Chapter 16 #2
“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.
“The way it hugs—” He stopped, swallowed hard enough that I watched his throat work.
“Architecturally sound.” Darian’s voice rang out from somewhere in the trees, filled with glee. “Tell her she’s architecturally sound again. It worked so well the first time.”