“Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“No,” I say, my voice still high-pitched with leftover adrenaline.
Kael closes the distance, hands on my face, scanning me. He pulls me close, pressing his lips to my forehead before we move off the floor and to my bed.
While Kael is calming down—and I’m pretty sure inhaling my scent—my brain is whirling. I’m hyperaware of just how deepwe’re in this now. Seriously, if I can do this, then we’re standing on the edge of something massive.
And someone—somewhere—knows it.
Kael’s breathing has finally evened out, the wild panic that chased him into my room now settled into a slow, steady thrum. His hand is still curled lightly around the back of my neck, clawed finger brushing gently over the column like he needs to feel I’m here. Real. Whole.
“I’ve been thinking,” I begin, voice cautious. “If I can do that—whatever the hell that was—just by messing around… untrained, unprepared…”
Kael hums low in his throat. His heartbeat stutters slightly, like he already knows where I’m going.
“… then what can you really do? What can theGlowranthreally do?”
A flicker of guilt flashes across his face—and brushes against my chest through the bond, cool and ashamed. He doesn’t meet my gaze right away.
“It is… possible,” he says slowly, each word like a stone laid with care. “What you did today? That kind of manipulation? It’s within reach. I can only theorise it would be especially possible for bonded pairs.”
“So… what, you’re saying tearing through dimensions, rifting space—whatever brought me here—that’s definitely possible for a Glowranth?”
Kael nods. Hesitantly. “It would take strength. Purpose. Deep intent. But yes, it’s within the scope of power. For some.”
My mind spins. “Some. Like… who? The queen?”
He pauses. That tells me everything before he even opens his mouth. “She is powerful,” he admits. “But not the strongest.”
“What?”
“She is… strategic. Cunning. And yes, gifted in energy manipulation. But the strength you speak of—the ability to bendreality, to pull from worlds, to shape—” He pauses, his emotions stuttering as he thinks something over.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know for certain since I only have stories to go from, but that would require a Glowranth born of royal blood and them being bonded to a fated mate. A complete bond.”
I stare at him. “So… fated mates are really… what? The ultimate weapon?”
His jaw tightens. “Not a weapon. But a force. The joining strengthens both—amplifies. Our energy entwines. And the royal bloodline is… different.”
“I’ve seen it,” I say. “Your markings. Aelith’s. Yours are darker, his brighter. But it’s not just pigment, is it?”
Kael’s shoulders rise and fall in a deep sigh. “No. Our markings carry lineage, power, history. And when one of us bonds… I think the abilities we’ve trained all our lives become something else entirely. It’s more than power. It’s legacy.”
The word settles like stone in my stomach.
“And that’s why you didn’t come for me,” I say, piecing it together aloud. “Because if you did… if you claimed me, and our bond took hold….”
“I would become a threat,” Kael finishes, voice low. “Not just to the crown. To the entire queendom.”
His regret slams into me, a wave of sadness edged with something that feels a lot like self-loathing. I reach out instinctively, my fingers curling around his.
“Kael….”
“I wanted to,” he says. “From the moment I felt you arrive. I felt it. The pull. The instinct. Every day I fought it. Because the moment I came for you?—”
“You’d be choosing treason.”
