“A Fae king doesn’t strike me as someone who frightens easily.”
“You saved his granddaughter from a pyre three hundred years ago. You didn’t know what she was. You didn’t know what he was. You acted because something in you chose it.” She holds my gaze. “He watched from the other side of the Veil. He watched you kill seventeen people in seconds. He watched his granddaughter pulled from the flames by a vampire who had no reason to intervene and did it anyway.”
The garden is very quiet.
“He could not reach her in time,” Seraphina says. “The Veil was too narrow. His power was too far away. A king who can reshape mountains could not save a child from a fire. You did what he could not.”
I think about the night in Germany. The square. The smoke. A child’s eyes finding mine in the darkness, already resigned to the flames. I hadn’t thought about consequences. I hadn’t thought about debt. I had moved because something in me moved, and seventeen people died, and a girl lived.
“And you? What did you learn about him in thirty days?”
Her expression shifts.
“He loved my mother. I know that now. He left to protect her. Seven centuries, and he’s never recovered from the choice.”
“I’ll meet him,” I say.
“You’ll do more than meet him.” The dry humor returns. “You’ll negotiate. And you’ll discover that Fae negotiations make vampire politics look like children arguing over sweets.”
“I’ve survived vampire politics for longer than most of your coven has been alive.”
“Yes. And he’s survived Fae politics for considerably longer.” She walks to the far edge of the garden, where the oaks are thickest. I follow. “The Fae cannot lie. They can mislead, omit, and reframe until the truth is unrecognizable, but they cannot speak a false thing. Every word Lanthar says to you will be true. Every silence will be deliberate.”
“I know how to listen to silence.”
“You know how to listen to vampire silence.” She looks at me. “Fae silence is older and holds more.”
She stops walking. Faces me.
“Iron is forbidden in Thessivane. It burns Fae skin and suppresses Fae magic. Celeste carries Konstantin’smodifications in her blood. In Thessivane, the realm itself may react to what she carries.”
“React how?”
“I don’t know. Mira and I carry Fae blood. The realm will welcome us. You and Celeste are an unknown. The Lithenmere is my father’s palace. It’s grown from the mountain itself, and it’s alive. It may be curious. It may be hostile. It will certainly notice.”
“You’re telling me the building might attack us.”
“I’m telling you the building is alive and it has opinions.” She turns back to the oaks. “Get some rest. The Veil crossing requires more energy than you expect.”
I leave her in the garden. The branches are still angled toward her.
I pass the training room on my way back.
The door is open. Inside, Marcellus stands at the center of the mats. Elena faces him, hands up, stance wide. Raw. Undisciplined. Every strike carrying more force than technique.
Marcellus corrects her guard. He doesn’t touch her. He demonstrates the position with his own hands and waits.
She adjusts. Tries again.
“Your left drops when you commit to the right,” he says. “Want me to show you?”
She nods. He moves through the correction slowly, hands visible, letting her track every motion before she mirrors it.
I watch long enough to see her strike again. Her left stays up this time. Marcellus says nothing about it. He just sets his own stance and waits for the next one.
I move on.
I reach our quarters. The door closes behind me.
