The promise burned on my skin like a brand.
Then he was gone—stepping into shadow, disappearing between one breath and the next, leaving me alone in the Umbral Sanctuary with three days of rules to follow and the ache of his absence already building in my chest.
The nursery felt larger without him. Emptier. The shadows still curled toward me, welcoming and warm, but they seemed to be waiting too—for their master to return, for the bond to strengthen, for everything we'd promised each other to finally come true.
I pressed my palm flat against my heart. Felt both rhythms beating there—mine and his, connected despite the distance, two halves of something that would be whole soon.
Three days.
I could survive three days.
And then . . .
The ghost of his promise burned on my skin as I lay back against the shadow-silk pillows and began to wait.
Chapter 5
ImissedhimbeforeIeven opened my eyes.
His heartbeat—that second pulse I'd grown accustomed to, steady and certain beneath my own—had gone distant overnight. Muffled. Like a voice calling through water, present but unreachable. I pressed my palm flat against my chest and felt only my own rhythm, faster than it should have been, already searching for what it couldn't find.
I made myself get up anyway.
The Sanctuary responded to my waking the way it always did: star-veins in the walls brightening to something approximating dawn, shadows drawing back to give me space. It knew me now. Recognized me the way it recognized him. But without Morgrith here to anchor the connection, everything felt slightly off. Like a song played in the wrong key.
Breakfast waited in the dining chamber—appeared, really, the way food always appeared in this place, as if the Sanctuary itself was determined to follow his rules even in his absence. Bread. Soft cheese. Sliced fruit arranged on a dark plate that gleamedwith trapped starlight. The same things he'd fed me that first night, piece by piece, honey-dipped and sacred.
I sat alone at the table for two.
The bread tasted like nothing.
Not bad. Not stale. Just . . . empty. I chewed and swallowed because those were the rules, because I'd promised, because somewhere across impossible distance he might feel my obedience through the bond and know I was keeping faith. But the pleasure was gone. The simple joy I'd discovered in eating—in being fed, in being cared for—required him there to witness it.
I finished everything on the plate anyway.
Good girl.
The words echoed in my memory, his voice rough with restrained wanting, and I pressed my thighs together beneath the table even though no one was watching.
Especially because no one was watching.
The nursery called me back afterward, though I told myself I was just resting. Following rules. Being good.
The truth was messier.
My body thrummed with energy I couldn't name—transformation magic still settling into my bones, rewiring my nerves, changing me into something that could match him. I felt it like static beneath my skin, like lightning with nowhere to strike. In the days before, his presence had grounded the current. His touch on my hair, his voice in my ear, the simple fact of his attention—it had given the energy somewhere to go.
Now it just built.
I paced the nursery like a caged thing. Ran my fingers along the walls where shadow-puppets waited, dormant, their stories on hold until someone wanted to see them. Pressed my palms against the cool surface and felt the Sanctuary's heartbeat beneath—slower than mine, ancient and patient, as if it had all the time in the world to wait.
I didn't.
The shelves caught my attention around midday.
I'd noticed them before, of course. Morgrith had pointed them out during the tour, mentioned that they held "objects" without elaborating. I'd been too overwhelmed then—too lost in the vastness of everything he was offering—to look closely.
Now, alone, I looked.