Page 221 of Sokâr

But the silence stretched.

They did not circle the topic. They simply pretended it wasn’t one. Auryn didn’t want to think on it more than she had to. Already, she saw Vargrún in every shadow and corner. Already, she jumped every time his voice rumbled in her thoughts.

And Kailorien? He did not want the distraction for her. He feared it would dilute her focus. They’d been preparing for the Path of Fire and the Rite of Judgment tirelessly for more than a year.

The Mandate of Unbroken Shields hinged on her success. And not just that. Her credibility as Sokâr. A step towards thwarting the Council’s constant attempts to silence her voice. A path towards independence.

Towards a time when Kailorien would have to go on Campaign once more.

Thatwasn’t a question any longer. They didn’t address it, but the reality and finality of the decision crushed them both beneath its weight.

It wasn’tif. It waswhen.

The night before the Path of Fire, Auryn could not sleep. Whenever her eyelids drifted closed, she sawhim. Red eyes in the dark. Teeth gleaming in the shape of a wolf. Vargrún’s whisper licked across her skin, just as it had when he had pressed through Kailorien’s body and claimed her lips in a heated kiss—as it had when his will had tried to claimher. Now, even in silence, the echo of his possession suffocated like smoke lodged in her lungs.

She turned in her bed. The silk sheets tangled at her knees, clinging with damp heat.

A tremor shook through her.

She could not breathe lying down. Could not risk sleep when every heartbeat drew her closer to tomorrow—the Path, the Cycle of Fire, the endless line of torches blazing across Krystopolis. Something foreboding lay ahead. She did not know where, only that her enemies were waiting for her to stumble. Waiting for her to fall.

For a fleeting instant, she considered using her Sight. She had done it once before, with Kailorien at Stonewake—long before their dark descent into the Veinroads. That one glimpse of the threads had burned. It had almost cost her everything.

She whispered to herself,I cannot risk it now. Not when they are already watching for me to falter.

Using the Sight was not like Weaving. It was not controlled or deliberate. It drew from something deeper, something older, something that stirred wrongness inside her blood. Touching that power was akin to opening a door to a place she did not belong.

So instead, she rose.

She paced.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

The chamber stretched long and shadowed in the dark. The Polis lights outside the window flared, throwing jagged lines of orange across the black marble floor. Each flash felt like a pulse of accusation.Memories came. Cruel words and slurs thrown her way over more than half a century.

Ornament.

Shapeless.

Cursed.

Colorless.

Impostor.

Heretic.

She tried to distract herself with her journals, but when she opened the cabinet where she kept them, she grimaced. She’d hidden the volumes behind other tomes related to the Resh’Agar’s Runesgram—so carefully stashed it would take time to dig them out. By the time she pulled them free, sunlight had begun to bleed through the latticework of the city. Acrid, burning light. The sun of Fire.

This Cycle was always too bright. Always too hot. On the Surface, fires would claim entire fields and valleys. Here, within the Shields, the city would burn without flame. Melt. And today, the sun glared like a predator, pouring molten heat into the chamber with a warning.

I’ll walk in that for hours today. My sandals will blister. I’ll sweat until I want to scream. And worse, I cannot cast a web to ease it. The heat will devour my magic whole.

She pressed a hand to her brow. Already she could feel her own mana resisting, colliding with the heavy air. Her body rejected the heat asthough it were poison. Her lips parted on a sharp inhale. She bit down until she tasted blood. Auryn’s teeth unclenched slowly, copper sharp on her tongue. She lifted her head—and startled when a shadow moved across the floor.

“Kailorien,” she breathed.