Page 163 of Sokâr

Her heartbeat roared in her ears. “Kail…” Her hand went to her shoulder like she could physically hold herself together.

His brows furrowed. “Auryn?”

The words ripped out of her before she could stop them. “Me too.”

They spoke in hushed voices long into the night. Of Vargrún. Of the whispers. Of the shadowed thoughts neither had dared confess until now. They unraveled their timelines—where it started, what he said, how itfelt.

Auryn spoke of the intrusive presence, the way he lingered just beneath her skin, not like Kailorien’s warmth in the Bond, but something colder. Hungrier. He spoke with familiarity, with knowledge no stranger should have. Her voice trembled as she admitted he knew things he shouldn't—things about Shu’Khan, about the Estâr ritual, about Kailorien himself.

Kailorien, in turn, admitted that he had first written it off as stress. Then as the ghost of madness from before. But now, in the wake of her confession, the pieces aligned. It wasn’t residual madness. It was presence. Conscious. Deliberate. He confessed that Vargrún sometimes spokewithhis voice—twisting it. Mocking it.

And worst of all?

Sometimes, it soundedcaring.

A silence fell again.

Then Auryn whispered, “I can’t shut him out. I’ve tried.” She looked away, shame coloring her tone. “I never Wove him. Never touched him. But he’s there. Always there.”

Kailorien’s voice was tight. “What if we shut off the Bond? Just temporarily. Put up walls. We’re able to. We’ve done it before.”

She looked at him, wide-eyed, wounded. Imagined losing the one place—theone thingshe had that was just theirs and theirs alone.

And shook her head.

“No,” she said, voice sharp with pain. “I won’t lose your voice to him. That place…” her hand pressed over her heart, “…it’sours.Ours, Kail. Not his.”

Her voice cracked. “It’s the one place we see each other—hear each other—clearly. We could be far away and still call to each other. We could be standing in a room full of people denouncing us, and we can hear each other’s voices above theirs. I won’t let him take that from me too.”

Something in him went still. Not the wariness, not the anger—him.

Through the Bond, she felt it like a slow exhale against her ribs; the warmth of recognition, the quiet ache of being chosen. His hand found the back of her neck, thumb resting just beneath her hairline, and stayed there. No words, no promises—just the steady thrum of his pulse in her skin, telling her he’d heard every word.

And so, they sat together in stillness, mourning a lack of a solution, yet determined to move forward, nonetheless.

34

Divine Mandate

Auryn stood at the head of the Circle of Rule with her spine ramrod straight and her hands calmly clasped in a posture of regal tolerance. Her serene visage bellied the storm within her heart and reflected nothing of the hurricane now raging in the Axis Hall. Councilors were shouting, arguing, moving through topics without motions or votes. Lamari Dross was sweating, his quill barely keeping up with conversation. The Resh’Agar looked to be on the verge of breaking the Circle of Rule with his fist.

And Shu’Khan watched it all with a dead-eyed silence, like a carrion wailer circling above the battlefield to await his turn for spoils.

The conversation had turned aggressive today when Draevan Sol spoke up about the Shields collapsing again. Even when he’d brought it up a few years past, nobody had liked him grumbling about impending doom. Now he was asking for funding—demanding, really.

He’d requested the allocation of more Gleams towards researching a solution, but many opposed him. Odd, for typically it was the opposite. Draevan had always carried a certain amount of influence in his words and motions. Not today, however. Today, he was seeking to thin out some pockets, a quest that was doomed to failure at the start.

Coupled with the Sovereign Flame’s reprimand that the Council was ignoring the Writ of the Ninth Lattice, the atmosphere had quickly turned from a roiling boil to full out war.

Suddenly, someone pointed to her.

Torven Rax, Commander of Civil Defense—a man with a booming voice and a fragile ego. Auryn had shot down his proposal for tighter curfews a few weeks back, and he still hadn’t recovered his pride.

“Take it from the Sokâr!” he shouted. “Should the Child of the Void not contribute to the health of the Shields? It isherineptitude which is causing the magic to fail. If she had joined with the Resh’Agar in Estâr years ago as was herduty—”

The Resh’Agar stood from his seat. That was all it took for Torven to swallow his tongue. Kailorien stared him down, his displeasure wrapping around the chamber like an unforgiving fist.

A tentative hand went up, trembling.