My entire body goes still before my mind catches up. I know that voice.
I turn slowly and see her standing near the well, hood pushed back, silver hair gleaming in the morning sun like frost. Ysoria looks exactly as she always does: poised, composed, and impossibly out of place in the cheerful chaos of Bellmere.
Roseth glances between us, immediately sensing the shift in the air. “Friend of yours?”
The word friend feels dangerously inaccurate.
“Yes,” I say carefully. “Something like that.”
Ysoria approaches with measured steps, her gaze flicking briefly toward Roseth before returning to me. There is no surprise in her expression, only quiet calculation.
“So it is true,” she says softly. “That you stayed.”
Roseth clears her throat gently. “I can give you two a moment.”
Her instinct to step away twists something in my chest.
“You do not have to leave,” I say quickly.
Ysoria studies that reaction with sharp interest. Roseth hesitates, then offers Ysoria a polite nod before slipping into the forge.
Only when the door closes does Ysoria speak again.
“Join me on a walk,”I insist as we go through the back door.
We are further awaybefore she speaks.
“You are in danger,” she says.
“I assumed as much when you appeared.” I grunt
Her lips twitch faintly. “Charming as always. Tell me, does she know what you are?”
I do not answer.
She sighs softly. “Khaivor, listen to me. Word has begun to move in Kantor. There are whispers of a bell whose resonance carries beyond its maker. If the nobility hears of this place, they will not come as visitors.”
My stomach tightens.
“She does not even realize what she has made,” Ysoria continues. “That bell could amplify magical frequencies across distances we once believed impossible. It could influence entire regions. Entire armies.”
I glance toward the forge door.
“She made it to celebrate a festival,” I say quietly.
“Yes,” Ysoria replies. “And that innocence will not protect her.”
The words settle like frost in my lungs.
“We need to leave,” she says gently. “Before someone else arrives.”
I open my mouth to argue, to insist that I am not leaving again, that I am not abandoning this fragile, beautiful life I have somehow stumbled into.
Then the sensation hits me.
A prickle along the back of my neck. A subtle shift in the air, like the faint echo of breath where none should be. Years of training snap awake in an instant.
Someone is watching.
