The corridor was lit by flickering sconces, their light unsteady as breath on glass. Grey's footsteps echoed as she moved away from the Convocation chamber, the last of the shouting still ringing in her ears. Alaric followed, his silence louder than fury.
"Grey…"
"No," she snapped, rounding on him. Her braid swung over one shoulder, silver thread catching firelight. "Don't you dare say it."
He stopped short, face a mask she couldn't see behind. "Say what?"
"That I'm reckless. That I'm doomed. That I shouldn't have taken the oath."
"I wasn't going to say that," he said quietly. "I was going to ask if it was worth it—giving yourself away like that. Pretending it's all for the greater good, when really you're just trying to die in a way no one can argue with."
Her breath caught—sharp, strangled. She almost screamed. "You think I want to die?"
"I think you don't care enough if you do."
The corridor went very still.
Grey crossed her arms over the ache blooming in her ribs. "I had to be strong."
His voice rose, cracking. "Strength isn't silence, Grey! It's surviving with your heart intact. It's knowing you don't have to bear everything alone."
She flinched, her eyes narrowing icily. "Don't you dare talk to me about bearing things alone, Fen. Not when you're the one making secret vows to ancient swords and locking up half your soul!"
Alaric's face stiffened. The burn of her words hit their mark.
"Why? Why does Cadeyrn hate you so much?" she asked, the question trembling from her lips.
Alaric looked away.
Grey waited. When no answer came, her heart folded in on itself. "You still don't trust me."
"It's not that—"
"Then what?"
He shook his head once, but his shoulders were tight, hands clenched at his sides as if bracing for impact. His jaw worked silently before he answered, throat moving with a hard swallow. The usual lazy tilt of his stance was gone—he stood ramrod straight, weight evenly balanced like a man about to walk into a storm. His amber eyes were steady, but there was a fracture behind them, barely contained. He shook his head once. "I don't want you to look at me differently."
Her breath was shallow. The flickering sconces cast shadowed fire between them, but the light never bridged the gap. She studied his face and saw too many shadows—not just grief and regret, but something older, buried deeper. Her heart thudded unevenly. What if his past was even darker than the stories whispered? What if the worst truths hadn't been told yet? Her arms tightened across her chest, as if she could shield herself from the weight of a truth she hadn't asked for but feared all the same.
The air held the tension of two people not speaking the things they needed to say. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Her throat tightened, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. She turned on her heel before he could see them fall, footsteps retreating quickly down the corridor, the flare of her coat like a drawn curtain.
She couldn't let him see her break—not now. Not when her resolve had become the only shield she had left.
The greenhouse smelled of mint and turned earth. Night-glow moss glimmered on the planter walls, and the chill was chased off by a soft runefire in a hanging lantern.
Grey sat curled on the bench, arms wrapped around her knees. Her skin still prickled where sigils pulsed faintly beneath her sleeves.
Kamara entered first, holding a steaming cup. "No lectures. Just tea."
Wickham followed behind, juggling a tin of burnt-looking biscuits and a half-tied scarf. "And questionable snacks. One of them might be a pebble."
Grey snorted despite herself. Wickham handed her the tin with a mock bow.
"You know," he said, settling on the edge of the bench, "most saviours don't come accessorised with scorched glyphs and existential dread."
Kamara arched an eyebrow. "Let her sit. Don't jostle her head off."
They didn't try to fix her. They just stayed.
Grey leaned sideways until her head found Kamara's shoulder. It felt solid. Human. Real.
Wickham looped a charm bracelet over her wrist with exaggerated ceremony. It jangled like bones and bottle caps.
"Ugly as sin," he declared with a crooked smile tugging at one corner of his mouth, a poor disguise for the quiet worry in his eyes. "Just like me."
Grey blinked at the thing, then laughed quietly. "Thanks."
Silence stretched out, soft as moss.
She sat between them, the weight of her choices still heavy—but not hers to carry alone anymore.
Seelie Court, Veilside
In a room thick with incense and heat, Cadeyrn sat alone with a glass of liquid that shimmered like melted moonlight. It steamed faintly in the dim, sourceless glow of the chamber—an exotic fae concoction brewed from something long extinct in the mortal world.
He swirled the glass slowly, staring at the play of silver ripples with a distant, unreadable expression.
Memory crept in without invitation.
There had been a night once—soft-lanterned and heady with spring—when he and Alaric had shared the spoils of a hunt and the lazy aftermath of victory. Alaric had still been wild in those times, all sharp edges and beautiful primal grace, not yet softened by the human company he had so come to prefer.
They had shared everything then—blood, battles, women, secrets. They had passed the bottle back and forth, shoulder to shoulder in the half-dark, a beautiful human redhead between them, laughter mingling with wine-sweet kisses.
Until everything split. Until Alaric turned.
Cadeyrn hadn't replaced him. Not in a thousand years. No one else had matched the wildfire that was Alaric in those days—beautiful, untamed, untethered, glorious in his fury and impossible devotion. That kind of bond didn't fade. It burned, slow and cruel, through the long centuries like a scar he could never quite stop touching. And in the quiet moments—like this one, with magically alchemical drink in hand—he still tasted the absence. Still felt the ache.
He exhaled, long and slow, and let his head tip back against the high-backed chair. The walls of the chamber seemed to echo with what once was—his laugh, Alaric's smirk, the intimacy of shared glances that lingered too long and meant too much. There had been heat between them, once. Not merely the thrill of battle or the sharp edge of loyalty—but something tangled and reckless, something deeper than either of them ever named aloud. He still carried it like a splinter beneath the skin, buried too deep to remove without bleeding.
The door whispered open behind him. He didn't turn.
Morien stepped from the shadows, his expression impassive, but with the faintest curl of satisfaction at the corner of his mouth. "The sabotage at the Hall succeeded. Just as you orchestrated. We never aimed to kill—merely to unmoor. But the unrest…" He tilted his head, eyes glinting. "It festers beautifully. The Convocation will not mend easily."
Cadeyrn raised the glass to his lips, letting the warmth linger.
"Good," he murmured, voice almost kind. "Let them tear each other apart. He always did hate silence."