Chapter 18 #2
She studied the board again. No method, no clear pattern she could see. Just chaos taught to behave, pinned neatly beneath the guise of a plan.
“My father used to say: Knowledge is how empires fall,” he replied lightly.
“He sounds like an intelligent man, ” Ellaryn noted, straightening her back.
“He was,” Xander said simply, eyes dulling momentarily.
The weight of the past tense hung in the room, and Ellaryn looked at him with sympathy, but she didn’t pry. Loss was something she had experienced so often, and yet never grown accustomed to.
“Can I take your cloak?” He offered, his expression softening as he held out his hand.
Ellaryn hesitated, but this room was particularly warm, and her cheeks burned against the humid air.
Slowly, she let the black silk cloak slip from her shoulders and handed it over.
When their hands brushed, a faint spark ran through her, a sensation she hadn’t felt in what seemed like an eternity.
It had been so long since she was on the receiving end of a nice gesture.
She caught herself, stifling the fleeting warmth before it could grow any further.
“You know they suspect someone broke through the wall,” Ellaryn said, keeping her voice low, concern threading through every word. “The Knights are planning raids tomorrow morning. It would be better if you left.”
“Still trying to make me leave?” He cocked a brow, the familiar smirk tugging at his mouth. “I thought we were past this twisted foreplay.”
“Can you be serious for one moment?” Her voice dropped a register, irritation sharpening each word. She already had enough snide remarks from the Knights and Chancellors; she didn’t need another man running his mouth simply because he could.
“Fine.” He raised both hands in surrender, though the amusement never quite left his eyes. “You don’t need to worry about me. I won’t get caught, and I’m not leaving.”
Her brows furrowed at his words, suspicion sharpening her features the longer she studied him.
“And how can you be so sure?” She asked, and his smile widened as if he had been waiting for her to ask just that.
“Because I can do this.”
The words barely left his lips before he was gone.
Ellaryn’s pulse quickened. She spun, eyes darting across the shelves, the scattered papers—but the space he had occupied was empty.
“Surprised?” The voice came again, smooth and teasing, but from nowhere she could pinpoint.
“What!? How?” she whispered, her heart pounding as her gaze raced.
Slowly, impossibly, he reformed into view. His outline shimmered, solidifying into the man she knew, yet somehow more than human. She couldn’t look away.
“Just another one of my tricks,” he said, leaning casually against the wall. His dimples deepened, blue eyes dancing with a light that made her chest tighten.
“Your mutation?” She breathed, eyes scanning him, and he nodded.
She had never heard of a Potential who could turn themselves invisible like this.
But then again, mutations were rarely predictable.
They surfaced without pattern, without reason, shaped by forces no one fully understood.
She had heard of sorcerers who could bend fire with their bare hands, step inside another person’s mind, survive wounds that should have killed them.
Stranger things had happened, and she had come to understand that mutations were not random gifts, but adaptations—evolution sharpened by suffering.
They made their carriers harder to kill.
Harder to cage. Harder to erase. She could see how invisibility could become a genetic mutation.
It served the hunter as well as the hunted.
Ellaryn just didn’t know which one Xander was yet.
But he hadn’t been invisible enough.
Someone had seen him.
And that meant—whether he realised it or not—he was drifting dangerously close to becoming the prey.
Ellaryn cleared her throat, trying to steady herself. “Still… I think you should be careful.”
“Noted.” He smiled again, his usual charm slipping neatly back into place, though a shadow of something darker flickered across his features before disappearing.
His gaze dropped to her dress, one eyebrow lifting as his eyes travelled over the careful arrangement of rubies, delicate lace and crushed velvet, before settling on the blood splattered across the fabric.
He lingered there just long enough for Ellaryn to notice.
A subtle awareness prickled beneath her skin, making her shift her weight beneath his quiet scrutiny.
“What’s the occasion?” he asked, his soft blonde hair still looking clean and untouched by the cinders.
“A party,” She simply said, and to her relief, Xander didn’t pry.
More sketches lay scattered across his desk—the King, the castle, the Defiers… her.
Ellaryn picked one up, her fingers tracing the careful grooves of charcoal and ink that shaped her face. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t hate it. In the drawing, she looked… alive. Not the hollowed, pallid thing she had become, carved down by years of obedience and blood.
This version of her still held warmth. Still had edges that hadn’t been worn away. In a way, it reminded her of her mother. A face she had only seen in nightmares.
She swallowed hard.
It reminded her of what she would have looked like if the King had never existed.
Another lifetime.
“Keep it, if you like,” Xander offered, a genuine-looking smile lighting his face.
Ellaryn stiffened. She set the sketch down at once, as though it had burned her, and straightened, her internal armour snapping back into place, piece by careful piece.
She shook her head, refusing the offer.
“As you wish,” Xander stated just as the walls gave a faint scuffling sound, as though something were trapped behind them.
“I think you have a rodent problem.” She curled her lip, her fingers instinctively brushing the hilt of her sword. She nearly drew it, nearly drove the steel into the section of wall where she suspected the vermin was hiding, but Xander caught her wrist before she could.
“Lizard, actually.” He corrected her. “And I’m quite fond of the little guy.” He smirked, enough to make Ellaryn question his sincerity.
Her eyes traced his for a heartbeat, waiting for the shift, the moment he laughed or jeered, but he didn’t.
“Have it your way.” She muttered under her breath, baffled by the complexity of him, as her fingers uncurled the embroidered handle at her belt.
“Please.” He gestured towards the chair tucked beneath the oak desk before settling into the one opposite, his boots propping casually against the surface as though he were completely at ease.
The contrast was almost irritating.
Ellaryn hesitated before taking the offered seat, lowering herself into it cautiously, her posture remaining rigid despite his apparent comfort.
“I don’t have long,” she said, keeping her voice tight. Just the thought of the King discovering her absence was enough to set her whole nervous system ablaze.
“Then I won’t keep you long.” Xander leaned back, hands resting behind his head. His tone was calm—almost unnervingly so. He pulled a bowl from his drawer and unwrapped a hard, brightly colored sweet, popping it into his mouth.
He offered her the bowl, but Ellaryn declined even though her mouth watered at the thought. “Smart.” He grinned, waving an impressed finger. “They’re bad for your teeth after all.”
Ellaryn looked at him for a moment.
This was the man who was supposedly meant to overthrow the dark.
His carefree demeanour made her gut twist with unease.
Did he have any idea what he was walking into?
Had he ever known darkness as thick and suffocating as the King’s—something that didn’t just surround its victims, but seeped into their lungs until they learned how to breathe through pain?
“Are you always this…” Ellaryn paused, searching for the right word.
“Good-looking? Yes.” He said with a wink, and Ellaryn dramatically rolled her eyes.
“I was going to say…” she began, her voice low, “careless.”
Xander stiffened, eyes narrowing as he kicked his feet off the table and sat upright.
“And are you always this… guarded?” he countered, locking her gaze.
“Better to be guarded than careless in this city.” She folded her arms, her accentuated brow raising slightly.
“Perhaps,” he said, his voice smooth. “But I’ll be damned if I let this city change me.
It’s dark enough already, don’t you think?
Maybe it’s time someone let a little light in.
” He leaned in, and she let her eyes roam, noting the freckles across the bridge of his straight nose, the faint heat in his cheeks, and the way his lashes caught the light, giving them a golden shimmer.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe he was what the city needed.
“What?” he asked, noticing how her eyes lingered, perhaps a moment too long.
“Nothing—I…” She dropped her gaze and adjusted her sleeves, feigning busyness and forcing a calm tone. “You’re just… not what I was expecting.”
“I know,” he said with a lazy grin. “I’m more handsome, right?” His lip curled up in a teasing smirk, and Ellaryn let out a hollow scoff.
“Can we just get down to business?” She said, forcing the smile that tried to claim her lips down.
“Fine by me.” He admitted, sucking on another red sweet as he relaxed back into his chair again. “You think I can’t beat the King… why?”
“Apart from the fact that I think your carelessness will get you killed—”
“Yes, apart from that.” He smiled, seemingly unfazed by her concern.
“Because he’s stronger than you,” Ellaryn stated bluntly, her eyes searching his face for some crack, some flicker of doubt. There was nothing.
“I know.”
The ease with which he said it made her skin prickle.
“You know?” She shook her head, disbelief painting her tongue as she spoke. “Then why are we even here? What are we doing?”
“Strength isn’t everything,” Xander stated, his hands folded in his lap.
“It is with him.” She stated, debating whether to get up and leave right this second.