Across the table, Eladaria’s expression shifted, a flicker of surprise breaking her stoic mask and Bater’s massive shoulders stiffened. The Shadow Forgers beside Talon did not move an inch, perfect statues of black stone.
Talon’s lips thinned. “You push the boundaries of your place, little flame. Be mindful.”
I slammed my palm against the table, the impact rattling plates and sending a thunderclap ricocheting off the vaulted ceiling. “How can you tell me this bond is sacred, that your people will protect it, when Xylos remains in the Thrynn chambers?”
Silence collapsed over the hall. Not even the hum of the lumengems stirred.
For the first time, Talon faltered. Surprise cracked his perfect composure before his expression hardened, his eyes solidifying into molten stone.
I leaned forward, dragging each word like a blade across the stillness. “His own kind tortures him for a bond forged two centuries ago. Two centuries, Talon.”
“Do not speak of things you do not understand.”
Maybe I did not understand the ancient politics or the weight of the pact, but I understood enough to know cruelty when it stared me in the face.
Xylos and Thora’s bond was recorded as a Lunthra, but I knew that two beings did not gravitate toward each other with that kind of magnetic intensity unless something ancient and unbreakable pulled them close. It was precisely the same way a Veythar gained nothing by forging a bond with a meager human.
“How could I understand?” I declared, throwing my hands wide. “When you have yet to explain anything to me?”
The room no longer belonged to the Veythar, it belonged to the tension between us, to the wildfire burning through my chest.
His voice cleaved through the silence. “Leave.”
The command was not for me. It was for everyone else.
Chairs scraped back reluctantly. Eladaria rose first, her composure fraying in the smallest tremor of her hand as she pushed her chair away. As she passed, her eyes caught mine, soft with sympathy, before she lowered her gaze and disappeared through the archway.
Bater stood next. His skin, already pale, drained further when Talon’s eyes cut toward him in warning. He left quickly, his bulk swallowed by shadow.
Neya lingered, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. A single one slipped down her cheek as she looked at me and her head shook in a small, almost invisible warning, before she turned and followed the others into the corridor.
The Shadow Forgers dissolved into the dark as though they had never been there.
And then it was only Talon and I.
Talon pushed his chair back, the sound cutting through the empty chamber. He did not rise. His tattooed hands stayed clenched on his thighs, the tendons standing out—the only sign that he was not as calm as his expression led me to believe.
“Stand, Kaelia.”
For a heartbeat I wanted to snap, to refuse, to hurl every plate on the table at his broad, infuriating chest. But the room belonged to him. The territory, the silence, the walls, were all shaped in his shadow. Fighting here would be like striking granite with bare knuckles.
So I stood, my movements stiff.
He lifted one finger. A silentcome here.The arrogance of it burned under my skin, but my feet moved anyway, carrying me around the long table until I stood before him. He watched me like he was reading every flicker of rebellion in my muscles.
Then he tipped his chin up, just barely. “Get on your knees.”
My body froze, heat and cold colliding in my veins all at once, and my palms broke into a clammy sweat. “Pardon me?”
“You disrespected me before my kin,” he said. “You challenged my authority and misrepresented truths you do not possess. You cornered me in my own hall. I will not look up to you while you stand in defiance. Get on your knees.”
The humiliation hit like a crack of lightning, scorching and hot, but beneath the sting lived something far more dangerous—pain.
I did not want to be at war with him, and I did not want to feel small in front of the man whose presence had made me feel chosen.
My hands curled into fists so tight my nails bit crescents into my palms. His eyes remained locked onto mine, unflinching and absolute.
I lowered myself, my knees hitting the cold stone with a dull thud. The chill rushed up through my skin and the shame followed.