Chapter 4 #2
Varyth didn’t so much as blink in response.
“Shaelith, our Keeper of Secrets.” He gestured to the white-haired woman, who offered me a curt nod. “And Cindrissian, Master of Interrogations,” he added, nodding to the man across from them.
I glanced over to him. Gods, he wasn’t carved from shadow. He was what shadow dreamed of becoming.
Elegant, but not soft. Every inch of him radiated restraint, as though he was built to vanish and reappear just behind your last thought.
But it was his face that truly unsettled me.
High, slashing cheekbones framed a jaw that looked capable of cutting through glass, his features hewn with an unnatural, striking precision.
His skin was pale, not in the way of the sickly or the fragile, but of moonlight cast over a battlefield.
His hair, ink-black and just wild enough to suggest he didn’t care to tame it, framed his face in tousled waves.
And then there were his eyes.
Crimson. Glowing. Like blood made conscious.
Even the air near him seemed to wait for permission to move.
He didn’t look at me. He didn’t have to.
I felt it anyway, like I’d already been peeled open, sifted through, and filed away.
A flicker of movement, his head tilted. A smirk ghosted across his mouth. “Curious.”
A cold weight settled at the base of my neck as I forced myself to look away.
Varyth gestured to the empty seat between him and Cindrissian. “Sit.”
I paused for only a moment before I slid into the chair, my posture guarded, back straight.
My stomach growled with hunger, but I hesitated before digging into the food. The platters were piled high, tempting, but the others’ silent watchfulness made me pause.
They were waiting. Waiting for me to crack. To reach for the food.
To slip.
My fingers hovered. I didn’t know what they were measuring. But their judgement weighed on me all the same.
Darian snorted from across the table, breaking the silence with a grin. “If the food was poisoned, I’d be long dead by now,” he said, as if that somehow made it all fine.
With a shaky breath, I caved in to the hunger that gnawed at me.
I stacked food onto my plate, every bite another small surrender.
I ate with a hunger that startled even me.
My body’s instinct overriding a mind that screamed no.
I probably didn’t look much better than Darian, still eating enthusiastically, but at least Shaelith’s disgust remained focused on him rather than me.
The conversation drifted around me for a while, the fae speaking of border tensions, trade negotiations, minor disputes that sounded as though they held greater importance than they let on.
Varyth turned back to me, his expression unreadable. “Tell me, Isara. Now that you’ve crossed the Veil, what do you plan to do?”
My mind flicked back to my children. To Mireth’s laugh. To Eryx’s sleepy weight against my chest. I had fought so hard to get here. To get them here. And now, for the first time, I was being asked what came next. I didn’t know.
And somehow, that felt like failure.
“I just want my children safe,” I admitted, my words tempered by honesty. “That’s all I’ve thought about.”
“Your children are safe here.” Varyth’s impatience coloured his tone. “I’m asking about you.” His gaze was cutting. “Do you understand what you’ve begun by crossing that border?”
I hesitated and glanced briefly at the others, then back at Varyth. “I know I’ve crossed a line that can’t easily be uncrossed.”
Varyth leaned back in his chair, his fingers drumming not out of restlessness, but calculation.
I dragged a breath past the pressure in my chest, the tightening in my gut. But there was no escaping it.
“I need time.”
Varyth gave a slow, measured nod. “You can have time. But surely you know there is a price to returning, should you choose to do so.”
“I’ve heard the stories,” I said quickly. “I understand what it means to cross back.”
“Then you also know it is not only your cost to bear,” he said, his voice a shade softer. “Your children crossed with you. The price is theirs as well.”
My grip on the edge of the table tightened, nails pressing into wood.
A scream rose in my chest, but I buried it, shoved it down beneath my ribs where it could rot quietly beside the guilt.
I knew. Gods, I knew.
Varyth exhaled through his nose. “Few humans survive the crossing.” He shot me a knowing look. “You could count yourself lucky.”
The laugh came out wrong—bitter, more truth than I meant to show. “Lucky? I had a choice between death or the land of trickster fae.”
Across from me, Darian let out a bark of laughter and slapped a hand on the table.
“She’s got a point.” He grinned as he nudged his goblet toward me in a silent toast. “Though not all of us are tricksters. Some of us are too dumb to pull it off.”
“That much is obvious,” Shaelith said dryly.
Darian sighed and threw an arm over the back of his chair. “And yet,” he said, lifting his goblet in mock solemnity, “I persevere.” He clinked his cup against mine before I could stop him, sealing some absurd, unspoken agreement between us.
I couldn’t help it, a glimmer of amusement broke through the tension, a fleeting smile pulling at my lips. Varyth’s gaze flicked downward, catching on my mouth for the briefest second before rising again.
The look made my pulse jump, just for a second. I quickly smoothed the reaction away.
“You are welcome to remain here,” he said, “Until you make your decision. You and your children will be safe within these grounds.”
“What’s the catch?”
“Why does there have to be one?”
“Because there always is.”
“Well,” Shaelith mused. “Perhaps humans aren’t the complete buffoons we thought.”
I arched a brow at her. “And perhaps fae aren’t as clever as the stories portray.”
Darian let out a low whistle, grinning between us. “I like her.”
Varyth sighed, the entire exchange clearly testing the limits of his patience.
I turned back to him and fixed him with a level stare. “So, what’s the price?” I asked again. “What does it cost?”
For a moment, he said nothing, studying me with that same calm intensity. Then, finally, “When you crossed the Veil, I sensed a power.”
A breath of ice blew down my spine.
“It is not uncommon for humans who cross to develop… minor magic. Traces of the Veil left within them,” he continued. “But with you, I sensed something greater.”
My gut clenched like it wanted to run without me.
Something greater. I didn’t want greater. I didn’t want any of this. But the way he had said it slithered beneath my skin into a place I didn’t want to examine.
Because I had felt it, hadn’t I?
That moment, at the Veil. When the world had split open around me. When the air pulled at me, reached for me, singing.
Varyth didn’t waver. “If you choose to remain, I would have you explore that power. Train it.”
I had been forged once before. I wouldn’t be someone else’s weapon again, not even if it came wrapped in silver promises and velvet chairs.
Varyth watched me, his eyes glinting with quiet calculation, waiting for me to react, to recoil. To give myself away. I wouldn’t.
“And,” his voice was light but laced with a tension I couldn’t decipher. “You could work for me.”
Silence stretched between us.
I leaned back in my chair, folding my arms. “And what exactly does working for you entail?”
“That would depend on your power, and what experience you have.” His fingers tapped against the table. “What sort of education did you receive in the human lands?”
I hesitated, debating how much to share. But there was no point in hiding it.
“Extensive training in combat.” I shrugged. “Hand-to-hand, archery, blade work.”
For the first time since I’d sat down, Cindrissian turned toward me.
It was brief, nothing more than a glance, but it was the first sign of interest he’d shown in anything since the meal began.
He said nothing, gaze moving over me as though he was a blade measuring where to cut, then he returned to his meal.
Varyth appeared mildly intrigued. “That will be helpful.” He took a casual sip from his goblet. “Perhaps a military role might interest you. But we can assess that.” His eyes locked on mine. “When you make the change permanent.”
Not if.
When.
The word hit like a brand against my skin.
“What sort of power do you think I have?” I asked warily.
Varyth didn’t answer immediately. He studied me for a beat longer before setting down his goblet.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Truly.”
That should have reassured me. But it didn’t. Because it meant that whatever I carried—whatever had called to me through the Veil—was a magic even he had never seen before.
And that was worse.
That was so much worse.
Varyth shifted in his seat slightly. “But what I sensed. It was… powerful.”
I let my fingers move, idle and practiced, masking the way my pulse clawed at my throat. “You’re a High Lord,” I said. “Surely you’re already powerful enough on your own.”
A ghost of amusement, or perhaps calculation, passed over his face.
“You were a noble before,” he countered. “You know the game. Power doesn’t grow in solitude, it’s curated.”
I pursed my lips.
He had a point.
But I wouldn’t acknowledge it aloud.
“I’ll give you a few days to settle in.” Varyth’s tone returned to one of cool indifference. “After that, you’ll need to decide. If you stay, you train.”
“And my children?” I asked. The idea turned my stomach. That he might look at them and see potential instead of people. “Do you wish for them to be weapons too?”
For the first time, his expression shifted. It was subtle, so fast it could have been a trick of the light. For just a moment, I swore there was a trace of anger. But it was gone before I could be sure.
“They will be given access to the castle’s school,” he said. “They will receive an education, as all fae children here do.”
“That’s very generous of you,” A muscle in my jaw twitched as I held his gaze. “An education, a place in your court… and all for what? My supposed potential?”
Varyth sighed, long and slow, my scepticism apparently exhausting him. “I don’t offer generosity, Isara. I offer practicality. Purpose brings order. Order protects those within.”
I arched a brow. “A purpose that serves you.”
“Of course,” he said, unbothered by the accusation. “That is the foundation of any well-run court, is it not?”
He studied me, waiting for my response, but I merely stared back, refusing to give him even the slightest hint of agreement.
“You have a choice,” he said finally. “You can train. Discover what lies within you. If the power I sensed is as strong as I believe, you will become a formidable force.”
“And if I want to leave?”
“Then you leave. If you think the world beyond is safer, then by all means, walk back into it. Do you truly believe the soldiers who chased you have forgotten? That they aren’t waiting?” His voice lowered. “And what of your children? Will you drag them back to a life of running, of fear?”
The ghosts of those months clawing at my mind.
Mireth’s hollow eyes, the way she bit her lip raw to keep from crying when she was starving.
Eryx’s tiny body, so fevered I thought—I thought I would lose him.
Hiding in that damp, stinking cave, holding him, waiting for the moment he would stop breathing.
And the fear, gods, the fear that every night would be our last.
“My children are mine to protect.”
“Perhaps,” Varyth replied smoothly, “but you do know, don’t you?”
He was waiting for me to crack, to say it aloud.
“What the Veil takes from children. If you choose to cross back.”
The words didn’t leave. They breathed with the walls.
For children... the Veil could take their speech, their sight, or worse—their very essence, leaving behind hollow shells of who they once were.
I clamped my jaw shut before anything reckless could slip out. But I felt Varyth’s scrutiny like a physical touch.
“You’re trying to frighten me.” I spoke evenly, presenting a calm that existed nowhere within.
“I’m stating facts.” Varyth rolled his eyes. “The choice is yours, but it should be an informed one.”
I glanced toward the window, where sunlight streamed in, painting the room in golden hues. Somewhere in those gardens, my children might be playing. Running. Laughing.
Not looking over their shoulders.
Not hiding in damp caves, starving, shaking, waiting for the next night to bring worse.
My children were safe.
And I could never take that from them again.
“I don’t make decisions lightly,” I bit out. “I won’t be coerced into this.”
Varyth sat back again. “Good. I have no interest in the weak-willed.”
I sighed and rubbed my fingers against my temple. “I’ll think about it.” The words were poison on my tongue.
Varyth inclined his head, as if he’d expected that answer all along. “See that you do.”
I opened my mouth to snap a retort—
When the doors to the hall exploded open, crashing against the stone with a force that rattled the air.