My blood turned to ice. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying Varyth can fold space. Bend distance. What feels like a thirty-minute walk to you was actually... well, it was actually a four-hour journey that he compressed into thirty minutes.” Darian’s voice was casual. “He brought you through the world, not across it.”

  I stared at the back of his head, my mind reeling.

  The strange disorientation, the way the forest had seemed to shift around us, the feeling that we were walking through a dream.

  He’d been manipulating the world itself. With me inside it. With my children inside it.

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Please don’t,” Darian said cheerfully. “Caorath hates it when people vomit on his scales. Very undignified.”

  But I barely heard him. My mind was spinning, trying to process the implications. If Varyth could fold space, bend distance, manipulate the very fabric of the realm...

  What else could he do?

  What else had he done?

  The ground was rushing up to meet us now, Caorath’s wings spread wide as he prepared to land. Thessarian touched down first in a spray of dirt and pebbles, Varyth dismounting with fluid grace.

  Caorath landed a moment later, and I slid off his back on unsteady legs, my mind reeling from Darian’s revelation.

  Varyth approached, taking in my expression with uncomfortable intensity. “Everything alright?”

  I stared at him—this insufferable, world-bending bastard who had the audacity to look concerned.

  “Oh, everything’s fantastic,” I said, dripping with enough venom to poison a small army. “Just found out you can apparently fold the fucking realm like laundry. Really adds a special touch to our working relationship.”

  Varyth’s expression didn’t even flicker. “Ah. Darian told you about the fold.”

  “The fold,” I repeated, letting out a laugh that could have cut glass. “Is that what we’re calling it? How wonderful. Next you’ll tell me it’s perfectly normal for High Lords to casually tear holes in realms for convenience.”

  “It is, actually.” He said it like he was discussing the price of bread. “Most High Lords can bend space to some degree. It’s hardly unusual.”

  I wanted to throttle him. Actually, genuinely, wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until that infuriating calm cracked. “Right. Of course. Silly me for not realising. I suppose next you’ll mention you can also manipulate time? Stop the sun? Maybe juggle a few moons for entertainment?”

  Behind me, Darian made a sound that was absolutely not a cough. When I whirled to glare at him, his eyes were dancing with mirth.

  “Sorry,” he said, not looking sorry at all. “You’re just... you’re handling this exactly like I thought you would.”

  “And how exactly is that?”

  “Like a feral cat someone just told the laws of reality are suggestions.” His grin was pure evil. “It’s entertaining as hell.”

  I turned back to Varyth, who was watching our exchange. “So when you rescued me from the Veil that first night⁠—”

  “I didn’t rescue you,” he said mildly. “I extracted you.”

  “Oh, well, when you put it like that, it sounds so much less traumatic.” The black fire stirred beneath my skin, responding to my spike of fury. “And then you decided to take me and my children on a lovely stroll through your personal pocket realm without mentioning it might be slightly fucking relevant information?”

  “Would it have changed anything?”

  The question hit me sideways. I opened my mouth to snap back, then stopped. Would it have changed anything? Would I have refused to go with him? Forced my children to face whatever horrors waited in that forest?

  “That’s not the point,” I said finally.

  “Isn’t it?”

  Varyth stepped closer, and I caught that familiar scent of sandalwood and dewed grass that always seemed to cling to him. “You needed safety. I provided it. The method was irrelevant.”

  “The method was you casually rewriting the world around my children without their knowledge or consent.”

  “And the alternative was leaving you to die in the wilderness.” His voice had gone soft, dangerous. “Tell me, Isara, would you have preferred that?”

  I wanted to argue. Wanted to rage at him for the manipulation, the casual dismissal, the way he made decisions about my life like I was a chess piece to be moved around his board.

  But underneath the fury was something else. Something that tasted like gratitude and felt like betrayal.

  Because he was right. I would have died out there. My children would have died. And whatever else Varyth was—arrogant, secretive, insufferably calm—he had saved us.

  Even if he’d done it by bending reality to his will.

  “You’re unbelievable,” I said finally, the fight draining out of me. “Absolutely fucking unbelievable.”

  “I’m aware,” Varyth said, and there was definitely amusement in his tone now. “Shall we continue? We have a limited window to complete our business here.”

  I glanced around, taking in our surroundings for the first time since landing. We stood in a clearing, and beneath the familiar hum that had threaded through my consciousness since crossing the Veil, something else stirred. A different melody, hauntingly beautiful, like wind chimes made of starlight and sorrow.

  And there, maybe a hundred yards away, the Veil stretched across the landscape like a silver scar.

  “Business,” I repeated. “Right. And what exactly is our business at the place that nearly killed me the first time I crossed it?”

  Varyth’s smile was sharp as broken glass. “We’re going to find out what you really are.”

  “What I really am?”

  “The black fire, Isara. The shadow flames.” His eyes gleamed. “They didn’t just appear when you crossed the Veil. They were always there, waiting. The Veil simply... awakened them.”

  “You’re saying I always had this power?” My voice came out higher than I wanted.

  “I’m saying the Veil doesn’t create magic, it reveals it.” Varyth moved closer, his presence overwhelming in the charged air. “And I’m going to prove it.”

  Behind us, both dragons settled down to wait with the patience of creatures who had done this before. Caorath even closed his eyes, apparently planning a nap.

  “Well,” Darian said, as he bounced on his toes. “This should be fun.”

  Varyth moved toward the Veil with the kind of predatory grace that made my skin crawl and my pulse quicken in equal measure.

  The silver barrier stretched before us, that impossible wall between worlds that had nearly torn me apart the first time I’d encountered it. But now, seeing it again, I could sense something different. The air around it didn’t just hum with magic. It screamed with it.

  Varyth stopped abruptly about twenty feet from the Veil, his head tilting as he studied something I couldn’t see.

  “Here,” he said, carrying a note of satisfaction that made the hair on my arms stand up. “This is where you crossed.”

  I squinted at the spot he was examining. It looked like every other section of the Veil to me, that same shimmering, silver barrier that seemed to exist somewhere between liquid and light. But as I focused, something began to emerge from the magical static.

  A distortion. Subtle, but there. It was like looking at the world through water, everything just slightly bent and wrong.

  “How can you tell?” I asked, though part of me already knew I wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “Because you left a mark.”

  He gestured toward the distortion, and I could see it more clearly now. The Veil wasn’t just bent at that spot, it was scarred. Like something had torn through it with enough force to leave a permanent wound in the fabric between worlds.

  “That’s impossible,” I breathed. “I just... I just stepped through it.”

  “You didn’t step through it,” Varyth corrected, his attention fixed on the damaged barrier. “You burned through it. Your magic carved a path where there shouldn’t have been one.”

  The song stirred beneath my skin, responding to his words like it recognised that twisted section.

  “Most beings who cross the Veil,” Varyth continued, moving closer to the distortion. “Leave barely a ripple. The barrier heals itself within moments, sealing the passage like it never existed.” He reached out, his fingers hovering just inches from the scarred section. “But this? This is still here. Still bleeding magic into both realms.”

  Darian whistled low under his breath. “That’s... not normal.”

  “No,” Varyth agreed, tone dropping to something almost reverent. “It’s not.”

  I stared at the wound I’d apparently carved, my mind reeling. “You’re saying I damaged the Veil?”

  “I’m saying you marked it.” Varyth turned to face me, and there was a hunger in his expression that made every instinct I had scream warnings. “The magic didn’t just help you cross, it claimed territory. Staked a claim on the boundary between worlds.”

  I stumbled backward, my breathing going shallow as panic clawed at my throat.

  “That’s why they can find me,” I whispered. “The attacks, the assassins, they’re not just sensing my magic. They’re following the fucking trail I left.”

  “Partly, yes.” Varyth’s voice was maddeningly calm. “Though it’s more complicated than that.”

  “More complicated how?” I snapped. “Because it seems pretty fucking straightforward to me. I ripped a hole in reality, left magic signalling my location, and now every nightmare in this realm wants to collect the prize.”

  “The scar isn’t signalling your location,” Varyth said patiently. “It’s signalling your nature. What you are. What you’re capable of.” His eyes gleamed with that dangerous light. “And that’s why we’re here.”

  He moved closer to the distorted section of the Veil, his movements careful but determined. “The barrier holds memories, Isara. Echoes of everything that’s ever crossed it. And right here.” He pressed his palm against the air just inches from the scar, and the space around his hand began to shimmer. “Right here, it remembers you.”

  I could feel the Veil’s memory pressing against my consciousness like a living thing.

  The sensation of being pulled apart while something ancient and hungry tried to devour me from the inside out. But underneath that agony was something else. Something that made my breath catch and the fire beneath my skin roar to life.

  Power. Raw, untamed, furious power that had torn through the barrier.

  I could hear Darian’s footsteps crunching away across the clearing, retreating to give us space probably. But I didn’t turn to watch him go.

  Varyth stayed perfectly still, his hand hovering near the scar I’d carved, studying the distortion like it held answers to questions I didn’t even know to ask.

  Then he turned his head, catching me with the full weight of his gaze.

  “Is there anything you miss about it?”

  “About what?”

  “About being human.”

  The question landed like a punch. Not because it was cruel, though maybe it was a little. But because it was so utterly unexpected that I didn’t have time to build my usual defences.

  “Not necessarily... being human itself.” The words came honest. “But sometimes I struggle to recognise myself. I look in mirrors and I’m not sure if it’s because of this—” I gestured vaguely at my pointed ear, the feature that marked me as something other than what I’d been for thirty years. “Or everything else I’ve been through.”

  My hand fell back to my side. “But there are some things I miss about home.”

  “Like what?” Varyth asked, the curiosity in his tone genuine.

  I hesitated for a moment, letting my gaze drift to the faint outline of the trees ahead.

  “The local apothecary.” A faint smile tugged at my lips. “It always smelled like this wonderful combination of sage and jasmine. I used to go there as a child, just to breathe it in.”

  I paused. “The colour of the sunset over the fields. It would turn the whole horizon this deep, golden orange, and for a moment, it was as though the world was on fire in the best way.”

  Varyth didn’t move. But his expression shifted, almost kind.

  A chuckle escaped me, tinged with nostalgia. “And my instructor for combat, he had this laugh. It’d sound the exact same every time I made a mistake. This ridiculous, booming laugh. It used to drive me mad, but now…” I shook my head, my smile faltering. “I think I’d give anything to hear it again.”

  I glanced down, my hands brushing absently at my sides. “My court,” I added after a pause. “For all its faults… it could be filled with laughter and celebration and fun. We had festivals that would light up the whole city. People dancing, music in every corner, food spilling from the tables.” I released a sigh. “For a moment, it made you forget everything else.”

  The memories surged up and over me, threatening to consume everything. I rolled my shoulders, letting out a slow breath, trying to shake them off. But they stayed.

  Gods, they always stayed.

  “My children,” I said, and a soft smile crept onto my face. “Running through the halls of our house, their laughter echoing everywhere. They carried the light with them—” I stopped. Forced myself to breathe. “No matter how dark things got.”

  Varyth stayed silent, his presence steady and warm, letting me speak.

  “And Navaire.” My voice caught on his name, a small break I couldn’t smooth away. “Gods, I miss him every day.”

  The air seemed to still around us as the admission slipped out. I hadn’t meant to say it aloud, hadn’t meant to give that part of myself away. But now that I had, I couldn’t take it back.

  “He would play with them for hours,” I said, the memory washing over me with bittersweet clarity. “Chasing them through the garden, building ridiculous forts from every blanket and cushion in the house. Sometimes I’d come home and find all of them asleep in a pile of pillows, surrounded by wooden swords and toy dragons.”

  I smiled despite the ache in my chest. “He was such a child himself sometimes. He’d get this look on his face, pure mischief. And I knew they were plotting. Usually something that would end with mud tracked through the entire house or honey somehow in someone’s hair.”

  Varyth was quiet, watching me with those eyes that seemed to see too much.

  “For what it’s worth,” he said, gentler now, “I think he would be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

  “You didn’t know him.”

  “I didn’t need to.” Varyth stood steady, unflinching. “I know you. And I can imagine the type of man who’d love you.”

  I stared at him, my breath catching somewhere between my ribs and my throat.

  I can imagine the type of man who’d love you.

  The words hung in the air between us like smoke, heavy and impossible to ignore. My pulse hammered against my wrists, my neck, every point where blood met skin.

  He’d said it so easily. So fucking casually. Like he hadn’t just carved those words directly into the parts of me I tried to keep buried.

  “You—” I started, then stopped, because what the fuck was I supposed to say to that?

  I saw the exact moment Varyth realised what he’d done. His composure cracked, and something almost panicked flickered across his features.

  “Varyth.”

  “I meant—” He started, and for the first time since I’d met him, the High Lord of Luceren looked genuinely panicked. “That is, what I meant to say was⁠—”

  He stopped. Dragged a hand through his ashen hair hard enough that I heard the catch of his rings against the strands.

  “I simply meant,” he tried again, his usual eloquence fracturing like ice. “That based on what you’ve told me about him, about your life together, I can extrapolate the sort of man he must have been. Patient. Understanding.”

  Another pause. His jaw worked like he was chewing on words he couldn’t quite spit out.

  “Patient,” he repeated, and there was desperation in his tone now. “It would take a very steady, patient man to be around someone who can be so⁠—”

  He gestured at me, a frustrated movement that encompassed everything from my windswept hair to my mud-spattered boots.

  “Patient and steady,” I said, letting the words roll around my mouth like wine. “Is that what it takes to handle me?”

  “I didn’t say handle.” Varyth’s attention snapped back to me, and gods, there was heat there. Raw and unfiltered before he could shove it back down. “You’re not something to be handled, Isara. You’re⁠—”

  He cut himself off with an exhale that was either frustration or something infinitely more dangerous.

  “Beautiful,” he said finally, the word escaping like a confession. “You’re beautiful and infuriating in equal measure, and it would take an extraordinarily patient man to be around that combination without losing his mind.”

  The words dropped between us like stones into still water, sending ripples through the charged air. Varyth’s eyes widened fractionally, like he’d just heard what he’d said and couldn’t quite believe it had escaped his tightly controlled mouth.

  “The leathers,” I blurted out, because my brain had apparently abandoned me entirely. “It’s just the leathers. Makes everyone look good. Basic tailoring principle.”

  He took a step closer. Then another.

  And I couldn’t do anything except stand there like an idiot while he invaded the space between us with a deliberate intent that made my pulse scatter.

  “The cut is—” He gestured vaguely at my waist, his hand tracing the air without touching. “It accentuates the lines. The curve from here—” His fingers hovered near my ribs, and I felt the ghost of heat even though he wasn’t making contact. “To here.”

  His hand drifted lower, following the fitted leather over my hip, not touching but so close I could feel the warmth of his skin through the space between us.