Chapter 39 – Quinton
QUINTON
Icouldn’t sleep. Elias’s words sat in my chest like stones. She was married. Eris was her husband.
I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, and tried to make sense of it. Tried to fit that truth into everything I’d seen in the portraits, everything Kael and Reyna had said, everything Dain had told me.
She’d been ready to spend her life with him. Not just love him, but bind herself to him. And Dravareth ripped it away. My hands curled into fists against the blanket.
The marriage made it worse, made everything I’d been feeling twist tighter. How did I compete with a vow? A life she’d chosen? A man she’d loved so completely she still wore his ring, still wore his uniform four years after he died? I didn’t stand a chance. But I couldn’t walk away either.
Because beneath the jealousy, beneath the inadequacy burning in my gut, there was something else.
Understanding. She hadn’t just lost a lover.
She’d lost a husband. A future. The life they were supposed to build together.
And I’d been in Dravareth the whole time, serving the monster who’d killed him.
I dragged both hands over my face, pressing hard against my eyes until I saw stars. My blood magic coiled under my skin, restless, reaching for her. It had been doing that for weeks. But tonight it felt sharper. More desperate.
I tried to grasp onto the thread I’d learned to follow. But it was faint. Muted. Like she was pulling further away, and I couldn’t hold on.
Sleep didn’t come.
Two weeks. Fourteen days since I’d recovered, and she hadn’t. Since she’d looked at me—whole, alive, healed—and something inside her had broken all over again. I’d given myself three days. Three days, and then I’d find her whether she wanted me to or not.
I’d lied.
Every night I told myself: Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll break down her door. But I didn’t. Because every time I stood outside her house with my knuckles aching and my magic screaming at me to do something, I stopped.
What if she didn’t want to be found?
What if forcing my way in only made it worse?
So I knocked. Every day. And every day, silence.
I watched her leave the palace at dusk, her white cloak billowing behind her, her stride fast and deliberate, as if she had somewhere to be.
I followed at a distance, telling myself I just needed to know she was safe.
But I always lost her. She’d slip through the city streets like smoke, turn a corner, and vanish. It was driving me insane.
The squad noticed. Elias kept watching me with that assessing gaze, waiting for me to shatter. Lyra brought me food I didn’t eat, sat beside me in silence when words felt impossible. Even Kael stopped making jokes, just clapped a hand on my shoulder and said, “Hang in there, Thornvale.”
And Dain watched me like he knew. Like he could see exactly how close I was to breaking. But he said nothing. Just kept his distance and let me spiral.
The attunement got worse every day. At first, it was just restless: a low hum under my skin, a pull toward where she should be. It was uncomfortable, but manageable.
Then it started to hurt. Like a snake coiling tighter around my ribs, constricting with every breath.
Burning and clawing. My hands shook when I tried to hold a blade, and sleep became impossible.
I’d lie in bed for hours feeling my magic coil and search and strike at nothing, and there was nothing I could do to make it stop.
Elias asked once if I was all right.
I lied.
Because how did I explain this? How did I tell him that my magic had tangled itself so tightly around her that losing her felt like losing a limb? That every moment she stayed away, every door left unanswered, every night she disappeared into the city—it was killing me?
I couldn’t. So I said I was fine, and he didn’t believe me, and we both pretended it was enough.
It was the fifteenth night when I decided I couldn’t wait anymore.
She’d left the palace just after dusk, her stride quick and purposeful.
I followed, keeping to the shadows, my blood magic humming faintly as I tracked her through the winding streets.
She moved like she knew exactly where she was going.
No hesitation. No looking back. I stayed far enough behind that she wouldn’t notice, close enough that I wouldn’t lose her.
The city thinned as we moved toward the warehouse district.
Fewer people. Darker streets. The kind of place you didn’t wander into unless you had a reason.
She turned down an alley between two crumbling buildings; her cloak a flash of white against the shadows.
I quickened my pace. The alley opened into a wider street, lined with old warehouses and abandoned storefronts.
I scanned the area, searching for her white cloak, her blonde braid?—
Nothing.
She was gone.
I stopped in the middle of the street and tried to feel for her through the attunement. The thread pulled, and then it didn’t. My blood magic recoiled, grasping at empty air.
I turned in a circle, scanning every shadow, every doorway, every narrow gap between buildings.
She’d been here. Right here. I’d seen her turn the corner not ten seconds ago.
But the attunement was silent. Not blocked.
That was a wall—solid and unyielding, something I could push against even if it didn’t give.
This was different.
This was an absence.
Like she’d ceased to exist. No anger, no grief, no flicker of her presence anywhere. Just silence. Cold and empty.
I stood there, alone in the dark, staring at the space where she’d vanished, and felt something crack open inside me.
What if I lose her completely?
Pain, I could handle. Anger, grief, even her hatred—I could carry all of it, because at least it meant she was there, feeling something.
But this silence?
It felt like she was slipping away from the world entirely. Like the bond was fraying, thread by thread, and soon there’d be nothing left to hold on to.
I pressed both hands against my chest, trying to calm the snake thrashing under my skin.
But the silence didn’t break.
I didn’t sleep that night either. By the time dawn broke, I’d made my decision. I couldn’t do this alone anymore.
Dain’s office was dark except for the single lamp on his desk. He sat behind it, bent over reports, pen moving in methodical strokes. He didn’t look up when I stepped inside.
“Quinton,” he said quietly.
I shut the door and crossed the room. My legs felt unsteady because I hadn’t slept in days. Dain lifted his gaze, and I watched his expression shift. Just slightly. A flicker of something—concern, maybe, or recognition. He saw it. How bad I looked. How close I was.
“I need to know where she is,” I said. The words came out rougher than I meant.
Dain set his pen down and leaned back. His face was unreadable, but his eyes stayed on mine.
“She’s been avoiding all of us,” he said.
“I know.” I dragged a hand through my hair, gripping hard. “I’ve been knocking on her door every day for two weeks. She won’t answer. And last night I followed her.”
Something tightened in Dain’s jaw.
“She left the palace at dusk. I followed her into the warehouse district. She turned a corner and—“ My voice cracked. I forced it to level. “She just disappeared. I searched for an hour. She was gone.”
The silence stretched.
“I know you know where she is,” I said, quieter now. “I know you’re protecting her. But I can’t keep doing this, Dain. I need to see her. I need to know she’s all right.”
For a long moment, Dain said nothing. Then he stood, slow and deliberate, and came around the desk. He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could see the exhaustion in his eyes. The worry he kept buried under the careful mask.
“I’ll find her,” he said.
The tightness in my chest eased—just a fraction. “Let me come with you?—“
“No.” Firm and final.
I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off.
“Quinton.” Quiet but unyielding. “You need to trust me on this.”
“I do trust you. But she’s?—“
“I know.” His gaze held mine. “I know what she means to you. I know this is hard. But right now, the best thing you can do is let me handle this.”
I wanted to fight him. Wanted to demand he take me with him, let me see her, talk to her, do something instead of standing here uselessly while she fell apart. But I saw something in his face that stopped me.
Fear.
Dain was scared.
Not for himself. For her.
Whatever Azaria was doing, wherever she’d gone, it was bad enough that Dain, who never flinched from anything, looked like he was bracing for the worst. I stepped back, fists clenched at my sides.
“Fine,” I said. “But if something happens to her?—“
“It won’t.” His tone left no room for argument. “I won’t let it.”
He moved past me, grabbed his coat from the hook, and pulled it on. I watched him go. The door shut behind him with a quiet click. And I was alone.
I sank into the chair he’d vacated, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.
The bond remained quiet. Empty.
The darkness didn’t answer.