly out of place among the soft glow of spirit-lanterns and woven prayer charms, dark, sharp, contained. Like a blade laid carefully among relics.
We were supposed to be here to save my lands. To find answers. To be practical.
Instead, he is distracting me in a way I don’t know how to name without admitting too much.
Ever since the bond snapped into place, my awareness of him has been relentless. A gravity I feel even when I refuse to look directly at him. I can sense where he stands in the room without trying, the subtle shift of air when he moves, the quietconcentration coiled beneath his stillness. It makes it harder to focus, harder to breathe evenly, harder to remember why I decided ignoring him was the safer option.
So I do. I ignore the pull. I ignore him.
Because interest is one thing, curiosity is manageable. But this…this is something that could become more if I let it, and that kind of weakness is dangerous, especially with someone like him.
Still… my gaze betrays me when I’m not careful.
His features are mesmerizing in a way that feels unfair, almost unnatural. Vrakken beauty isn’t soft or inviting; it’s eternal, honed, sharpened by time. I wonder how old he really is, how many centuries are carved into that calm expression. I wonder if the stories are true. If his fangs are as sharp as they say. If a bite would hurt.
Or if it would feel like something else entirely.
The thought startles me, heat curling low in my stomach, and I turn sharply back to my work, heart pounding.
This bond is already too much. And I have to remember that he is not a temptation. He is a risk.
But I can’t help wanting to talk to him. Just a little. To understand him. To put edges around the shape of him instead of letting him exist as this looming, dangerous presence in my mind.
“You’re scowling,” I tell him, without looking up from the text I’m deciphering.
“I’m reading,” he replies coolly.
“That’s a scowl.”
He glances at me, black eyes unreadable. “Your people write in circles. Every sentence contradicts itself twice before arriving at a conclusion.”
