Chapter Ten
Connor
Inside the Inn’s back room, the hearth burned low and restless.
Adrian had joined them ten minutes ago, entering the room with confidence and flair, Max close behind him.
After the Innkeeper had poured warm glasses of mead and set out baskets of freshly baked bread and honey cakes, the meeting was ready to start.
Cariah paced. Salis watched. Melanus stood still as a rock, waiting. And Connor’s patience frayed like rope in a storm.
“Speak plainly,” he growled at last, arms folded, boots planted wide. “No riddles. No poetic shite. Just tell us why the hell Glengáill was dropped on my land. And who the fuck is this Council we’ve been hearing about?”
Cariah stopped pacing. The hewn-stone floor creaked under his weight.
Xiathen sighed heavily. “The Council of Veils is not a government, not a species, and not a pantheon. It is a self-constructed regulatory force formed within the Veiled Path, the realm between worlds.”
“They exist for one purpose,” Cariah continued. “To maintain equilibrium between worlds by any means necessary. They consider worlds, people, and magic as variables. Not lives.”
“Not rulers,” Xiathen said carefully. “Not gods. Not demons. They are Adjudicators. Wardens of what lies between worlds.”
“We believe,” Melanus began, “the Council did not send the storm without purpose, for they do nothing without an end goal.” She paused. “They sent it to bring us here.”
Adrian froze. “To Scotland? Why would they—”
“Because of you,” Xiathen said softly.
Adrian went still. His breath hitched. Connor stepped closer automatically, his body angled like a shield.
Xiathen approached the table, long fingers gliding over the worn surface. “Your mark, Adrian. The Seal of Pursuit.” They gestured to Adrian’s collarbone. “You have felt it, yes?”
Connor saw Adrian go pale, his gaze wary.
“I have a small infection, nothing too serious.”
Connor knew it was a lie. Before he could say anything, Melanus stepped forward.
“It is no infection. It is a powerful sigil. It ties you to the Council’s will.
Their desire to reclaim you is absolute.
But the way they chose to pursue you, that is what troubles us, Adrian.
Somewhere in your past you have a strong tie to our world.
It may be eons ago, beyond recall, or a product of birth we simply don’t understand yet, but—”
Adrian stood up, his expressive hands telling his story.
“That’s ridiculous. I have no secret background.
I knew my parents, my grandparents, and I can assure you I have no ties to your world.
I’m not Clark fucking Kent sent to Earth from another world to fulfil a destiny I don’t even know about.
” His chest heaved as he paced the room. “They have no claim on me.”
Melanus sighed heavily. “All I can tell you is that the Triarc have been dreaming. Badly. Painfully. Our dreams echo with symbols we recognise. Anchors, fault lines, and two Valours walking through a sea of shadow.” Her voice thinned. “And a spark. A very specific spark.”
Adrian’s pulse jumped. Connor felt it, even from where he stood.
“No,” Adrian denied. “That can’t be. That spark was ours. It came from—”
“The bond,” Xiathen finished. “A resonance.”
Connor’s wolf bristled. “Our bond isn’t their damned business.”
“But it is,” Melanus said, stepping closer. “Because they needed it.”
Adrian’s throat tightened. “Needed our connection?”
Xiathen nodded once, slow, heavy. “The Triarc believe the Council moved Glengáill to ignite what lay dormant between you. That the displacement, the fear, the rifts, everything was designed to bring you two into alignment sooner. Faster. Harder.”
Melanus spoke again, her voice rough. “The Council didn’t know how to force the Valour spark to manifest on their own plane.
Too much resistance. Too much balance. So they cast us out of Utharia entirely, dropped us between realms, into the Mortal Plane, because that instability would shake the Valours awake. ”
“You’re saying,” Connor clarified, his voice low and thunder-dark, “they tore a whole village out of its world to what? Make us look at each other?”
Melanus gave a humourless laugh. “Not look. Resonate. They needed the spark. They needed the Valours bound. Because once bound—”
Xiathen finished quietly, miserably, “You are easier to pull.”
Adrian’s breath fractured. “So this entire catastrophe—the rend, the displacement, the hunts—wasn’t an attack on your village at all.”
“No,” Xiathen whispered. “It was a lure. For you.”
Connor’s voice cut through the rising panic like steel through cloth. “Then we unmark him. Break it.”
Xiathen blinked. “You do not simply break a Council mark.”
Connor stood abruptly, palms flat on the table. “Watch me.” He looked at Adrian with unwavering intensity. “They’re not taking you. They’re not taking anyone. No one is being taken by anything while I’m standing.”
Adrian swallowed hard. “You can’t promise that.”
“I just did.”
Something thick and unspoken hung between them. Max shifted awkwardly at the door. Fraser gave what sounded suspiciously like a soft mutter of, “Christ, get a room.”
Connor ignored them.
“For both of you,” Melanus corrected. “The Council doesn’t want the Marked. They want the pair. The Valours forged by crisis. The bond strengthened by fear. The resonance sharpened by survival. They want what you are becoming.”
Adrian’s voice was edgy. “And we walked right into it.”
Xiathen nodded. “The Triarc believe that. They believe your spark, your bond, was the Council’s intention all along. We fled Utharia thinking we escaped the storm.” Their eyes dimmed. “We were the storm’s cargo.”
Connor swore in Gaelic, raw, guttural.
Adrian pressed a hand to his mark. “So the Council didn’t miscalculate. They didn’t lose control.”
“No,” Xiathen whispered. “They manoeuvred us. All of us. Straight into their hands.”
Silence settled. Heavy. Inevitable. Until Connor stepped forward, fury etched in every line of him. “They may have set the board,” he said, his voice like steel on stone, “but they didn’t account for one thing.”
Adrian looked up, his eyes shining with defiance. And something else. Hope. “And what is that?” he murmured.
Connor’s answer came like a vow. “We’re not theirs to claim.”
Adrian nodded. “Well said.”
“We must reinforce the bond,” Melanus said.
“So be it,” Xiathen responded. He motioned to Connor and Adrian. “Stand back-to-back once again, please.”
The two men moved as instructed. Xiathen laid a hand on Connor’s shoulder. His voice dropped. “Not Entity,” he said softly, as if correcting the world itself. “Not merely watcher.”
The Triarc shifted as one. Melanus’s pale gaze sharpening, Cariah’s mouth tight-lipped, Salis turning her blank eyes toward Connor as if seeing the shape of him without sight. They lifted their hands toward the dark line where the village’s air thinned and the Highlands began.
“Veilwarden,” Cariah intoned, the word landing like stone in water.
Salis echoed it, small and absolute. “Veilwarden.”
Melanus’s smile was faint, solemn. “Veilwarden.” She turned to Adrian. “The Marked has already been named. And the Veilwarden stands beside him, anchor and fang, boundary and blade.”
Xiathen inclined his head, reverent and unyielding. “Hold the line, Connor Brannigan. Let no hunger cross unchallenged. Let no oath be taken without consequence.”
Cariah’s voice roughened, as if the air itself resisted. “If the Council of Veils comes seeking what they set in motion—”
Salis finished, whisper-thin, “They will find the Veilwarden first.”
Xiathen caught his breath. “There is more to tell you, and answers to give, but we are tired now. Best meet us tomorrow by the old well, and I will try to answer what you’ve been seeking.”