Chapter 32
VALEN
Istood at the boundary and stared at it until my eyes burned.
It wasn’t a wall. Not really.
It was air that refused to be air. A seam in the world that had been stitched too tight, humming with cold law and old violence. The kind of magic that didn’t need to announce itself because it didn’t care if you understood it.
Beside me, Isolde watched the same invisible line with the stillness of a blade waiting to be drawn. Her cloak snapped softly in the wind, dark against the frost, her hair tucked away like she didn’t want anything about her to move unless she willed it.
The boundary pulsed.
My dragon’s impatience crawled under my skin, nails scraping bone.
Our queen is inside.
I swallowed the rage down until it tasted like blood.
“I know,” I said under my breath.
Isolde’s eyes flicked to me, faintly irritated. “Stop talking to yourself.”
“I wasn’t,” I lied.
She didn’t respond. She never did when she didn’t want to.
We waited.
We listened.
We watched the snow drift sideways through the Shadowlands like even the storm couldn’t decide which kingdom deserved it.
Then I felt it.
A shift in the pressure behind us. A change in the rhythm of the cold. Like footsteps had entered the world and the world had begrudgingly made room.
I turned.
A figure emerged from the pale fog of frost, moving fast and wrong, like she’d been chased out of something she didn’t fully understand yet.
Cloak too thin. Breath too ragged. Hair half-unpinned like she’d forgotten vanity existed sometime in the last day.
She looked up.
Saw Isolde.
And stopped so abruptly her boots skidded against the ice.
For a moment, she didn’t move at all. Like her mind was trying to take inventory of what her eyes were giving her.
Then the words exploded out of her.
“Oh. Oh, gods.” She blinked hard, pushing her glasses up with a shaking hand. “Lady Isolde?”
Isolde didn’t soften. Didn’t step forward. Didn’t do anything that resembled welcome.
But she didn’t reach for a blade either.
“Therynne,” Isolde said flatly.
Therynne’s shoulders rose with an inhale, and something flickered across her face.
“I have so many questions,” she said immediately. “Are you okay? Are you alive? That’s a ridiculous question because you’re clearly physically present, but you vanished without warning and the palace believed you betrayed everyone, and I?—”
Isolde’s eyes narrowed. “Later.”
Therynne blinked. “Later?”
“Yes,” Isolde said. “Later.”
Therynne’s fingers started tapping against her thigh like the motion was the only thing keeping her from unraveling.
“Later isn’t a measurable unit of time,” she said, voice clipped with agitation. “Later is vague. Later is socially imprecise. Later is?—”
Isolde stepped closer, just enough that the air between them tightened.
“Therynne,” Isolde said, quieter. “I’m happy you made it out of the castle alive, and I am impressed you found a way to get here so quickly. I suppose you aren’t just a weak library mouse.”
The sentence hit Therynne like a hand on the chest.
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
Then, as if she remembered she was not meant to be emotional, she nodded once.
“I wasn’t sure you could pull it off,” Isolde added.
“I mapped out the best escape routes,” she said, rushing into it like a shield. “I used patrol rotation data and architectural blind spots and calculated a ninety-three percent probability of successful exit if I timed the?—”
A second set of footsteps crunched through the snow.
Heavier. Angrier.
A presence that didn’t sneak or glide or calculate.
It stormed.
An older woman came out of the fog like she’d fought it the entire way here and refused to let it win.
She saw Isolde, gave her one look like she’d found a stain on her kitchen floor, then shoved right up beside Therynne like she was about to physically drag her into competence.
“You did nothing,” the old woman announced.
Therynne’s head snapped toward her, affronted. “I did several things.”
The older woman scoffed. “You didn’t even have proper shoes.”
“They were shoes,” Therynne said, stiff.
“They were slippers,” she shot back. “Court ones. The kind built for standin’ still and lookin’ fragile.”
Therynne’s eyes flared. “They were adequate for indoor conditions.”
Her mouth pulled into a grim line. “Aye. And the snow cares deeply about indoor conditions, doesn’t it?”
Therynne’s fingers started tapping faster, her brain clearly shifting into lecture mode to avoid feeling anything else.
“I would like to clarify,” she began, “that the failure point was not the shoe itself, but the moisture absorption rate of the fabric, which could have been mitigated by?—”
“Enough,” I said.
The single word cut straight through them.
Both of them froze.
Therynne’s head snapped to me as if she’d only just remembered I existed.
She stared.
And I watched recognition hit her in pieces.
First the height.
Then the posture.
Then the wrongness of the way the air seemed to bend around me.
Her mouth parted.
“No,” she breathed. Then more firmly, as if the word had to be spoken twice to become real. “No. You’re?—”
Isolde sighed like she’d been waiting for this moment to ruin her evening.
“The Dragon King,” she said flatly.
Therynne’s eyes went wide.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh!”
She stared at me like I was a forbidden text brought to life. Like she’d spent years studying a myth and the myth had just stepped off the page.
Then, as if her soul couldn’t help itself, she blurted, “I have questions.”
I didn’t blink. “No.”
Therynne froze.
I watched her physically wrestle her words back into her throat, like she was trying to be normal and failing.
But she tried again anyway.
“Is it true,” she said, voice shaking with fascination, “that you can essencelink with your dragon? And if so, what does that feel like? Is it comparable to the Fieldspray rites of binding, or is it more akin to a parasitic tether, or?—”
“Now is not the right time,” I cut in.
Therynne nodded hard, like she’d just been scolded by a professor.
“Yes,” she said quickly. “Understood. Not the right time.”
The old woman threw her hands up. “See what I’ve been dealin’ with?”
Then she marched toward me like she wasn’t staring at the monster kings whispered about in bedtime threats.
She stopped an arm’s length away, looked me up and down with open judgment, then said, “So you’re the Dragon King.”
“I am,” I replied.
Her eyes narrowed.
“I don’t like you.”
I stared at her.
A laugh almost caught in my throat. Almost.
Instead, I said, “Noted.”
She nodded like my answer had been irrelevant. “Good. Now we’re clear.”
Then she jabbed a thumb toward herself.
“Name’s Bertha,” she said. “We met on that ship you captured. Only in passin’ on account of you putting me in a cell below deck, nearly making me drown. You wouldn’t remember, because men like you don’t notice people unless they’re either pretty or bleedin’.”
I didn’t correct her.
She kept going, voice carrying the kind of blunt confidence that came from surviving too long to fear titles.
“I worked in the palace,” she said. “And I helped Aeli—” her jaw tightened like she refused to let the wrong name exist, “Elara.”
The sound of her name snapped something inside my ribs.
My dragon surged against my skin like a roar trapped under flesh.
Our queen.
Bertha pointed at Therynne without looking.
“And I’m the reason this one got out alive,” she said. “Because she didn’t even have proper shoes.”
Therynne bristled. “I have shoes now.”
“You have stolen boots now,” Bertha corrected.
Therynne’s fingers started tapping again, furious and self-soothing at once.
“I did not steal them,” she said. “Bertha stole them.”
“Aye,” Bertha said. “And I’d do it again.”
Therynne’s eyes narrowed. “For accuracy, I would like to state that I contributed intellectually?—”
“You contributed anxiety,” Bertha snapped.
Therynne’s mouth opened.
Closed.
Isolde didn’t intervene. She never did unless she wanted blood.
I watched them both. The scholar with a mind like a storm and the old woman with a spine made of iron.
Both of them here for Elara.
Something in my chest tightened.
Bertha set her hands on her hips and looked at me like I was a misbehaving boy in need of correction.
“So,” she said, “what’s the plan?”
I looked past them, back at the boundary.
At the invisible refusal.
At the cold law that kept my queen on the other side.
“We steal a sigil,” I said.
Therynne’s head jerked up. “A sigil?”
Isolde answered for me. “A token.”
Therynne inhaled, already halfway to a dissertation probably. “You mean a Rime Sigil. A boundary authority marker carved into ice magic and reinforced with lineage resonance. They’re typically held by Warden Lords or royal emissaries and?—”
“Correct,” I said.
Therynne’s eyes brightened like I’d handed her a gift. “That’s fascinating.”
Bertha muttered, “Gods help us.”
I didn’t look away from the boundary.
Because behind it, Elara was starving.
Bleeding.
Alone.
And I was done waiting.
“We can’t enter without the sigil.”
Therynne nodded rapidly. “Yes. That aligns with the boundary’s one-way permeability model.”
Isolde crossed her arms. “I know a camp.”
I glanced at her. “A Warden Lord?”
“Assigned to the outer patrol,” she said. “He carries a sigil.”
Bertha leaned forward, squinting like she could see the whole plan in my face. “So we rob him.”
“Yes,” I said.
Bertha nodded once. “Good. I like simple plans.”
“One question,” Therynne said, lifting her hand like I was about to grade her.
“If the sigil is carved to respond to Icespire bloodline authority, can I hold it without melting it?”
Isolde’s gaze flicked to her. “Yes.”
Therynne didn’t relax. Her face went tight, eyes narrowing behind her lenses as if she’d just discovered a flaw in the universe.
“Because I’m technically married into Emberfall,” she said quickly, “which has an alliance lineage tie to Icespire’s diplomatic branches, and therefore the boundary might accept me as a dignitary rather than reject me as Ashenveil-born.
Unless Ciaran already denounced the marriage. ”
The words landed like a knife.
My jaw flexed.
“How long have we been gone?” she asked, and for the first time since she’d arrived, her voice sounded almost worried.
Bertha answered like she’d been waiting for the chance. “Two days.”
Therynne blinked once. Twice. “Two.”
Bertha nodded. “Stridebinder got us here quick.”
Therynne’s entire expression changed. Fascination replaced urgency so fast it was infuriating.
“The Stridebinder was a godsend, yes,” she replied, reverent. “Incredible power. Do you realize how rare it is to find a true distance-weaver outside of the southern trade routes? That kind of spatial manipulation requires either a hereditary tether to old ley lines or an artificially imposed?—”
“Stay on the subject,” I snapped.
My voice came out rougher than I intended.
Isolde’s head turned slightly, like she felt the edge in it, but she didn’t comment. She never commented when I was unraveling. She just watched.
Therynne paused, eyes wide like she’d forgotten I wasn’t an abstract concept.
Then she nodded quickly. “Yes. Right. Apologies.”
But her fingers tapped against her thigh again, betraying her anyway.
“There is a possibility,” she said, slower now, forcing the words into place like she was laying stones in a path, “that it will melt at contact with me.”
The irritation in me flared, hot enough that my dragon stirred beneath my skin like it wanted to rip reality open.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
We didn’t have time for this. We didn’t have time for fragile contingencies and scholarly uncertainties.
Elara was in chains.
Every heartbeat we wasted was another bruise, another broken bone, another hour stolen from her.
Therynne kept going, because that seemed to be her nature.
“It depends on whether the marriage is still formally recognized,” she said.
“And dissolution of royal marriage is not immediate unless it is voided under specific political statutes. If the king of Emberfall declares the marriage null, it must be recorded in the domestic ledger, witnessed by at least two council members, and sealed by either light magic signature or a bloodmark in the?—”
Bertha made a sharp sound. “I didn’t understand a damn word of that.”
Therynne didn’t even blink. “That’s because you’re not listening.”
“I am listenin’,” Bertha shot back. “I’m just gettin’ dumber while I do it.”
Therynne’s mouth tightened. “That’s not how intelligence works.”
Bertha rolled her eyes so hard I thought she might sprain something. Then she jabbed her thumb toward the boundary like she was pointing at the problem itself.
“Alright then,” Bertha said. “If it might melt, then we don’t steal a sigil.”
Isolde’s gaze slid to me. “What are you suggesting?”
Bertha’s smile turned mean and practical all at once.
“We steal the Warden Lord.”
For half a second, the air went still.
Even Therynne stopped tapping.
I stared at Bertha. “That’s not how this works.”
Bertha shrugged like kidnapping an Icespire Warden Lord was the same as stealing bread from a pantry. “Sure it is. We grab him. We drag him. We toss him over the line like a sack of turnips and make him open it.”
My irritation spiked again. “If it was that easy, I wouldn’t need the two of you. Warden Lords can force a sigil to melt.”
That made Therynne blink.
Bertha’s mouth pulled into a flat line. “They can do what?”
“They can speak a code word,” I said. “A command woven into the carving itself. If someone tries to use it incorrectly, if they sense the authority has been compromised, they can destroy it with a single word. It’s why we have to leave with the sigil and cross as soon as possible.
The moment he realizes it’s gone, he could destroy it. ”
The thought of it made my stomach twist.
All this effort. All this risk. One wrong move and the only key we had would turn to slush.
Therynne’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Then we can’t allow him to know we’ve taken it.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Therynne’s gaze dropped, calculating again, mind racing faster than the rest of us could keep up.
Then she lifted her eyes, and the fear in them was quieter than her curiosity, but it was there.
“Well,” she said tightly, “let’s hope my marriage hasn’t been voided yet.”