“Tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
Garrick sighs. “You’re not pretending very hard.”
“I don’t pretend,” I say. “I endure.”
Garrick mistakes my stillness for surrender. It isn’t.
The Matrons believe they control Velcryn because they control the stories. Votes. Ritual authority. Fear. They forget that power doesn’t always sit in chambers. Sometimes it waits. Sometimes it watches.
The anchors I’m retrieving are older than the Council. Older than their laws.
Once activated in Nytheria, they will tether Vrakken magic to the Wildspont directly. Not domination. Integration. If it works, Velcryn becomes indispensable. Untouchable. The Council won’t dare strip me of command while the stability of two realms rests on my decisions.
If it fails… I don’t finish that thought.
That night,sleep refuses me.
I lie awake, the suppression runes burning faintly against my skin, a dull, persistent ache like a brand pressed too long. The bond pushes against them constantly, a restless tide seeking shore, testing every seam of restraint I’ve laid over it.
I close my eyes. She is there immediately.
Not in sight or sound, but in sensation. Her exhaustion seeps into me first, bone-deep, stubborn, the kind she refuses to acknowledge even to herself. Beneath it coils frustration, sharp and brittle, and under that… unease. She is unsettled. Alert in a way that sleep does not soothe. I feel the way she turns on her side, then back again. The way her magic flutters, reaching for equilibrium and failing.
I could speak to her. The knowledge sits heavy in my chest. The bond allows it, more than emotion, more than instinct. Words, if I choose them. Thought shaped and carried across the connection. She doesn’t know that yet. I haven’t told her. I won’t. Not while Nytheria watches her. Not while there is a ward to spy on her.
Secrets are safer than comfort. Still, the urge to reach her claws at me. I test the bond carefully, not with words, but with intent. I soften my magic, lower its edges, let calm bleed through the connection like warm water poured slowly into cold.
Her breathing eases. Encouraged despite myself, I shape something gentler. A memory of mine. Moonlight over still water. A forest untouched by rot. Roots strong and whole beneath the earth, humming with quiet life. One of my favourite places. I dont even know why I share it with her.
I release it and pull back at once, pulse quickening, as if I’ve crossed a line I swore I wouldn’t.
For a long moment, there is nothing. But then something brushes back. A feeling. The scent of rain on stone. The memory of standing barefoot in grass after a storm, the world rinsed clean.
It steals my breath. She doesn’t know she’s answered me.
I lie there in the dark, the suppression runes cooling at last, the bond quieter now, not gone, never gone, but eased. Against my will, my mouth curves into the faintest smile.
When sleep finally claims me, it does so gently. For once I do not dream of fire.
I returnto Nytheria before dawn.
Officially, I am here to inspect progress. Unofficially, the bond drags me across leagues like a leash snapping tight.
Amelia is in the council chamber when I arrive, mid-argument, surrounded by elders who look ready to tear her apart with words alone.
She looks worse than she did when I left. It hits me the moment I see her, standing rigid before the council, eyes bright with fury and fatigue, magic stretched thin beneath her skin. She hasn’t slept properly. I feel it through the bond like a dull ache behind my eyes.
Distance has not dulled the connection. It has sharpened it into something raw.
Her control is fraying. Not breaking, but close. Too close for someone already carrying the weight of a dying land. Guilt coils low in my chest, unwelcome and persistent. She never asked to bear this alone.
“She’s overstepping,” Elder Cael snaps. “We did not authorize?—”
“She doesn’t need your authorization,” I say from the doorway.
Every head turns.