“I think we need to talk,” I murmur, just loud enough for our table to hear. “About all of this. No more secrets.”
Four pairs of eyes meet mine—silver, green, ice blue, and molten gold—each carrying knowledge that tangles with my own growing confusion.
“Yes,” Malrik agrees quietly. “We do.”
Chapter 18
Kieran
I feel their stares before they speak, the weight of centuries of Guardian politics pressing in as I follow them into the council chamber. The breakfast drama was inevitable. Callum has always been too eager to assert authority he doesn’t possess.
“You can’t be serious about the Duskbane heir,” Callum starts the moment the doors close. His voice carries that familiar blend of arrogance and fear that’s always made him dangerous. “He abandoned Absentia.”
“He was a child,” I say sharply, memories resurfacing with painful clarity. The mysterious disappearance of the royal family, a single heir spirited away in the chaos. My fingers press against the smooth stone table. “The only survivor of the royal line.”
“Exactly why he should have stayed,” Mira interjects, her silver hair catching the light as she paces between the ancient pillars. Her footsteps echo against the marble floor, each one precise and measured like her words. “Absentia needed its prince.”
“Absentia needed him alive,” Revna counters from her seat by the window. At least someone here has sense. The sunlight makes the scars onher hands almost luminous, badges of honor from battles these younger Guardians have only read about. “What good is a vanished prince to a fallen realm?”
Callum’s mouth twists, his disdain poorly concealed. “He seems quite… comfortable with our Valkyrie,” he says, the possessive term making something dark and ancient stir beneath my skin.
“She is notouranything,” I say, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. The temperature in the room plummets several degrees as my power ripples outward. “Choose your words with more care, Callum.”
He steps back instinctively, a flicker of genuine fear crossing his face before he masks it. But the damage is done, I’ve seen it, and we both know it. The other Guardians shift uncomfortably, sensing the edge of my control fraying.
I wrestle my emotions back into place, burying the things I don’t want to examine too closely. The things I’ve been struggling not to dwell on since I first saw them together.
The bond. The way their shadows reach for each other without conscious thought. The way she looks at him, at all of them, like they’re pieces of her soul she didn’t know she was missing.
My chest tightens with an ache that’s grown all too familiar. I mask it with practiced indifference.
“The records—” Callum begins again.
“—mention connections even the oldest seers didn’t fully understand,” I interrupt, keeping my voice steady despite the storm brewing beneath my skin. “Malrik Duskbane is exactly where he needs to be.”
“But why now?” Mira asks, pausing mid-step. She turns to face me, her expression tight. “Why return now, when the barriers are barely holding?”
“The scrolls—” Callum starts again, but Revna snorts, the sound sharp as breaking glass.
“Enough with the scrolls and ancient texts. You weren’t there, Callum. None of you were.” Her eyes meet mine, ancient and unwavering. “Only Kieran and I remember what it was really like. What we lost.”
Revna moves to stand beside me, her presence as steady as it’s been for centuries. She was there when Solveig made her choice, when everything changed. She’s been there for every endless year of searching since.
“She was just a child,” I say quietly, the words scraping my throat. “Only six years old when Solveig sent her forward.”
“And now she returns with not one, but multiple bonds forming,” Mira observes, her tone carefully neutral though her eyes betray her wariness. “That’s… unprecedented.”
“She has a shadow prince, a chaos mage, and two berserkers bound to her soul,” Callum says, like he’s listing crimes. “How can we be sure she’s even still—”
“Choose your next words very carefully,” I cut in, my voice dropping dangerously low. The temperature in the room plummets. “That’s Solveig’s daughter you’re questioning.”
Revna straightens, her movement drawing all eyes. “The bonds are not a weakness,” she says firmly. “They’re part of this. Can’t you feel it? The way everything is weaving itself together?” She looks at me. “The lost prince returns just as she does. The berserkers awaken. None of this is coincidence.”
“I think,” Revna adds, her eyes glinting with that familiar determination that’s gotten us through worse, “it’s time we spoke with all of them. Together.”
I exhale slowly. She’s right, of course she’s right. She usually is, though I rarely admit it aloud.
“Have them brought to the Hall of Echoes,” I say, ignoring the way my chest aches at the thought of facing this. “All of them.”
