Chapter 61 – Kalias
KALIAS
Dain and Azaria stood there, tangled in truths they barely understood, and I watched.
Azaria laughed, teasing Dain until the man looked ready to combust. Fae blood or not, he had not yet learned how to mask the way his soul leaned toward her.
She grinned at him, fearless, throwing sparks just to see how he would catch them.
When she muttered, “If I get to live that long,” the change in him was instant. He stilled, eyes darkening. She had no idea how unshakable he was when it came to her. Neither of them did.
They spoke of bonds like they were burdens, dangerous and fragile.
They did not see that they were already stronger than most I had ever known.
Dain, bound by an instinct older than he realized.
Azaria, carrying silent power sleeping inside her bones.
I could not fault them for their blindness.
The young rarely saw their own strength until it was tested.
I had noted something else during the conversation. Dain had spoken of pain—the isolation cell, injuries in the field. And then he said a name. Eris. His voice had cracked on it, just barely, before he caught himself. “When Eris died and she—“ He had not finished the sentence.
But I did not need him to. The way his hand had pressed to his sternum, the rawness beneath his composure. Whoever Eris had been, their death had nearly broken Azaria. And Dain had felt every moment of that breaking through the bond, without understanding what it was.
I filed the name away. It would surface again. These things always did.
Quinton’s blood magic had tethered itself to her.
That much was obvious from the moment I first stood in their presence.
Blood magic never attached to nothing. It sought currents, threads of power, lines buried deeper than the flesh.
It only ever reached for what was real. And yet Azaria was meant to be magicless.
I had searched for it, the way I would with any other shifter or mage. Felt along the edges of her presence, but there was nothing. No current, no source. Just silence.
That was wrong.
Blood magic does not lie. That is its nature, because blood is tied to life, and life cannot be faked. If Quinton’s magic had tethered itself to her, then there was something there. Something real. Something hidden.
Which meant something else was interrupting the flow, damming the river before it could be seen. A block or a seal. Something placed with intention—not absence, but a concealment. The difference mattered. Absence was natural. Concealment was deliberate.
Someone had hidden whatever lived inside Azaria Sylvenhart.
I could feel Quinton’s magic wrapped around her almost constantly, like a cloak she did not know she wore.
He burned with it, whether he wished to or not.
She, however, seemed entirely unaware. She carried herself as though nothing was unusual at all.
She must have felt it, even if she could not name it, and yet there was nothing in her behavior to suggest she did.
That unsettled me more than the bond itself, the blind spot it created.
I had my suspicions, but suspicions were not certainty.
And I would not speak them aloud until I knew.
And then there was my wolf.
The stubborn beast would not leave her alone for a heartbeat. I could not speak to him directly, but I could feel him: his emotions pressing through me as clearly as any command.
Protect. That was the strongest one, but there were others layered beneath it: recognition, attachment, belonging.
And, annoyingly, a simple pleasure in her presence.
He liked the way she scratched behind his ears, rubbed his belly, and laughed at him like he were not dangerous at all.
The old beast leaned into that every chance he got.
It was as though every instinct he possessed was fixed on her and only her.
Sometimes I had to fight him. Refuse the shift, wrestle control back when he pushed for her side.
That had never happened to me before. Not once in all my years.
A wolf and his other half were meant to move as one.
Disagreements were rare; resistance rarer still.
And yet with Azaria, my wolf was relentless.
The more I held him back, the harder he pushed.
He knew something I did not.
He could not speak it, could not explain it. All I had were flashes of instinct, feelings pressed so hard against me they left marks. Protect. Stay close. Choose her.
Which left the rest to me. If the wolf carried a truth I could not hear, then I would have to uncover it on my own. Piece by piece, sign by sign, until I understood why the beast inside me had sunk his soul into Azaria Sylvenhart and refused to let go.