“Your people?” He scoffed and his hand tightened around mine. “The ones who would have seen you shackled or dead for the crime of existing in the presence of a forsaken bond? They are no longer your people.”
“My family is in Haelen!” I shouted, shooting to my feet. “My friends. Good people who are caught in the middle of a war that is starting because ofme. I will not stand by while my old world is turned to ash.”
Talon’s hand shot out, his calloused fingers catching my chin and forcing my gaze to lock with his. The possessiveness in his eyes was as clear and cold as Thrynn water.
“Your soul is tethered to mine. Your home is where I am. Your people will either accept what you have become, or they will fall. It changes nothing between us. You belong to the shadows now. You belong to me.”
My eyes searched his, looking for a crack, but his resolve was concrete. I licked my dry lips, and his gaze dropped to the motion, his thumb tightening its pinch on my chin.
A soft rap at the archway broke the tension. Leona entered, her face tired as she carried a small stone flagon. She glanced between us and moved toward the rocky bedside table.
“He needs to drink this,” she said quietly, pouring a liquid that glowed with a mesmerizing violet hue. The scent of crushed herbs filled the room.
“What is it?” I asked, pulling away from Talon’s grasp.
“A distillation of star-moss and spirit-bloom,” Leona replied, offering the cup to Talon. “It will rejuvenate his damaged spirit and knit the shadow-veins back together.”
Talon took the cup, with a grateful grumble. He drained the violet liquid in a single sip, his eyes closing as a faint glow rippled beneath his tattoos.
The tension in his frame seemed to ease, just a fraction, though the weariness remained etched in his brow.
Leona moved to me, her hand resting briefly on my shoulder. “And you, Kaelia. You must rest. Your body is also rejuvenating.”
As she slipped out of the chamber, the silence returned. Talon watched me, his eyes burning with obvious exhaustion. The nausea I had been fighting finally surged, along with a wave of overwhelming fatigue.
I slumped back onto the bed, my strength vanishing like mist in the sun. I did not have the energy to speak anymore.
Before my eyes drifted shut, I felt the bed dip. A large, warm hand found my cheek, tugging my face into a kiss.
I sighed against his lips.
Talon pulled back and tapped my cheek. “Get some rest, little flame. I am meeting with Bater but will join you shortly.”
I tried to burrow into the furs, desperate to wrap myself in their warmth and disappear, but my body had other plans.
An insistent pressure in my bladder made sleep an impossible luxury.
With a groan of frustration, I kicked back the heavy blankets. Every muscle screamed in a protesting chorus as I forced myself upright and drifted toward the washroom.
I reached the basin and splashed cold water over my face, the chill doing little to settle the anxious beat of my pulse.
When I finally looked up, I flinched at my disheveled state.
My hair was a tangled nest of sweat-dampened strands, and my lips were cracked, almost pale enough to blend in with my skin.
I leaned in closer, my fingers gripping the cool edge of the stone.
I traced a finger across the surface, outlining the dark bruises beneath my eyes just as the glass tilted slowly.
I blinked, rubbing my bleary eyes, but the distortion did not fade. It deepened, creating a ripple-like effect that rapidly expanded.
The walls behind me in the reflection began to melt, the glowing stone darkening into the blood-stained dirt of a battlefield.
The reflection of my own face began to warp. My eyes bled into pools of unblinking white, and my skin took on the gray, ashen hue of the dead. I tried to pull away, but my feet felt as though they had been fused to the floor.
A hand reached out from the surface of the mirror.
The fingers were long, skeletal, and topped with silver-gray nails. They pressed against the glass from the other side, the surface bending like liquid silk.