“That you shouldn't have left without telling me.”
I stop cold. The voice isn’t memory. It’s him.
“You’re in Velcryn,” I think back, testing it.
“Yes.” The word is edged. Controlled anger beneath it. “You shouldn’t have left like that.”
My heart pounds. “We can talk like this? I felt memories, emotions fragments, but words? Since when?”
“Fragments came first. This is clearer. The bond deepened enough.”
I swallow. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you had enough to manage. And because shared channels require caution.”
That sounds like him, but it makes me so mad.
“AND YOU JUST NEVER DECIDED TO TELL ME? REALLY? HOW CAN YOU?—”
“Easy there, Amelia. I have my reasons.”
I am just about to scream into the connection again when:
“We’ll speak when I return.”
The connection withdraws. I stand there a moment longer trying to process it all.
16
ZEIDAN
Ireturn to Nytheria with Velcryn still clinging to my skin. Stone and incense. Marble restraint. The Matrons’ voices layered with implication and warning, every word sharpened to test whether the bond has altered me in ways they can no longer control. I left that chamber with my authority intact, my position unchallenged, for now, but something in me feels scraped raw, like armor worn too long without rest.
I do not go to the council halls first. I go to her. The bond pulls hard the moment I cross the final ward, a tight, unignorable thread that snaps into place with a force that makes my breath hitch. Anger flares along it immediately, hers, hot and indignant, followed by something else I don’t like how easily I recognize.
Defiance. Of course it is. Like she is made to oppose me at every step.
She’s in the eastern corridor near the root sanctum when I find her, boots dusted with soil, hair pulled back too tightly, magic still humming close to the surface of her skin. She turns the instant she senses me, eyes flashing.
“You don’t get to be angry,” she says before I can speak.
I stop a few paces away. “You left without telling me.”
“You were busy,” she shoots back. “Or did the Matrons suddenly stop demanding obedience?”
The edge in her voice is sharp enough to draw blood. The bond thrums, caught between us, feeding on the friction.
“You shadow-walked,” I say, keeping my tone level by sheer discipline. “Into root tunnels you know are unstable. You confronted an elder without support. You tracked treason alone. We talked that we will do it together.”
Her chin lifts. “I am not a child! I handled it.”
“You survived it,” I correct. “That is not the same thing.”
Her eyes blaze. “I am not fragile.”
“I never said you were.”
“You don’t have to,” she snaps. “You loom like I might shatter if you blink wrong.”