Warmth practically flows off her like she’s stepped into a new place and decided she’s going to like it.
“Hi,” she says, lifting a hand in a small wave. “This is… wow. This place is a lot greener than I expected. And people. Humans.” She scans us all, her smile brightening even more when it turns to me and Sonny.
I blink, and Sonny lets out a quiet, disbelieving breath beside me. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The king watches her for a second, and for the first time since he arrived, he softens. Only slightly and only for her. Then he lifts his gaze back to us. “This is my mate, Chelsea May,” he says.
And just like that, everything changes.
VAREK
Dathanor holds its darkness like a shield, stone and distance absorbing sound until only what matters reaches the senses. Here, in the heart of Glowranth’s capital, the darkness feels thinner and closer, as though it presses in rather than protects. The air moves more freely, carrying faint sounds through fractured streets and abandoned structures, threading between buildings that once held power and now hold only memory.
I stand at the edge of the room, looking out through a narrow break in the stone where part of the wall has long since fallen away.
Below, the city stretches in uneven layers of shadow and dim green light. Patrols move in the distance with disciplined precision, their routes already observed and memorised. This position was chosen with care. It is high enough to provide visibility and hidden enough to avoid attention.
It is safe.
For now.
Behind me, the others settle for the night. Voices are lowered, movements quieten and eventually still. One by one, they rest, trusting those of us on watch to keep danger at bay. That trust carries weight, and I do not take it lightly. Not here.Not now. Not when we stand so close to the centre of everything we oppose.
Even so, my attention shifts.
Not outward, but towards him.
Pax moves quietly behind me, though I feel him before I hear him. His presence threads through me with steady certainty, no longer something that startles or unsettles. It grounds me. Anchors me in a way I have come to rely upon.
He comes to stand at my side, close enough that our arms brush.
“You’re staring,” he murmurs.
“I’m watching,” I reply.
He exhales softly, amused. “Yeah. That too.”
The faint humour in Pax’s voice draws warmth through me, and I turn my head slightly to look at him. The low light softens the lines of his face, but there is nothing diminished in him. He has adapted to this place in ways I did not anticipate. Not by changing who he is, but by allowing himself to remain entirely whole within it.
He is sharp. Resilient. Alive.
He is mine.
“You should rest,” I say.
“So should you.”
“I do not require as much sleep as you.”
“Yeah, well,” he mutters, shifting a fraction closer, “I’m not sleeping anyway.”
That does not surprise me. This place does not lend itself to rest, and neither does the weight of what we carry.
The silence that follows is not empty. It holds everything we do not say, and everything we no longer need to.
After a moment, he leans his shoulder into mine. It is not a movement of necessity, but of choice. I allow myself to lean intohim in return, a small adjustment that carries more meaning than it should.
“They’re settling,” he says quietly, glancing toward the others.
