The corridoroutside the medical room feels narrower than it did minutes ago, as though the walls themselves have leaned in to listen.
Weapons change hands in quiet exchanges, metal catching the bioluminescent glow that pulses faintly through the stone. Voices are low, purposeful, stripped of anything unnecessary. Even the air feels heavier, thick with that particular kind of tension that comes when something has already gone wrong and everyone is waiting to see just how much worse it’s about to get.
Sonny moves beside me, grabbing a short blade from a rack bolted into the wall and tossing it my way without breaking stride. “Try not to drop that on your foot,” he mutters.
I catch it easily, testing the weight out of habit. “You almost wound me.”
“Give it time,” he shoots back. “Plenty of opportunities today.”
Fair.
The bond tugs, subtle but insistent, drawing my awareness back towards Varek even as I force myself to stay focused on what’s directly in front of me. He’s still in the medical room, anchored to the centre of whatever storm Aelith’s arrival hasdragged in behind it, and every instinct I’ve got wants to stay there. Stay close. Stay within reach.
Instead, I turn with Sonny and head deeper into the settlement.
Movement ripples through Dathanor as we pass, fighters shifting position, sentries doubling up at choke points, runners slipping through side passages with messages. No one is panicking, but no one is relaxed either. This is what preparedness looks like when it’s been earned the hard way.
We reach the inner corridor just as voices rise ahead.
Jamie’s.
“I said I’m fine!”
The words bounce off the stone with enough force to carry. When we round the corner, the scene comes into focus quickly—Jack standing squarely in front of his nephew, arms crossed, jaw firm. Caly just off to one side, close enough to intervene, far enough to not crowd him. A couple of others linger nearby with the uncomfortable look of people caught in the blast radius of someone else’s argument.
Jamie looks like he’s about three seconds away from bolting.
“You’re not fine,” Jack says, his voice controlled but stretched thin at the edges. “You’re a target.”
“I’m always a target,” Jamie shoots back. “That’s kind of the whole thing here, yeah?”
“That’s not the same, and you know it.”
“I know you’re treating me like I’m made of glass.”
“I’m treating you like someone who matters.”
“I already knew that!”
The frustration in his voice cracks just enough on the last word to give away what’s sitting under it. Fear, maybe. Or anger at being afraid.
Caly shifts slightly, drawing Jamie’s attention without interrupting outright. “You’re being relocated,” he says, his tonemeasured, deliberately light, as though this is nothing more than a change of rooms and not a reaction to a queen with a habit of breaking people. “That’s not the same as being confined.”
Jamie turns on him immediately. “It feels like it is.”
“That doesn’t make it accurate,” Caly replies, and there’s the faintest curve to his mouth that takes some of the sting out of the words, softening the edges without dulling the point.
Tension hums beneath the exchange, and it takes me a second to realise why. It isn’t just Jamie pushing back against being hidden. It isn’t just Jack bracing like he’s about to physically block the entire world from reaching his nephew.
It’s everything that just walked into this settlement bleeding.
Aelith.
He’s unpredictable and desperate. He’s also smart enough to be dangerous and scared enough to make that danger worse.
I step in before Jack says something he might regret. “Hey.”
Jamie’s head snaps towards me, his expression sharpening as he takes me in. “You’re up.”
