Only a collective lowering of heads.
Bater cleared his throat loudly.
“Well,” he said, clapping once before Eladaria could silence him, “it is about time.”
A faint ripple of laughter moved through the chamber, easing the intensity without diminishing it.
“You were insufferable when you were merely important,” he continued, his grin returning. “I shudder to think what this title will do to you.”
I glanced at him, unable to fully suppress my smile. “I will ensure you are assigned twice the training rotations.”
“Cruel already,” he sighed dramatically. “A natural leader.”
Talon’s thumb brushed lightly over my knuckles. As the council dispersed slowly, offering quiet words of congratulations, he leaned closer.
“You wear it well,” he murmured.
Emotion pressed unexpectedly against my throat. I had left my family behind. I had left the familiar scent of home, the laughter around worn wooden tables, the simple safety of anonymity.
Yet here, in this city of shadow and silver light, I had been given something else.
A place.
A title.
A future.
“It feels heavy,” I admitted softly.
“It should,” he replied. “Power that does not weigh upon you is power that will one day crush you.”
I looked around the chamber, at the city that had once terrified me.
“I still miss them,” I confessed under my breath.
His thumb brushed gently over my knuckles.
“I know.”
“I wonder if they think of me.”
“They do,” he said with quiet certainty. “And when they are ready, the gate will remain open.”
My chest tightened, but the ache did not undo me.
Because I was not divided anymore.
I could love where I came from and still choose where I stood.
As we left the chamber together, stepping into the corridor where the lantern light glowed soft and steady, I realized something with a clarity that settled deep in my bones.
I was no longer surviving Umbral. I was shaping it.
And whatever storms lay ahead, I would meet them not as a girl torn between two worlds, but as the Lady of one who had chosen her.
45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE