“And I’m good at it.” His head shakes. “Really fucking good. I’ve played the role for so long, it’s become muscle memory—the Veirmont golden boy, Serrane’s prized officer. Kill on command, smile on cue. But then you showed up and everything got a thousand times more complicated, because there’s more to me than that.”
Candlelight sways, throwing shadows across his cheekbones as he drags a hand down his face, as though he’s bracing for what comes next.
My gut twists, pulse picking up, then his arm settles on the bed beside me, and the feelings dissolve.
“When I was sixteen,” he goes on. “I bonded. I was young—probably too young—but Merrin insisted. At first, it was incredible, I felt invincible, bonding with a dragon was all I’d ever dreamed of. But his power was too much. I couldn’t control it at that age, and not long after that, Sophia happened. At the time, she was the only good thing in my life, and I ruined it. I took her Threads, her magic. I?—”
He cuts himself off, gaze lowering, and with my anger muted, the urge to reach for him rushes in fast. Balling my hands into fists, I force myself to stay still as he continues.
“The following year after she died was hell. I was a hormonal boy being raised by the fucking Veirmonts, newly bonded,drowningin magic, training undercover as a bloody cadet in the Citadel—listening to them spew their bullshit every goddam day, and I started to become reckless. Erratic. Less caring. And one morning, on a routine training assignment with Lucien, I did something stupid, really fucking stupid, and injured myself—bad.”
Lifting his gaze back to mine, my hands loosen and the space between us shrinks by inches as I find myself leaning toward him, listening.
“Luc did his best, but there was no way I was getting out of it alive. We’d been friends since we were kids, yet he knew nothing at the time about the Movement, about my true role. I didn’t know which side he would choose, but I didn’t have time to find out. So I called Cal, my dragon. I saw him land beside us, and that’s the last thing I remember before I blacked out. When I woke, I was down here, in the Southern Peaks, and I knewinstantly something had shifted. Cal had always been a presence in my mind—but it was more than that now. He had made some kind of oath, a deal with the other dragons, a sacrifice, to keep me alive by merging his essence with mine. Chaining himself to my human life. That’s when the scales appeared on my back.”
His voice drops, as though he’s admitting a crime.
“And now, when I choose, I can shift into him, Cal...”
Everything stills—it’s the kind of silence you get in the moment after a weapon's been drawn, and my brain freezes.
“We’re not the same,” Talen adds before my mind can catch up. “He’s separate, Cal’s separate. And inside the Veils, I can usually keep him at bay… But he is always there. You can tell by the gold in my eyes.”
From the side of the bed, he watches as my eyes flick back and forth, searching his.
My heart-rate stays eerily calm, still a pressure starts to rise behind my temples as though my skull’s not built to hold all this. Like if I try to take in one more impossible thing, I’ll split in half.
On instinct, I shift back, barely an inch, though it feels like miles. Not because I’m afraid—though maybe Iwouldbe,shouldbe, if he wasn’t suppressing my emotions—because I need space to think. To process.
He shifted.How... How is that even possible?
My mouth opens to ask, then immediately clamps down hard.
No, I can't. I can't go there. Not yet. It's too much. My brain's still clawing to make sense of the Movement... the façade, the role he's played since the start.
What he did.
“Ezzy, Finn, Rowan.” There's no anger in my voice—just grief, solid and unmoving. “You said they wouldn’t get touched. That you wouldn’t hurt them. You promised. I trusted you.”
“I know. I know what I said. I tried. God, Itriedto keep them out of it.” The plea comes out broken as he sits up straighter, fingers digging into the fabric of his trousers. “Ezzy’s here, she’s alive and you can see her soon, but she lost more blood than any of us expected—she’ll be okay, it will just take time.”
A knot in my chest loosens, knowing she’s okay, that she’s here, yet I don't move closer.
“She didn’t feel anything; I made sure of that.” He adds. “But if I hadn’t done it—Professor Strannt would have, and she wouldn’t have survived that.”
Remorse spreads across his face with the admission, tugging at my heart. I desperately want to believe he’s telling the truth. I saw the hesitation in his blade, I saw the twisted pleasure in Professor Strannt’s expression, the kind that said he would have enjoyed doing far worse.
And that doesn’t answer for everything else.
“And Finn? Rowan?” I press.
“Finn... I don’t know, we are working on it. And Rowan...” His voice falters on the name as he buries his head into his hands. “I’m so sorry, Lyra. I know how close you were to him. Cal arrived—I arrived—too late, and when Luc got there, he was too far gone. If he could have been saved, Luc would have tried.”
This time the tug on my heart turns into a yank as I watch his fingers rake through his hair, and suddenly, an overwhelming sense of guilt hits me. Rowan was helping me. Rowan died because of me, because I wouldn’t stop pushing, wouldn’t stop asking questions.
The thought hits too close, and my eyes start to sting, but if I let the tears come, they’ll drag my own mistakes with them, so I swallow them back and keep my focus on Talen.
“What about Brian?” I force my voice steady. “I told you about him—his research. Andyoutold them,youkilled him.”
