Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
KAEL
It’s been three nights since the Solstice Rites, and the academy has settled into a tense approximation of normal. Classes resumed. Patrols rotated, giving a few of us time off. Students have seemed to stop whispering every time Lindsay walks past.
The Veil, however, hasn’t forgotten. It thrums with the same magic Lindsay has inside of her. And I know that the ritual isn’t going to hold back whatever wants her for long.
Tonight, I volunteered for patrol for one reason only…the addition to the prophecy has kept me up at night, and I need to find out exactly what he knows.
Dorian keeps pace beside me along the outer perimeter as if he’s done this a thousand times before. His boots don’t crunch the frost as he walks. His breath doesn’t fog the air. Winter bends around him the way shadows bend to me.
“You’re staring,” he says lightly, not looking over.
“I’m not,” I reply.
He smiles. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”
We move in silence for a few more steps. The night presses close, the stars bright above the trees. The wards shimmer faintly at the edge of my vision. But he’s right, I am watching him.
Dorian slows, then stops, gloved hand brushing the nearest wardstone. “You felt it too, didn’t you?” he asks. “The way the magic…rearranged itself and settled differently after the ritual.”
I don’t answer. I might trust him to keep Lindsay safe, but that’s the only thing I trust when it comes to him. Especially now, and I’ve been rethinking the idea that he would keep her safe. A test can mean many things.
He hums. “I’ll take that as yes.”
“You didn’t come here to help.” I face him, arms crossing loosely over my chest. “Don’t pretend you did.”
“Oh, I absolutely came to help,” he says. “Just not in the way you or your council hoped.”
My shadows stir, irritated. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Enjoying?” He considers the word, rolling it over his tongue as if he can taste it. “No. But I do appreciate clarity in things. And your girl”—his gaze flicks briefly toward the academy lights as if he can see her across the distance—“has a habit of creating it.”
Your girl. The way he says it makes me feel exposed. My jaw tightens. “Watch how you refer to her.”
“You don’t like people knowing she means something to you?” Dorian’s smile turns almost predatory. “You should do more to hide it then, because that magic connecting you is a beacon for anyone that wants to get to her.”
I keep my mouth shut because saying anything will give him more power, and he’s not wrong. We start walking again, tension filling the space between us.
“The thread between you is too tight,” he says conversationally. “It’ll hold. For now. But someday it might snap, and then where will that leave you? Where will it leave Lindsay?”
I scoff. “Let me guess, you think you’re the solution?”
“I think I’m part of the test,” he replies easily. “Winter’s crown and all.”
I stop. He doesn’t. The fact he knows about the prophecy shouldn’t be a surprise, all of the realms have at least a version of it. And it’s the reason I’m even out here walking next to him in the first place.
Dorian turns back to face me, eyes bright as frost catching moonlight. “Relax,” he says softly. “If I meant her harm, this conversation would look very different.”
The wards hum, responding to the shift in him.
He tilts his head, studying me. “You’re excellent at sensing danger, Kael. It’s why you’re still alive. We’d make an excellent team, if you put our differences aside, don’t you think?”
My shadows tighten around me, ready to defend me.
When I don’t answer, he just shrugs. “This is inevitable, you know,” he continues, his voice almost sounding kind. “You can’t fight it. We will either be on the same side of things…or—”
I don’t let him finish, because working with him would never work. Not with our history. “You might be here to test her, but—” I step closer, my shadows curling up between us. “You don’t get to decide what happens to her.”
Dorian lifts a single eyebrow, his gaze dropping to the shadows between us as he smiles. “No,” he agrees. “She does.”
The smile fades as quickly as it appeared.
“And that,” he says, turning away again, “is why I’m here. Waiting and watching for the right moment.”
He moves away from me, steps measured and unhurried. While I stand there and try to decide if I would get away with murdering the Fae Prince of the Winter Court.
He sighs and glances back. “Come along, Shadow Prince, today isn’t the day either of us dies.”
“Stay out of my head.”
Dorian lets out a quiet laugh, the kind that tells me immediately he didn’t actually do it this time. He just knows me well enough to land the hit anyway.
“The artifact Azrael gave you,” he says casually. “The one you use to watch Lindsay—did he explain why she can’t know about it?”
I don’t bother asking how he knows. I already know he probably read my mind the night the Veil tore. The moment I crossed half the campus without thinking. Every barrier down, every thought narrowed to a single point. If he brushed my mind then—even briefly—he would’ve seen everything.
“Prince of Shadows,” Dorian adds when I stay silent, “I’m trying to help you. Your suspicion is becoming tiresome.”
“Then stop speaking in riddles,” I say flatly. “Frosty.”
He actually laughs at that, head tipping back slightly. “Frosty,” he repeats, amused. “That’s new.”
I don’t rise to it.
The humor fades from his expression. He exhales and slows his pace matching mine again.
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll be clear. Only because this part matters.”
The night seems to lean in, waiting for his next words as much as I am.
“Lindsay isn’t what anyone thinks she is. Not the council. Not your headmaster.” His gaze flicks to me. “Not even you.”
“There’s a reason she can seal rifts,” he continues, voice quieter now. “And a reason her magic never comes back the same afterward.”
My hands curl slowly at my sides.
“She isn’t just interacting with the Veil, Kael,” Dorian says. “She’s connected to it. By blood.”
The words settle heavy in my chest.
“And that artifact you carry?” He glances back at me, eyes catching the faint wardlight. “In her hands, it wouldn’t show her anything.”
He pauses, letting the implication breathe.
“It would open something,” he finishes. “A path to her birthright.”
He finally stops and turns to face me fully.
“Is that direct enough?”
“What is her birthright?”
He quirks an eyebrow. “You have fallen in love with her and you don’t know?”
“I’m not in love with her,” I snap. If I am, that’s not something he needs to know.
He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t comment on my denial. “She is from the forgotten realm, the erased realm…the Veil.”
I suck in a breath. My mind moves fast, ruthless in the way it always has when the stakes turn lethal.
If that’s true, the prophecy of her deciding the fate of our world is true.
If she opens it fully, the prison becomes a door.
And everything locked inside walks free.
That will be the end of the world as we know it.
The words don’t echo around us. Even though they feel as though he has shouted them and I feel them all the way down to my bones.
Dorian watches my face like he’s cataloging every single little twitch. “Now you understand why I’m interested,” he says quietly. “And why the Council circled her like carrion the moment they realized she could hear the Veil answer back.”
“They’ll kill her before they let that happen,” I say flatly.
He doesn’t disagree.
“Or open the veil long enough to shove her into it,” he says. “But my guess is they will use her until she becomes a liability…and it seems necessary.”
My jaw sets. “She won’t open it, even if she has the artifact.”
Dorian’s expression softens, and his eyes take on a far away look. “She might,” he says. “If the Veil convinces her it’s the only way to save what and who she loves.”
I take a step closer, lowering my voice. “She won’t open it, I’ll make sure of it.”
The path curves ahead of us, the academy lights just visible through the trees. Patrol protocol says we stay together, or I’d be leaving him here so I can go find Lindsay.
“You said she’s from the Veil,” I say as another thought comes to me. “Not created by it.”
“Yes.”
“Then she’s not its weapon.”
“No,” Dorian agrees. “She’s its heir.”
I exhale slowly. “And Azrael knew.”
Dorian’s mouth curves, faint and knowing. “Of course he did.”
I close my eyes for half a breath.
Azrael warned me not to touch her magic. Told me distance was protection. Told me that prophecy’s lie and a trap disguised as destiny.
And still, he put the artifact in my hands. Because he knows I will stand between her and the truth as long as I can. And when I can’t anymore—I shut the thought down before it can form.
I’ll stand beside her.
I open my eyes. “If the council—” Another sentence I can’t voice because giving voice to it gives it power.
“I’ll know,” Dorian says, answering my unspoken words. “And so will you.”
We resume walking, steps falling back into sync. But nothing about the night feels routine anymore. Because now I know what’s really at stake.
And for the first time since this began, I’m not sure whether keeping her safe means keeping her here—or letting her remember where she came from.