CHAPTER SIX
The morning sun over Isvale offered no mercy for my humiliation. Light spilled across the market square in sheets of liquid gold, but it felt cold against my skin.
At the center of the square stood the council’s stall, its beams newly carved and draped in ceremonial ribbons of muted blue and silver.
From a distance, it looked like a festive pavilion. But close up, you were able to read the proclamation nailed between the uprights.
‘A Plea for Connection: Unbound Souls Seek Their Elarthai.’
Forty-eight hours until dawn claimed my name.
I adjusted the sapphire silk of my gown, the constellations embroidered across the bodice catching the light as I stood upon the raised wooden platform.
“Next!” I called out.
A young man stepped forward—flour still dusting the cuffs of his sleeves. A baker, perhaps.
He offered his unbound hand and I placed mine in his.
The world narrowed to the space between our palms, to the fragile thread of possibility stretched taut between two strangers. I searched his eyes for that flare Lyra had once described.
There was nothing.
“I am sorry,” I murmured, withdrawing gently.
He nodded, disappointment clouding his face. “May the heart guide you, Lady Kaelia.”
And so it continued.
A scholar with ink-stained fingertips. A cooper with broad shoulders and hopeful restraint. A guardsman who could barely meet my eyes.
With each, I searched.
With each, silence answered.
A gruff merchant stepped forward next.
He was broad through the shoulders, his dark beard neatly braided with thin copper rings that caught the sun. The scent of cured leather and crushed clove oil clung to him and his tunic bore faint oil stains near the cuffs.
He grasped my hand before I could fully offer it, his skin sticky with a grime that smeared across my palm. A surge of aversion hit me so sharply I recoiled before the thirty seconds were half-complete.
“No.”
He gave a shallow bow and stepped away.
I wiped my palm against the sapphire silk of my gown with enough force to fray the threads. Sweat traced a line between my shoulder blades, trapped beneath layers of embroidery.
“Next,” I called.
A new figure approached from the thinning line.
He was neither as broad as the merchant nor as eager as the baker from earlier. Taller than I by several inches, with sun-browned skin and hair the color of burnished wheat, tied loosely at the nape of his neck.
When he reached the stall, he did not immediately extend his hand.
He bowed his head first.
“My name is Aric,” he said, voice low. “I thank you for the opportunity.”
I smiled as he extended a hand. I took it, seeking a spark, but found only a dull, friendly comfort. His eyes were a muted green, kind and patient—the exact kind of safety I should have been praying for.
Before I could utter an apology, a shadow unfurled across the stall, swallowing the warmth of the noon whole.
“Excuse me,” I said, keeping my tone polite. “Please wait your—”
My words faltered as my eyes adjusted.
Two piercing blue eyes regarded me from beneath the deep shadow of a black hood.
My fingers tightened instinctively around Aric’s hand, a reflex Talon’s eyes tracked.
“Release her hands.”
“Master Veyr?” Aric stammered, his face draining of color.
Talon did not spare him a glance, his eyes remaining locked on our joined palms. “You know my name. That means you are aware of what I am capable of. So, why do you still hold her hands?
Aric’s hand tore from mine so fast he nearly stumbled over his own boots. He retreated into the crowd without a backward glance, leaving me alone in the hollow Talon had carved into the day.
I stepped down from the platform, my boots hitting the stone as I moved into his personal space.
“You have no right,” I hissed. “You are my chaperone, not my jailer. You are dismantling every attempt I make.”
Talon’s hood shifted as he tilted his head. He was impossibly tall, his presence making the expansive square feel like a closet.
“I am fulfilling my duty.”
“By frightening them away?” I gestured to the empty line. “How am I to find a bond when you are standing here looking like death itself?”
He stepped closer. “You believe proximity to me erases possibility? If that man were your match, Kaelia, my shadow would not have been enough to douse the spark.”
He looked down at me, his gaze dropping to the pulse point at my throat. It was the first time I had really looked at him in the sunlight. His jaw was a hard, clean line, and his mouth was set in a way that made me wonder if he ever actually smiled.
“I know you felt nothing for him,” he said, his voice dropping.
The blood rushed to my face—partly from the heat of the square, but mostly from the humiliation of being seen so clearly.
“You cannot know that.”
“I can. I saw your soul recoil before he even touched you.”
“There is no such thing for you to see,” I scoffed.
“You are trying to tether yourself to a soul that does not answer yours,” he countered, his eyes narrowing to slits of piercing blue. “You will not do it. You are too stubborn to survive a false bond.”
“I will if it is the only choice I have.”
His gaze raked over me—from the silver constellations on my bodice down to the hem of my dress—before returning to my eyes. “Perhaps you have a better one.”
“You speak in riddles, Talon.” I stepped forward, poking a finger firmly against the dark fabric of his chest. It felt like prodding a wall of solid marble. “If you think this is a game, you are mistaken.”
He did not flinch. He just watched my finger as if it were a curious insect. “I do not play games, little flame.”
Standing up on the tips of my toes, I leaned close enough that my nose brushed his. I felt the heat of his breath, my eyes briefly flickering to his mouth before I forced myself to meet his stare.
“Leave me alone, Master Veythar,” I whispered. “If you truly wish to not see me fail, walk away.”
A faint crease appeared between his brows as his gaze searched mine.
I hated the way he looked at me—not because he was the Master of Veythar, but because he looked at me as if he already knew the shape of my soul. Twenty years of building ice around my heart, and he was turning it all to water just by breathing near me.
Talon took a slow step back. “Continue then. Offer your hand again.”
“And you? Will you leave?”
“No,” he said. “I will sit here and watch you find only silence.”