It is a performance of peace.
The Southern Concord delegation sits at a long table with their hands folded as if patience is a weapon they use often. Their leader, Envoy Marcellan, is older than I expected, lined face, careful eyes, a smile that never becomes warmth.
My mother stands in the corner of the hall, a silent presence of authority. Zeidan is not at the table when I arrive, and the absence stings even though it shouldn’t. I can feel him elsewhere in the compound, distant and controlled, but the bond keeps tugging toward him as if it knows I am stepping into something precarious.
I straighten my shoulders and walk forward.
“Envoy Marcellan,” I say, inclining my head. “You honor Nytheria by meeting with us.”
He rises, returning the gesture. “Heir Crow. We honor your request.”
I sit across from him, hands steady on the table even as my stomach knots.
“We understand your region is experiencing… instability,” he begins.
“Instability caused by deliberate sabotage,” I reply evenly. “Someone is poisoning the Wildspont.”
His brows rise slightly. “That is a grave claim.”
“It is a true one,” I say. “And the longer we spend pretending it is natural decay, the more likely it becomes that the rot spreads beyond our borders.”
His gaze flicks to the side, toward my mother, then back to me. “The Concord does not intervene in internal conflicts.”
“I’m not asking you to intervene,” I say. “I’m asking you to trade. To provide access. To allow us to trace the movement of certain rare components through your routes.”
He folds his hands more tightly. “Components?”
I hold his eyes. “Dusk-bloom resin.”
His expression does not change, but I feel something in the air shift, like the negotiation hall has inhaled.
“Rare,” he says softly. “Dangerous in the wrong hands.”
“Exactly,” I reply. “We have reason to believe it is being used to destabilize magic conduits.”
“And you want us to open our ledgers,” he says, “to assist your investigation.”
“I want you to protect your routes,” I counter. “Because if Nytheria collapses, your caravans lose a border passage and gain a wasteland.”
He studies me.
And then the bond flickers with something that isn’t mine. It’s faint at first, like a pressure behind my eyes. A cold irritation. A flash of memory I don’t recognize: stone corridors, a voice speaking in clipped Velcryn cadence, the taste of restraint.
I blink, and my magic responds to the disruption.
The lanterns overhead sway as if a wind passes through the hall, though the air is still. The leaves in the canopy tremble. The soft glow of the spirit-lights flares and then steadies.
It’s minor, but Marcellan notices.
His gaze sharpens, not with fear, but with calculation. “You seem strained.”
“I’m fine,” I say too quickly, and I hate myself for it.
Across the hall, I sense Zeidan move, an immediate shift in his presence as if he’s felt the falter through the bond as well.
A second later he is there, stepping into the hall with the quiet authority he carries even when he tries not to. He does not sit beside me. He positions himself slightly behind and to the left, close enough to be undeniable, distant enough to keep the negotiation from becoming about him.
Marcellan’s eyes flick up. “Prince Valesh.”
