“No,” Varek replies, his voice carrying without effort. “It does not.”
Close now, I can feel the charge in the air, how everyone’s braced for one of two possibilities. Either someone has come in who was not meant to, which is bad enough, or the Crown has found Dathanor at last, which is the kind of bad that rewrites futures.
“Where’s Jamie?” Sonny asks.
“Secured,” Shanae says. “Jack and Caly are with him.”
Good.
The word appears in my head and goes nowhere useful because there’s no time for relief, only for the next thing. From the eastward tunnel comes the thunder of running feet, ragged and uneven, too heavy for a scout, too desperate for a measured retreat. Heads turn as one. Weapons are lifted. The whole passage seems to narrow.
Out of the tunnel mouth staggers a figure I do not recognise at first.
Too much blood.
Too much dirt.
Too much of him hidden under the wreckage of what used to be expensive fabric and royal arrogance.
Then he hits the brighter spill of bioluminescent light, and the room seems to drop out from under itself.
“Aelith,” Kael says, and for the first time since I’ve known him, the name sounds like a blow.
The prince stumbles another step, one hand braced against the wall. Blood slicks his side, dark against deep blue skin. The glow of his sigil is dimmer than I’ve ever seen it, stuttering weakly under torn cloth. One eye is swelling. His breathing comes ragged and wet, and for a ridiculous half-second, all I can think is that he looks less like a prince and more like something hauled half-dead from a dungeon.
He's alone. That realisation strikes harder than the sight of his injuries.
No Dawson trailing close and stubborn with his bright grin. No escort. No guards. Just Aelith, wrecked and furious and somehow still upright out of pure spite.
Then his knees give.
Kael reaches him first.
It’s not even a question. One moment he’s beside Varek; the next he has crossed the space in three hard strides and caught Aelith before he can smash face-first into the stone. The move is so instinctive, so immediate, that nobody has time to comment on it. Aelith sags against him for a second, teeth bared, then shoves Kael weakly as though he would rather bleed out than be helped by anyone.
“Do not,” Kael says, low and lethal, “test me.”
Aelith laughs. The sound is ugly and split down the middle by pain. “You always did have a flair for timing.”
“Who followed you?” Varek asks.
Straight to it… that’s my guy. There’s no wasted softness or visible crack in command.
Aelith lifts his head. The eye that is not half swollen finds Varek through a blur of blood and exhaustion. “No one.”
The answer came too fast.
Nobody in the corridor believes him. I can feel that disbelief move through the room like a change in weather. Shanae doesn’t even bother hiding hers. Sonny mutters something profane under his breath. Kael’s jaw locks so hard, I can see the tension from where I stand.
“Inside,” Varek says.
There’s no argument about that one. Aelith’s in no shape to make one, and if he somehow finds the strength, Kael takes the choice from him by hauling his arm over one shoulder and half dragging, half carrying him towards the medical rooms. The rest of us move with them in a knot of weapons and suspicion, the corridor parting ahead as others clear the way.
As we walk, I keep looking for Dawson like the act of looking hard enough might conjure him into existence.
Nothing.
Only Aelith’s blood dripping onto the stone in a dark, broken trail.
