3. Max
Max
Islid off Aelindor’s lap.
My body protested. Every muscle wanted to stay curled against him, wrapped in his warmth and the clean male scent of him, but I couldn’t have this conversation from a prince’s lap. Not if I wanted them to hear a soldier instead of a girl who’d just screamed herself awake.
I sat on the edge of the bedroll, pulled my knees to my chest, and hooked my arms around them. The lock of white hair that marked me as a freak in some cadets’ eyes had come loose in the mess. Caspian tucked it behind my ear with tender fingers.
“I’m sorry, sirs,” I said, partly in gratitude, partly ashamed for dragging them into my wreckage. “I was out of my wits. It won’t happen again.”
“You never need to say sorry, Max.” Caspian’s voice was low, steady. “You can rely on us.”
He leaned forward, and his scent hit me—wild green, male, something animal underneath the soap and sweat. My pulse, which had just started to behave, kicked up again.
The wolf prince smiled, clearly aware of my body’s response to him, and pressed his lips to my cheek.
It was brief, a warm brush of contact, there and gone. Yet heat flushed up my neck and spread to the tips of my ears. My skin tingled where his mouth had been.
Aelindor was behind me, his breath stirring the hair at my temple. He hadn’t moved to stop Caspian. Hadn’t stiffened or cleared his throat. He’d made room for the shifter.
Drakken, on the other hand, frowned.
His gray eyes tracked Caspian with an unspoken criticism.
He hadn’t brought my bedroll. He’d followed us into the tent, planted himself near the entrance, and simply stayed.
The tent felt smaller with all of them in it. My skin was too aware of each of them. The charged space between us hummed until Aelindor tilted my chin up.
“Tell us what happened,” he said, his blue eyes searching mine. I tried not to get lost in them.
I swallowed. “My sister isn’t in Crimson Ridge anymore. The Collector has her.”
“How do you know that, cadet?” Drakken’s eyes narrowed.
The general was back, assessing a report for weaknesses.
“Don’t you think your story changed a little too fast?
Just yesterday, you wanted us to raid Crimson Ridge to extract your sister.
To convince us, you demonstrated your abilities with cold metal. ”
“Cold iron,” Caspian corrected, more to derail Drakken than to help.
“You made an airtight pitch that you could be an asset,” Drakken continued, ignoring him. “Not even one night later, and now you’re telling us your sister is with Xander. Are you trying to help that psycho and lure us into a trap?”
“Drakken.” Aelindor’s voice dropped, and the temperature in the tent fell a few degrees with it.
“I always speak my mind, Aelindor,” Drakken said, unmoved. “I won’t change that for anyone. Not even for you. I can stomach the witch blood. But I won’t tolerate lies.”
“Can you be any more callous?” Caspian growled, the amber of his wolf flaring in his eyes. “Max is terrified for her six-year-old sister.”
“Six and a half,” I said.
Caspian blinked, then nodded before turning his glare back on Drakken. “You don’t need to be here if you’re just going to stir shit.”
“I sleep here. Same as you.” Drakken didn’t budge. “No one kicks me out. So fuck off.”
“Enough. Both of you.” Aelindor’s gaze moved from one to the other with the look of a man who’d refereed this fight a thousand times. When he turned back to me, the sharpness softened. “Tell us about the vision, Max. Every detail.”
I drew a long breath. Let it fill my lungs, hold, then release—the technique my parents had taught me when I was small, when the mine shafts groaned and the dark pressed in.
In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Again.
“I was between waking and sleep,” I said. “I felt the pull of the DarkVeil. There were voices, as if from another world, and then a severed head floated toward me through the dark.”
I stared at my hands. They were steady now, but the memory made my fingers want to curl.
“A woman’s head, cut clean and preserved in a warded box of glass.”
A dangerous light glinted in all three pairs of eyes—different shades, different colors, same recognition.
“The head spoke to me. ‘He found out about you. He’s been searching for you for a very long time. Now he knows everything. He has your sister in the Haven.’”
I paused to swallow. The next part was harder.
“Then her eyes changed. From milky to black—absolute black, like the DarkVeil itself.” My voice cracked, but I kept going.
“And in that blackness, I saw Missy. I used to call her little viper.” I sniffled.
“She was wearing the same threadbare shift she had on the last time I held her. Smaller, her face thinner than when I left—and she was already too thin. And her eyes…”
I stopped. Breathed.
“Her eyes were wide open, full of a terror no child should ever know. She looked like she’d been screaming for me for a long time.”
Caspian’s hand found my shoulder. He didn’t speak. Just gripped, hard, anchoring me.
“And then she saw me,” I whispered. “Through whatever connection the woman’s head had built between us, my sister saw me. Screamed my name. ‘Max! Max!’ I reached for her, but the blackness spread and swallowed her. Her hands, her face, her voice. All of it. Gone.”
My nails dug into my knees. I refused to cry again. I’d used up every tear I had the right to spend tonight.
“Describe the head,” Aelindor said, his voice brimming with the steadiness I needed. “Everything you can remember about her appearance.”
I closed my eyes and pulled the image back.
“The face was pale. Drained. Lips completely colorless, like all the blood had been siphoned out long ago. But her eyes were open. Alive. Aware.” I opened my own eyes and met Aelindor’s gaze.
“Conscious of every second. Whoever she was, she knew exactly what had been done to her, and she’d been awake through all of it. ”
I paused, searching the memory.
“There was a birthmark under her left eye. Small. Shaped like a three-pointed star.”
Both Caspian and Drakken turned to Aelindor, as if the Fae prince were a walking library.
Aelindor drew a sharp breath. His blue eyes went distant, rifling through whatever archive of knowledge he carried behind them.
“Few beings have ever met the Oracle,” he said carefully.
“After Xander captured her, he killed her. Severed her head, kept it alive with dark magic, and made himself the sole audience for her visions. No one else gets near that case, not even his inner circle.” He gave the other two heirs a measured nod.
“But I’ve seen a drawing of her. Max’s description fits.
The colorless skin, the living eyes, the star-shaped birthmark. ”
“Cadet Max could’ve seen the same drawing,” Drakken said.
“Where?” I didn’t bother keeping the edge out of my voice. “In a deep mining shaft? Under some rock?”
“So you had a nightmare about a severed head.” Drakken shifted his weight against the tent pole. “You’re worried about your sister, you’ve heard stories about the Collector, and your mind filled in the blanks.”
“Your imagination is impressive,” I said, flat as stone. “But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was a vision.”
“A vision.” Drakken’s mouth twisted. “Last time, you revealed you’re actually a woman. Then you showed off that you could commune with a sentient metal no one else has heard of. And now you’re a psychic.” He spread his hands. “What’s next, Cadet Max?”
I opened my mouth and stared at him.
“Asshole,” Caspian growled. “Ignore him, Max. He’s always been like this. Never fucking agreeable. Never happy. It’s exhausting.”
“What Max experienced was a vision,” Aelindor said, his voice firm.
Final. “Coldiron no longer conceals her, not since she left the mine. The DarkVeil acts as a conductor between worlds, between realms, between times. At this proximity, it was possible for the Oracle to overcome the barriers of distance and reach Max.”
“Even so, why Cadet Max?” Drakken shot back, but the gunfire had left his voice. Aelindor’s logic had that effect. It didn’t silence objections so much as it made them sound foolish by comparison. “What does the Oracle want with her?”
Caspian rubbed his chin. “Could be a trap. The enemy luring Max to the Haven so Xander can add her to his collection.”
“Not exactly a trap. Not the kind you mean,” Aelindor said, sympathy flashing in his deep blue eyes.
“The Oracle wants to be set free. Being kept alive as a severed head, conscious of every second—it’s a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
She reached out to Max because Max may grant her the death she longs for. ”
“The Oracle’s playing a mind game,” Caspian growled. “Max is green, she’s desperate. If it were my sister, I’d jump into the fire without blinking. The Oracle knows that and she’s exploiting it.”
“Caspian is right,” Drakken said. I glanced at him. It was possibly the first time I’d heard him agree with Caspian on anything. “Max is unknown and untrained. A first-year cadet. If the Oracle wants freedom, why not reach out to us? We’d have a far better chance of cracking that case open.”
“Because only Max can free the Oracle.” Aelindor gave Drakken a sharp look. “It would be a vast mistake to keep underestimating her.”
Caspian shot Drakken a loaded glance.
“Max’s vision told us something else,” Aelindor continued, pulling the thread tighter. “Xander now knows about her. I’ve been trying to prevent that, or at least delay it, but he’s been searching for her. And he isn’t the only one.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. My mind drifted to the demons coming out looking for the One. I’d thought of myself as nobody. A miner’s daughter who could talk to metal.
Selling yourself short again, I see, the demon sighed. A nobody doesn’t attract the attention of Oracles and Collectors and archdemons. A nobody doesn’t make powerful heirs huddle around her, unable to take their eyes off her. You need to break that pattern, girl. Own your truth, and only then…
A thought surfaced, cold and clear.