VAREK
The maps are wrong.
Not completely. That would be simple to correct.
But wrong in ways that matter—subtle misalignments between reported patrol routes and observed movement, gaps where there should be consistency, patterns that almost hold and then fail at the edges.
Those are the most dangerous errors. The kind that cost lives.
I brace one hand against the table and study the spread of parchment, charcoal lines, and weighted markers.
Kael’s reports sit layered with Aelith’s observations, each accurate on its own and incomplete when combined.
Kael thinks in structure. Aelith thinks in disruption.
Both are necessary. Neither is sufficient.
I adjust a marker by a fraction, aligning it with the latest southern report. The correction does not solve the problem.
Nothing does.
The pain in my chest spikes again.
It has been constant for days. A steady, internal pressure as though something vital has been pulled out of alignment and left that way. It is not an injury I can locate or treat. It does not respond to rest or discipline. It exists beneath both.
The bond.
Distance has made it worse.
I ignore it.
I have learned to function with worse.
“Still trying to solve the entire kingdom before sunrise?” Shanae’s voice, threaded with amusement, carries easily across the room.
I do not look at her immediately. “I am reducing variables.”
“That’s a generous way of describing what you’re doing,” she says, coming to stand beside the table. “From here it looks like brooding with charts.”
I glance at her. She leans against the edge of the table, armour set aside, weapons still within reach. She’s relaxed in a way few people ever are in Dathanor. She has always balanced readiness with ease in a way I have never quite understood.
“You should rest,” she adds.
“You have said that repeatedly.”
“And you have ignored me with impressive consistency.” Her mouth curves. “I’m starting to take it personally.”
“It is not personal.”
“Everything is personal,” she replies. “Especially when it involves you refusing to sleep.”
I consider that. “You are the one who instructed me in this language. If you didn’t want to hear me refuse to do things, you shouldn’t have taught me your native tongue.”
She laughs softly. “True.”
“I have been informed,” I say, “that my accent is ‘Southern.’”
She makes a choking sound. “Oh, that is absolutely my fault.”
“I do not understand the meaning.”
“It means,” she says, clearly enjoying this far too much, “you sound like you could politely dismantle someone while offering them something called sweet tea.”
“I dismantle people regardless.”
“Yes,” she says. “But now you do it politely.”
“I was not aware that was relevant.”
“It isn’t,” she says lightly. “That’s why it works.”
I incline my head slightly. “Noted.”
For a moment, the tension in the room eases.
Then the pain in my chest spikes again, sudden and precise enough to pull my focus inward. I straighten slightly, controlling the shift before it becomes visible.
Shanae’s gaze flicks to me, but she says nothing. She understands the difference between observation and interference.
A knock sounds at the entrance.
It is too fast. Too uneven.
My attention shifts immediately. “Enter.”
The runner stumbles inside. His breathing is wrong. His posture is wrong. Fear drives every movement tight and erratic.
I know before he speaks.
“Commander—” He swallows. “From the city.”
The pain in my chest spikes. “Speak.”
“Contact lost. Two nights ago.”
The world narrows.
“Clarify.”
“Pax—”
The name hits with force.
“—was taken.”
Everything stops.
There is no immediate reaction. No movement. No sound. My mind holds the information in place, processing it with cold precision.
Taken.
Two nights.
Alive—uncertain.
The runner continues, voice unsteady. “Rumours say the palace has him. Interrogation. Possibly—”
“Enough,” Shanae cuts in, her voice hard and immediate. “Go.”
The runner hesitates.
“Now.”
He leaves, and the door closes.
For one measured breath, I remain still.
Then control fractures.
The table shatters beneath my hands.
Stone cracks. Wood splinters. The sounds echo through the chamber as the force of the impact tears through the structure. Markers scatter. Maps are rent. The entire surface collapses inward under the blow.
The pain in my chest surges, no longer contained. It expands outward, feeding something deeper, older, and far more dangerous.
Rage.
It rises without restraint. A full-body response, instinctive and absolute.
My vision clarifies, the edges of the room defined in terms of break points and structural weaknesses.
My body moves before conscious thought can intervene.
I strike the nearest pillar. Stone fractures beneath the impact, cracks splintering outward.
It is insufficient.
The bond burns.
Every instinct I possess converges on a single directive.
Find him.
Eliminate all obstacles.
The rage demands movement, violence, resolution. The room cannot contain it. I strike again. Another fracture. Another failure to dissipate the force building beneath my skin.
“Varek.”
Shanae’s distant voice attempts to reach me. It does not register.
I turn, searching for something that can absorb the force of what is building inside me. There is nothing sufficient.
“Varek, listen to me.”
Her tone has changed.
Commanding.
Familiar.
I stop.
The stillness is abrupt, incomplete. My breathing is controlled by force rather than instinct. The rage remains, coiled and ready beneath the surface.
Shanae steps directly into my line of sight. She does not hesitate to step close. “Pax needs you.”
The words cut through everything. Not the rage but the direction of it. The bond shifts, the pain in my chest sharpening into something focused. Not absence. Not loss.
Need.
Immediate. Urgent. Alive.
Control reasserts itself, but not gently.
I straighten, forcing every visible reaction back under discipline. The destruction in the room remains. I do not acknowledge it.
“Wake them,” I say.
Shanae does not ask who.
I clarify anyway. “Aelith. Kael.” My voice is steady, back to being precise and functional.
Inside, the rage remains. It feels refined now.
Weaponised.
“We move immediately with Aelith’s plan.” But with a few minor revisions.