Chapter 31 The Thief
Chapter thirty-one
The Thief
-Alarik-
The moment she said yes, Alarik felt it.
It wasn’t a sound or a vision.
It was a pull — taut and fierce slipping through his fingers like sand.
He stood in the center of the war room, light from a dozen stained-glass windows spilling broken moons across the marbled floor. But it was her not light or shadow that flooded his mind.
She had agreed to Kael and the bond was forming.
A temporary tether, he knew the rite. Standard for nobility, especially among Nythran houses— too blood thirsty to ever trust their intended without a psychic link to protect them.
It was an emotional bleed— the earliest steps to a permanent seal.
Not always active. Not always deep unless love was involved and gods damn her if it was.
Alarik staggered a step before catching himself on the edge of the black iron table. Zairon looked up from his seat, dark brows furrowing.
“She accepted his proposal, their bond is beginning to form.” Alarik said, voice low, strained. Each syllable landed like glass underfoot.
"She is choosing what is familiar, what she believes will bring her peace." Zairon spoke.
Alarik's gaze didn't lift. His breath shook as he slammed his palm against the map sprawled across the table, the weight of his magic flickering across the room in waves of pale light.
“I told you,” he growled. “I told you I would take her from his bed if I had to.”
Zairon stood slowly. “Alarik,”
“She said yes,” he bit out. “If he rushes a wedding and the bond seals —if the final vow is made —”
“She becomes his,” Zairon finished quietly. “entirely, it would be impossible to undo.”
A pause.
A muscle ticked in Alarik’s jaw. He turned from his friend, from the table, from everything and strode toward the arched windows overlooking the sea.
Waves crashed below, cold and distant.
His reflection stared back from the dark glass ethereal —haunted, dressed in his pale leathers that did little to hide the wild glint in his eyes.
It wasn’t just about vengeance anymore.
He’d tasted her magic in the dream. Felt it. That kiss of divinity still hummed on her skin. She was not meant to be Kael’s consort.
She was the Veil Breaker. Their only chance to drag themselves from the curses that haunted the land.
She was something crafted from Eiren herself: an aperture, a key, an answered prayer. Now she was tethered to the very man who’d murdered a trembling peace with his blade and fragmented the spine of Alarik’s future.
He could not allow that bond to finish forming. He would not let her power be harnessed for the throne of a kingdom already rotting from within, never to be pushed to her full potential.
“Call off the distractions,” he said, turning sharply. “The border raiders, the decoy… end it.”
Zairon flinched. “Are you sure?”
“This isn’t about noise anymore,” Alarik said, voice sharpened to a deadly point. “It’s about silence. We go in with shadow— nothing more.”
“You’re planning an extraction.”
“No,” Alarik murmured, a cruel edge lacing his words. “I’m planning a theft.”
Alarik's fingers moved slowly, as he reached beneath his tunic and slipped his hand inside the inner lining. From a hidden pocket he withdrew a small glass vial — slender, delicate, glowing faintly.
The liquid inside shimmered an otherworldly blue, like melted sapphire. It rippled as he tilted it in his palm, catching glints of faelight woven into its core — liquid starlight, volatile and beautiful. The glass etched in runes that plused faintly, responding to the warmth of his skin.
This wasn't some simple spell. The magic contained was a relic from Calanthe's oldest vaults, enhanced with fae alchem, bound to threads of the dreaming world. Once taken, it wouldn't just project his mind. It would move him — flesh and bone straight into the heart of Nythra's Castle.
A dream-walk, yes. but anchored. Dangerous. Invasive. Brilliant.
And it would only work once.
He stared at the vial for a long moment, watching it swirl as if alive, waiting.
With it, he could reach her. Slip into her dreams like mist on the seas edge, guide her into his arms, and pull her free before Kael even noticed the shape of her absence.
She wouldn't feel fear. Wouldn't even stir. Just a whisper in her mind. A door opened. A hand offered.
It was reckless. But gods it would work.
“I told Kael once,” he said softly, holding the vial to the light. “I would take what he loved most.”
His voice dropped.
“And now I will.”
Zairon didn’t stop him. Only followed as Alarik swept to the balcony.
He pulled the stopper from the vial with a soft pop. The liquid pulsed once, sensing its purpose. His jaw tightened and he lifted the vial to his lips and drank. The potion slid down like cold fire — cool at first then searing.
The glass slipped from his fingers and shattered against the stone.
A gust of air burst outward, rattling the chamber, extinguishing every candle and enchanted light. Zarion stepped back eyes shielded. Alarik's vision blurred, the world around him warped folding in on itself. Space unraveled. Time bent.
He reappeared with a soundless rupture, like the air had torn and stitched itself closed in the span of a heartbeat.
One moment, there was nothing.
The next, Alarik stood at the edge of Nythra's northern fortress — Calyrix Castle — its spires clawing at the sky like blackened bone. The cold was immediate, biting through his leathers. Frigid mountain air filled his lungs in a rush, laced with the sting of iron and frost.
He inhaled slowly, grounding himself.
The city around him continued about as if he was not there at all. His heart pounded, but his face was still — expression craved of ice. He glanced up at the castle, feeling the pull to his soul to her. The potion continued to pulse through his veins, making his hands tremble slightly.
Her pulse echoed like a half-formed melody inside his ribs. Faint… but real. The bond between her and Kael, a tether of emotion, magic, and desire. He felt the tug on her soul.
A child born of four bloods.
A weapon.
A miracle.
And he had tried to be patient. Tried to observe, to nudge her awake through dreams and whispers, testing her resolve, her power. He’d laid the breadcrumbs with care, hoping she would see that she should question. And she had.
But Kael had gotten there first and now she lay sprawled beside the monster who had killed Elenwe.
Something in Alarik fractured.
He thought to himself, that he should have been chosen to find the mortal girl— to usher in her powers.
But maybe — the other four gods had a hand in this — maybe they had pushed Kael to her side first, knowing he would see her as a novelty, a conquest. They could stomp out the chance of a lone goddess's mercy to break the damned curse with no real effort —just hide the truth of the power that stormed under her skin.
Her true purpose, the Veil Breaker. Threat to the gods themselves.
With that thought he moved.
Faelight shimmered across his skin as he made his way to the gates of the palace, bypassing Nythra’s wards one by one. His power was old— deeper than Kael’s smoke, more subtle. He weaved between guards and patrols with nothing more than a flick of his fingers.
Until someone saw him.
A young sentry. Barely older than a boy — sword drawn half-heartedly as he stepped into Alarik’s path.
“You,” the boy started.
He never finished.
Alarik was on him in a breath, a whisper of air and blood and broken bone. The boy dropped without a sound, eyes wide with confusion as life slipped from them.
More followed.
A half dozen Calyrix city guard. Three cut down. Two thrown into enchanted slumber.
By the time Alarik reached the outer courtyard of the royal wing, his hands were slick with blood, his mind sharp with pain. He reveled in it.
His kingdom was dying and Maris was the key within reach. Each kill, each crash of his sword brought him closer.
He scaled the final wall in silence, faelight wrapping him like silk, his breath steady despite the roar in his chest. The bond hadn’t snapped into permanence yet. But he knew — one more vow, one more rushed night, and she’d be bound.
No longer reachable.
He saw her then.
Through the doorway of the king’s chamber. She was curled in silver-threaded sheets, the curve of her bare back rising with each breath, her black hair spilled across the pillows like night itself.
Kael lay beside her, eyes closed, his arm wrapped around her like a vice.
Alarik seethed.
This wasn’t how it was meant to be. She was meant to save them all and Kael would drown her in obsession before she ever knew who she was.
Alarik moved to her side. A whisper of light danced between them. He stepped through the barrier, between wake and sleep with the ease of a male born for it. He risked giving another strand of himself to her with his entrance into another dream.
He was in her mind then. Soft winds. A field of violets —and Maris, barefoot in a gown, turning toward him with a gasp.
Her lips parted, her face turned furious.
“Not again,”
He reached for her hand, voice rough.
“Maris. Listen. You don’t have time,”
But her eyes were already wide with recognition. Her dream had begun before he entered it and he was no longer a stranger in her mind.
“You’re real,” she whispered.
He nodded —jaw tight.
Alarik stepped closer, their dreamscape shifting into a swirl of stars and wind. His expression was grave.
“If you stay here, you’ll be bound to him by more than choice. You’ll become a part of him. And you will never be free to choose again. To fulfill…”
“I already chose,” she said, voice soft.
“No,” he said, sharper than he meant to. “You were manipulated. You don’t even know what you are.”
She blinked.
“I’m the Veilbreaker,” she said.
Alarik froze.
“And do you even know what that fully means?”
”She blinked, uncertainty twisted her face.”
An answer —no she didn’t.