Not jealousy.
Just the slow realization that someone else could give her something he never dared to offer:
A future that didn’t come with a grave.
The itching at his nape returned, worsening with each day that Auryn wasn’t by his side. He passed the northern post; the Maradryn wagons still lined in waiting. A few traders had dismounted to stretch. They spoke in low tones, hunched against the wind, unaware that their words carried.
And Kailorien—commander, Resh’Agar, destroyer of empires—stopped.
Because suddenly their words sharpened into stark relief out of the droning that had plagued him all morning.
“I swear on the Sundirge, I saw her in the old prayer hall—bare-handed, and the stonebloomedbeneath her.”
“She’s the one the whispers warned about. The one the Gliders lost track of.”
“There’s coin on her head. Half a ring of Plats, last I heard. Triple if she’s brought in breathing.”
“Not just the magic, but the look of her. More than a few want her for themselves.”
“It’s that silver hair. Moragrim Vel's woman would give a handful of plats to make a wig of it." A dark chuckle followed.
Kailorien didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. He just stood there, the mountain wind cutting through his coat, the blood in his veins turning cold.Plats. Breathing. Wanted.The words wrapped around his throat like chains. The bounty had already reached them. The world was learning of her, and it wouldn't wait for Kailorien's permission to claim her.
Zarrek was right.
She wouldn’t be safe in Maradryn.
She wouldn’t be safe anywhere.
The documents blurred.
Ritual records, names, service history, sentence, Batcher numbers identifying each warrior…
Kailorien had been staring at them for hours—layers of ink and runes and sealed orders, all meant to prepare for execution of the Mandate. For lining up his men and watching the light leave their eyes as he told them of their Sovereign's will. A man of morals would have shuddered. That man's heart might have withered, tripped in its cadence, at the thought of murdering those loyal to him.
But the Resh'Agar's heart beat steadily. Unwavering.
He could not throw down his crest as his Second had done. His fate had been sealed from the moment of his creation. Though theResh'Agar departs the Crystal City to spread the glory of the Destroyer on the Surface, he must always return home. To the Flaeme. To the Shields. For each soul he'd been Mandated to Repurpose here, a hundred innocents waited in Krystopolis for his protection. For without him, the Shields would fade, and the city would fall to the brutality of the Cycles. And without the Flaeme…
He scratched at his nape.
A growl stirred in the back of his thoughts. A dark shadow. Waiting for a moment of weakness. Waiting for Kailorien to break his tether to the Flaeme and unleash the sealed beast inside his soul. He could not—would not—risk releasing the Vargrún on the world. Once had been enough to last a hundred lifetimes.
Some nights, he could still hear the screams…
He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. The hearth in his chamber crackled. The logs snapped. Outside, the wind howled like a thing denied. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking of Auryn—of her silver hair shorn off for bounty, of her fragile wrists in shackles, of her eyes dimming. Would she watch the Repurposing? Would she try to stop him? Even with her uncanny intuition, she could not know how tightly he was bound to obey. But would knowing make a difference?
He didn’t hear the door open. Not until the air shifted and bent, the magic in the room humming in awareness. Auryn stood just inside the threshold, quiet as a breath. Her hair was braided back in the Riven Blade warrior’s style, like she’d come for war and not talk.
She looked…decided.
Her gaze swept his chamber once, then returned to him.
“I hate my room,” she said.
He stared at her.
“The castle is lonely,” she added.
