Chapter 8 Zeidan
ZEIDAN
Leaving Nytheria feels wrong in my bones.
The Wildspont watches as I give my final orders, its glow dim and uneven beneath the roots of the council hall. I can feel where it’s sick, fractured ley lines, old wards collapsing inward, magic cannibalizing itself to survive. This land is not dying quietly. It’s fighting…poorly.
“Start with containment,” I say, voice carrying across the gathered wardens and Purnas. “Seal the failing nodes before you attempt purification. If you rush the cleanse, you’ll rupture what little structure remains.”
They listen to me reluctantly. I know how much they hate taking orders from a Vrakken. But they obey, because they have no choice and need my magic and guidance.
I sketch a sigil in the air, it's a Vrakken one, old and sharp, and bind it to the nearest standing stone. The magic reacts immediately, stabilizing, humming low like a held breath.
Gasps ripple through the hall.
“This will hold for a short time,” I continue. “Not weeks. Days. You’ll need reinforcement from Velcryn.”
Every word tastes like a concession.
Amelia stands beside me, arms folded, her face calm and unreadable. But the bond tells a different story. She is stretched thin and exhausted. Furious beneath the surface. And afraid.
I hate that I can feel it, and I'm sure she hates that she has to rely on me.
“I’ll return to Velcryn,” I say finally. “There are relics, anchors. Old ones. They were forged for situations like this.”
The room shifts.
Amelia turns sharply. “You’re leaving?”
“For a short time.”
Her jaw tightens. “You said proximity—”
“I know what I said,” I cut in, softer than intended. “This will help your land. Trust me.”
She doesn’t answer. But the bond pulls hard, protesting, screaming against the distance even as it hasn’t yet formed.
I hate that too.
We part at the edge of the inner ward. She doesn’t look back. I do. Once. That is a mistake…
I remain at the edge of the ward longer than necessary.
She stands beneath the trees, half-lit by the Wildspont’s failing glow, speaking quietly with one of the Purnas. Her posture is rigid, her shoulders squared like armor she refuses to lower. She hasn’t looked at me.
Good. That should make this easier.
It doesn’t.
The bond twists uneasily, reacting to her restraint, her silence. She is fighting it, consciously, stubbornly, and the resistance sends tremors through the connection like hairline fractures. She thinks distance will dull it. She’s wrong. It only makes the pull sharper, more erratic.
I catalog her the way I do everything dangerous.
The way loose strands of her hair catch the light. The tension in her jaw. The exhaustion she refuses to show anyone but me, because I feel it anyway, layered beneath her resolve.
She is beautiful in a way that infuriates me. Not soft. Not ornamental. Dangerous beauty. The kind that survives fire and dares it to try again. I hate that I’m bound to her. I hate that she barely speaks to me now, as if silence might be a weapon.
And I hate most of all that I am forced to know her anyway, through pulse and breath and the subtle shift of her emotions bleeding into mine. Understanding her without permission is far worse than conversation.
I turn away before the bond tightens further.
Velcryn greets me with whispers. They slither through corridors, coil in shadows, crawl along the marble like living things. The Matrons have already decided the story: that I am compromised, that the bond is unstable, that the Purna girl has sunk her claws deeper than expected.
Let them talk.
I don’t stop walking. Garrick finds me in the eastern hall, leaning against a pillar carved with the names of fallen princes. He straightens when he sees me, expression grim.
“They’re preparing a vote,” he says without preamble. “Stripping you of command. Possibly worse.”
I keep moving. “How long?”
“A few days. They’re gathering allies. Spinning fear.”
“Good,” I say. “Fear makes them sloppy.”
Garrick frowns. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“I am,” I reply. “That’s why I’m not reacting.”
He studies me. “You’re unraveling.”
I stop.
The bond surges, hot and sharp, reacting to my stillness, to my anger.
“I am perfectly controlled,” I say.
Garrick exhales. “You haven’t slept. You’re bleeding power. And you keep looking east like you expect her to walk through the gates.”
I say nothing.
Because the bond is screaming. It wants proximity. It wants her. Every step away from Nytheria feels like tearing skin from bone. My magic lashes against its restraints. The suppression runes barely hold.
“She’s affecting you,” Garrick says quietly.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And it changes nothing.”
He looks unconvinced. “You’re going back.”
“I’m retrieving the anchors,” I say. “Then I’m returning.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
Garrick sighs. “You’re not pretending very hard.”
“I don’t pretend,” I say. “I endure.”
Garrick mistakes my stillness for surrender. It isn’t.
The Matrons believe they control Velcryn because they control the stories. Votes. Ritual authority. Fear. They forget that power doesn’t always sit in chambers. Sometimes it waits. Sometimes it watches.
The anchors I’m retrieving are older than the Council. Older than their laws.
Once activated in Nytheria, they will tether Vrakken magic to the Wildspont directly. Not domination. Integration. If it works, Velcryn becomes indispensable. Untouchable. The Council won’t dare strip me of command while the stability of two realms rests on my decisions.
If it fails… I don’t finish that thought.
That night, sleep refuses me.
I lie awake, the suppression runes burning faintly against my skin, a dull, persistent ache like a brand pressed too long. The bond pushes against them constantly, a restless tide seeking shore, testing every seam of restraint I’ve laid over it.
I close my eyes. She is there immediately.
Not in sight or sound, but in sensation.
Her exhaustion seeps into me first, bone-deep, stubborn, the kind she refuses to acknowledge even to herself.
Beneath it coils frustration, sharp and brittle, and under that…
unease. She is unsettled. Alert in a way that sleep does not soothe.
I feel the way she turns on her side, then back again.
The way her magic flutters, reaching for equilibrium and failing.
I could speak to her. The knowledge sits heavy in my chest. The bond allows it, more than emotion, more than instinct.
Words, if I choose them. Thought shaped and carried across the connection.
She doesn’t know that yet. I haven’t told her.
I won’t. Not while Nytheria watches her.
Not while there is a ward to spy on her.
Secrets are safer than comfort. Still, the urge to reach her claws at me. I test the bond carefully, not with words, but with intent. I soften my magic, lower its edges, let calm bleed through the connection like warm water poured slowly into cold.
Her breathing eases. Encouraged despite myself, I shape something gentler. A memory of mine. Moonlight over still water. A forest untouched by rot. Roots strong and whole beneath the earth, humming with quiet life. One of my favourite places. I dont even know why I share it with her.
I release it and pull back at once, pulse quickening, as if I’ve crossed a line I swore I wouldn’t.
For a long moment, there is nothing. But then something brushes back. A feeling. The scent of rain on stone. The memory of standing barefoot in grass after a storm, the world rinsed clean.
It steals my breath. She doesn’t know she’s answered me.
I lie there in the dark, the suppression runes cooling at last, the bond quieter now, not gone, never gone, but eased. Against my will, my mouth curves into the faintest smile.
When sleep finally claims me, it does so gently. For once I do not dream of fire.
I return to Nytheria before dawn.
Officially, I am here to inspect progress. Unofficially, the bond drags me across leagues like a leash snapping tight.
Amelia is in the council chamber when I arrive, mid-argument, surrounded by elders who look ready to tear her apart with words alone.
She looks worse than she did when I left. It hits me the moment I see her, standing rigid before the council, eyes bright with fury and fatigue, magic stretched thin beneath her skin. She hasn’t slept properly. I feel it through the bond like a dull ache behind my eyes.
Distance has not dulled the connection. It has sharpened it into something raw.
Her control is fraying. Not breaking, but close. Too close for someone already carrying the weight of a dying land. Guilt coils low in my chest, unwelcome and persistent. She never asked to bear this alone.
“She’s overstepping,” Elder Cael snaps. “We did not authorize—”
“She doesn’t need your authorization,” I say from the doorway.
Every head turns.
Amelia stiffens. I feel her surprise, relief, irritation all tangled together. I step beside her, close enough that my presence shields her instinctively. The magic responds, flaring just beneath the skin.
The moment I close the distance between us, the bond exhales. So do I.
The tension bleeding through her steadies almost immediately, like a held breath finally released. Her shoulders lower a fraction. Her pulse evens beneath the magic thrumming between us. She doesn’t look at me, but she feels me.
The bond feels less like a wound and more like an anchor. I stay close.
“I was invited,” I continue. “And until the Wildspont stabilizes, she acts with my authority.”
Murmurs ripple.
Cael bristles. “This is Purna land.”
“And it’s collapsing,” I say coldly. “Unless you’d like me to leave and take my support with me.”
Silence. Amelia doesn’t look at me, but I feel her steady slightly, her spine straightening.
“Proceed,” her mother says at last.
The meeting resumes, tense and brittle. I remain at Amelia’s side, my presence a quiet warning. When voices rise too sharply, I shift closer. When accusations sharpen, my magic brushes the edges of the room, subtle but unmistakable.
They argue about precedent. About borders. About whether accepting Vrakken magic will poison the Wildspont further or expose them to domination they can’t undo.
They argue about history. I listen until patience runs thin.
“The Wildspont doesn’t care about your grudges,” I say flatly. “It’s unraveling. You can either adapt, or bury yourselves with it.”
Amelia doesn’t interrupt. She lets me speak.
Smart.
“The anchors will not replace your magic,” I continue. “They will reinforce it. Buy time. Nothing more.”
“And the cost?” Cael demands.
I meet his gaze. “Change.”
That terrifies them more than extinction.
I am just about to say something more when the bond pulses. Then…everything fractures. The room disappears. I am no longer standing in Nytheria. I see through her eyes.
Ash falls from a blackened sky. The Wildspont is gone, replaced by twisted roots choking the land. The coven hall lies in ruins, its stones melted, cracked, crowned with fire.
Amelia stands alone. She wears a crown of ash and blood. Her eyes glow with ancient power, too much, too wild, and when she looks down at her hands, they are stained dark.
Dead bodies surround her. Not enemies. Her people.
She turns, searching for me. I try to reach her. I scream her name…and the vision shatters.
I stagger, catching myself on the table as the present snaps back into place. Amelia gasps, gripping my arm, her nails biting through fabric.
“You saw it,” she whispers.
I meet her eyes, heart hammering.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
I swallow.
“A warning,” I say.
Outside, thunder rolls. And I know, deep in my bones, that the bond didn’t show me a possibility. It showed me a path. And if we’re not careful, she will be crowned in ash.
The room erupts. Voices rise. Accusations fly. Someone shouts that the vision is a manipulation, an illusion, Vrakken trickery. Others look sick, shaken by what they felt through the backlash of the bond.
They felt it. That’s the problem. I straighten slowly, placing myself half a step in front of Amelia without thinking.
“The vision was not an attack,” I say. “It was a warning.”
Fear ripples through the council like rot spreading through grain.
Her mother looks at me for a long moment. Measuring and calculating.
Then, quietly: “If this is what’s coming… we need your help.”
I smile because this is going exactly according to my plan.