“I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know.”
She withdraws her hand slowly. I fold the wings back in, magic sealing them away beneath skin and shadow once more.
A knock interrupts us then. Three precise raps against the door. We both turn.
“The Matrons,” I say.
“You’ll be careful?” she asks.
“I always am.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I meet her gaze.
“I won’t let them fracture what we’re building,” I say quietly.
She studies my face, searching for something she can rely on.
“Come back,” she says.
“I will.”
When I step away this time, the distance feels different. As I leave the room and the corridor of black stone closes around me, I carry the warmth of her touch with me longer than I intend to.
15
AMELIA
Velcryn feels colder without him in the room.
The hearth still burns low and steady. The stone walls still hum with old magic. But the space he occupies when he’s here, measured, deliberate, impossible to ignore, is gone, and the absence leaves a strange vacuum in its wake. I tell myself I don’t notice. I am getting ahead of myself again. He might be nice now, but we are allies. We work towards a shared goal, nothing more…right?
The message arrives just after noon.
It comes through the Nytherian sigil etched into the inside of my wrist, my coven mark warming suddenly, then flaring sharp enough to steal my breath. I press my fingers against it and let the communication unfold.
My mother’s voice spills into my mind, strained and stripped of ceremony.
The Wildspont is failing again. Rapidly. The stabilization nodes you and Zeidan set are collapsing. Something has poisoned the roots. It wasn’t gradual. It was deliberate.
My stomach drops.
“How bad?” I murmur into the magic.
Worse than before.
The connection flickers.
Come home.
The message fades, leaving my skin cold. For a long moment I stand there in Zeidan’s guest chamber, staring at the door through which he left hours ago to face the Matrons. I can still feel him somewhere deep in the citadel, distant, controlled, wrapped in political tension.
He told me he would return. He told me to wait. The Wildspont does not have time for waiting.
I move before I allow myself to reconsider. I leave a message on the dining table:
