Chapter 14 Zeidan
ZEIDAN
Her power tears through the room, ripping embers from the hearth, splitting stone along the walls in jagged fractures. The air tastes metallic, volatile. Amelia’s magic isn’t attacking with intent. It’s reacting. Flaring outward like a wounded animal striking at the nearest shape.
At me.
My hands close around her wrists before the blast can fully detonate. Shadow pours from me on instinct, wrapping around the surge instead of smothering it. I do not suppress her magic. I contain it. It’s a delicate difference.
Her power fights first. It always does. It lashes, testing the edges of my control, searching for escape. I let it meet mine. Let it press. Let it burn.
“I’m not your enemy,” I murmur, low enough that only she hears.
Her breathing is uneven. Panic bleeds through the bond in sharp spikes.
“I know. I didn't mean to… I don't know what happened…” Her voice fractures.
“Relax,” I say again. “Look at me.”
Her eyes lift. Gold threaded with wild light. Frightened. I shift my grip,not restraining now, but anchoring. My thumbs press gently into the pulse points at her wrists.
“Breathe.”
She mirrors it without realizing. Her magic doesn’t extinguish. It settles. The storm recedes into tremors, then into heat beneath her skin, then into something almost manageable.
When the last spark fades from the air, silence crashes down around us. Her eyes widen.
“You should have moved,” she whispers.
I release her slowly.
“And let it hit someone else?” I ask evenly.
She pulls her hands back like they’ve betrayed her. “I attacked you.”
“You lost control.”
“That’s worse.”
She steps away from me like distance might protect me from her. The bond strains instantly. I hate that it does.
“Stop,” I say sharply.
She freezes.
“I am not injured,” I continue. “Nothing is broken. Nothing is lost.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Her jaw tightens.
“You could have been hurt.”
“I wasn’t.”
“That’s not the point!”
Her voice cracks. The magic under her skin flutters again, not violently this time, just unsteady. She is afraid of harming me. I step closer deliberately, slowly enough that she could retreat if she wanted.
“Look at me,” I say.
She does.
“When you lost control,” I ask quietly, “what were you feeling?”
Her expression shutters.
“That’s not—”
“What were you feeling, Amelia?”
“Everything.”
It comes out strained.
“My magic feels wrong. Ever since the ritual interruption, it doesn’t move like it used to. It reacts to things I don’t mean for it to react to. I can’t always separate my emotions from it anymore.” She swallows. “And there is so much happening.”
The words spill faster now.
“We still haven’t identified which Purna orchestrated the attack. The land is still sick. The Council is still divided. The Matrons want you back. The bond doesn’t stabilize. And I—” Her voice fractures. “I don’t know where to start.”
There it is. She finally admits she is scared. Her magic responds to emotion. That is its strength. And right now, she feels everything. I study her quietly.
“When I was young,” I say, “they taught me the opposite.”
She blinks.
“To feel nothing?”
“To contain everything.”
I remember it vividly. Cold stone training rings. Blood on snow. Power disciplined into silence. Emotion treated as liability. Compassion carved out like rot.
“If my magic flared unexpectedly,” I continue, “I was punished.”
Her eyes darken.
“I was told that control is dominance. That if my power reacted to feeling, then I was weak.”
She doesn’t interrupt. She doesn’t soften it with sympathy either. She just watches me, steady and intent, like she’s trying to see the shape of the boy I used to be inside the man standing in front of her.
“And did it work?” she asks.
“Yes.”
The answer is immediate.
“I learned to separate sensation from response. To feel something and give it no outlet. To stand in pain and let it pass through without expression. It made me efficient.”
“And alone,” she says quietly.
I hold her gaze. She isn’t accusing. She’s stating a fact.
“Alone is manageable,” I reply.
She steps closer without seeming to realize she’s doing it. The firelight catches in her hair, copper and gold woven through shadow. There is still tension in her posture, but it has shifted. Less defensive. More searching.
“That’s not how Purna magic works,” she says. “We don’t sever emotion from power. We refine it. Guide it. Shape it into something that feeds the land instead of burning it.”
“And when it burns anyway?”
“We learn why.”
The answer unsettles me more than it should.
She studies my face carefully. “When you stepped into the circle,” she says, “you didn’t dominate my magic.”
“No.”
“You matched it.”
“I stabilized it.”
“You anchored it,” she corrects softly.
I don’t respond. Her hand lifts before she seems to think better of it. She brushes her fingers lightly against the center of my chest, right where the suppression runes sit beneath skin and fabric. The contact is deliberate this time.
“You weren’t punishing it,” she says. “You were holding it steady.”
The warmth of her touch spreads slowly outward.
“You were never weak,” she continues, voice lower now. “You were trained to survive.”
I don’t remember the last time anyone reframed it that way. Silence settles between us again, but it isn’t strained. The fire pops softly behind her. Somewhere beyond the chamber walls, Velcryn hums with distant movement.
“You asked what it feels like when I lose control,” she says. “It feels like drowning in my own skin. Like there’s too much of me and nowhere for it to go.”
Her throat tightens slightly on the last word, and she looks irritated by it.
“There’s so much happening,” she continues. “The interrupted ritual. The poison. The traitor we still haven’t found. My land still isn’t stable. I don’t know where to begin fixing it, and every time I try to focus, my magic responds like it’s already bracing for the next attack.”
She exhales, sharp and frustrated.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
I step closer now, closing the remaining distance between us. Slowly enough that she could retreat if she wanted to.
She doesn’t.
“You’re adapting,” I say. “Your magic was forced into a new pattern when the ritual broke. It’s recalibrating. And you are trying to command it as if nothing changed.”
“And what am I supposed to do instead?” she asks.
“Listen.”
She huffs softly. “That’s vague.”
“It is.”
I lift my hand and place it over hers where it still rests against my chest. My fingers curl around her wrist, guiding her gently.
“Feel the difference,” I say quietly. “Your power doesn’t resist when it meets mine now. It adjusts.”
She goes still. Her breathing shifts. Slows.
The air between us changes in a subtler way than before. Warmth spreading outward from the point of contact. Her magic brushes against mine and then settles. Her eyes lift to mine, startled.
“It’s quieter,” she whispers.
“Yes.”
Something in her expression softens.
“You weren’t trained to do this,” she says.
“No.”
“And yet you can.”
“I learned eventually that suppression is not the same as control.”
She smiles faintly at that. “You’re full of contradictions.”
“I prefer the term layered.”
That earns me a real smile. Small, but real.
She hesitates, then asks, “If control was beaten into you, how did you unlearn it?”
I consider the question longer than I expect to.
“Because it stopped working,” I say at last. “The more power I gained, the more rigid suppression became a liability. I had to understand it instead of just silencing it.”
“And now?”
“Now I choose when to hold back.”
Her gaze sharpens slightly. “And when not to?”
I hold her eyes steadily. “That depends on what’s at stake.”
She doesn’t look away. The space between us grows warmer, not volatile, just charged with awareness.
After a moment, she clears her throat. “I need help. Will you help me investigate everything when we return?”
“Yes.”
“Not just the traitor,” she adds. “The ritual. The buried Wildspont. Whatever shifted my magic.”
“We’ll investigate together,” I add. “When we return to Nytheria, we combine forces. Your intuition. My discipline. We don’t split efforts again.”
Relief moves through the bond like warmth. She nods.
“Together,” she repeats.
“Yes.”
Then I narrow my eyes slightly.
“What did you dream about? You woke up and your magic was all over the place.”
Her reaction is immediate.
“What?”
“You woke unsettled. That's what triggered it.”
She looks away too quickly.
“Nothing.”
“Amelia.”
Her ears flush faintly.
“I dreamed…” She hesitates. “You had wings.”
I still and my heart start beating faster.
“…That’s all?” I ask carefully.
Her expression dares me to challenge her.
“Yes.”
I consider lying, but we made a promise…
“I do.”
Her head snaps up.
“You’re joking.”
“I am not.”
Shock flashes across her face.
“Only the strongest Vrakken manifest wings,” I explain. “People know I have them. They just rarely see them.”
“Why hide them?”
“At court, everyone knows what I am. But I do not display them unless I choose to.”
“And you prefer people to underestimate you.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes search mine.
“Will you show me?”
Dangerous question. She is not asking for power. She is asking for trust.
I release the suppression spell slowly. Magic unfurls along my spine first, tight and coiled, then spreads outward in a smooth, controlled expansion.
Black wings emerge behind me, vast and shadowed, edged faintly in silver where firelight catches them. They fill the room.
Amelia inhales sharply.
“They’re…” She steps closer without realizing it. “Beautiful.”
I don’t remember the last time anyone used that word. She reaches out slowly.
“May I?”
I nod once. Her fingers brush the lower edge first. I do not expect the sensation. It is… sensitive. My wings react instinctively, shifting slightly, adjusting around her touch.
She stills.
“They feel,” she whispers, “like silk and heat.”
I almost laugh.
“They are not decorative.”
“I didn’t think they were.”
She moves her hand higher, more confident now.
“Thank you,” she says softly.
“For what?”
“For trusting me.”
I nod and she smiles.
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know.”
She withdraws her hand slowly. I fold the wings back in, magic sealing them away beneath skin and shadow once more.
A knock interrupts us then. Three precise raps against the door. We both turn.
“The Matrons,” I say.
“You’ll be careful?” she asks.
“I always am.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I meet her gaze.
“I won’t let them fracture what we’re building,” I say quietly.
She studies my face, searching for something she can rely on.
“Come back,” she says.
“I will.”
When I step away this time, the distance feels different. As I leave the room and the corridor of black stone closes around me, I carry the warmth of her touch with me longer than I intend to.