Chapter 34 The Ripple and the Ridge
THE RIPPLE AND THE RIDGE
The war room carried the echo of the spring and the roar of thousands still ringing in her bones, raw and waiting to fracture. She stood very still, one hand braced against the edge of the table, letting her breath return in shallow threads.
Maeren was the first to break it, planting her palms flat against the granite. “The arena will be in chaos for hours. Half the crowd will swear it was a blessing. The other half will think it’s the beginning of a war.”
“It is,” Savina said flatly, pulling the silver mesh gloves from her hands with deliberate movements. “They just don’t know which one yet.”
Thane leaned back against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. “We need to get ahead of this before Orchid sends an envoy. Or an army.”
Ella’s palms pressed harder into the table, the cold stone biting into her skin. “They will respond. The question is how. Has there been contact?” She tried to sound casual, but the eagerness in her tone betrayed her.
“I think,” Savina replied, eyes narrowing, “that they’ll hear about a bare, burning Orchid princess in our capital, standing beside the future King of Dravaryn, and some conclusions might be drawn. Ones that we may not like.”
Bryn dropped into a chair, stretching out as if this were no more than a tavern quarrel. “In fairness, those conclusions won’t be entirely wrong.”
Jakobav’s voice was low, a rumble that silenced the room at once. “Enough.”
He stepped to Ella’s side, his presence grounding her.
“We’ll test our new abilities away from the city, and then we worry about the repercussions.
Claimed magic is unpredictable at first. My shield held, but I refuse to gamble with any of your lives.
” His hand brushed hers briefly before his gaze returned to the table.
“Maeren, Thane, and Savina, choose a location we can secure. Bryn, you’re with us. ”
Maeren’s brows drew together. “And if the High Vexari demands an account while we’re gone?”
Jakobav’s eyes darkened like polished glass. “Then she’ll get one. But not all of it. Soren will assess the risk before I meet with her again.”
For a long moment, no one moved. Then, one by one, clipped words replaced silence as they spoke of routes, supplies, and contingencies.
The cadence was brisk, but beneath it, disbelief was still heavy in the air.
Their words were little more than scaffolding built to contain what none of them fully understood yet: the Claiming and the fallout.
She stayed where she was, warmth swelling in her chest, a strange certainty that whatever had just happened in that spring, whatever the fates had demanded, had bound her to this circle.
By the time they left the war room, the afternoon sun had climbed high enough to set the cathedral’s black spires blazing with light. The brightness hit Ella hard after the dim tunnels, forcing her eyes to narrow as Jakobav strode ahead, his pace unrelenting.
The remaining six of them fell into motion behind him. Ella kept step near the middle of the group, the formation tightening every time a passerby turned to look at her.
Jakobav didn’t slow as he crossed the courtyards, his stride cutting through attendants and guards until they reached the stables. Their horses were already saddled. Soren must have sent word ahead.
Jakobav mounted in a single motion, reins tight in his fist. “We leave now,” he said, his voice carrying a command loud enough for the entire castle to hear. “South Ridge.”
Thane frowned as he swung into his saddle, broad shoulders shifting with the motion. “We could test closer to the city.”
“Closer means witnesses,” Jakobav replied, his tone final, enough to close the subject. “The fewer eyes, the better.”
They set out at once, hooves striking sparks from the cobbles.
As they rode through the outskirts of Draethmar, Ella realized that word of the Claiming had already outrun them; the few who hadn’t crowded into the arena, travelers and servants bound to their posts, had clearly heard what took place.
From balconies, voices rose in Jakobav’s name, fists lifted in fervor, while in the courtyards below others gathered in clusters, whispering behind their hands as their eyes followed Ella’s every step.
A pair of merchants dropped to one knee when Jakobav passed, while a cloaked woman gasped and staggered back as Ella’s shadow stretched across the dust at her feet.
The attention scraped at her nerves.
Bryn gave a low whistle that carried on the morning air. “Well. The kingdom’s talking, at least.”
“They always talk,” Savina muttered, her voice cold as steel. “The trouble starts when they act.”
The city of Draethmar soon fell behind them, its rooftops swallowed by distance.
The air grew crisp as the road climbed, the forest thinning into ragged slopes. The ridges rose in stark lines against the horizon, serrated like the spine of some long-dead beast.
Something about the ridge’s shape tugged at her memory—the faint glint of scales she’d thought she imagined on the night she first Threadwalked.
She had dismissed it then, blaming shock and fear, because flying creatures with scales like that had been vanquished from the mortal realm for more than five centuries.
But as sunlight struck the spine of the mountain again, a shiver threaded through her.
Maybe their lineage wasn’t buried after all. At least…not in every realm.
The farther they pressed on, the stranger the world became.
The wind shifted in uneven currents that tugged at their clothes and whispered against their ears like half-heard voices.
Light bent oddly in places, shadows stretching longer than they should, crawling across stone outcrops and skeletal trees that clung stubbornly to the slopes.
Bryn was the first to break the silence. “You realize no one comes here on purpose, right?”
“That’s exactly why we are going,” Jakobav said, gaze fixed forward, unflinching.
“Most avoid it for fear of losing their minds,” Bryn continued, still irreverent, though his eyes focused uneasily on the uneven horizon. “The Ridges don’t just warp the air, they warp you. Thoughts get twisted, emotions heightened, sometimes for days afterward.”
Perfect. Exactly what she needed. More emotions. She was barely holding herself together as it was.
Jakobav’s reply was steady, almost too calm. “We’ll handle it.”
No one argued.
When they reached the wide clearing beyond South Ridge, Jakobav was the first to dismount.
The others followed, the motion practiced, wordless.
Without needing direction, they spread into formation: Maeren pacing east with her hand on her blade, Savina and Bryn taking the west, Thane and Soren flanking Jakobav like pillars at his back.
Ella stepped into place opposite him, the wind pulling loose strands of her hair across her cheek as if to test her composure.
Jakobav’s eyes found hers across the clearing. “Out here, the damage is ours alone to bear,” he said, voice carrying into the stillness. “What we brought back from the spring is untested. If it breaks loose in the city, we risk more than whispers and rumors.”
Ella lifted her chin, though her pulse rattled fast against her ribs. “So you brought me here to burn you again?”
The faintest smirk tugged at his mouth. “If that’s what it takes.”
She let out a breath that was half a laugh. “Then you should hope the fates are still feeling generous.”
The smirk sharpened into provocation.
He lifted his hand, and the air around him distorted, light bending into a translucent shield that spread outward in a soft, opalescent curve.
It hummed faintly in the silence. Ella’s magic stirred in response, heat pricking along her palms. She lifted them, fire spilling in white-gold arcs that licked toward the barrier.
The flames broke against his shield like surf against a cliff, dissolving into harmless mist. Jakobav’s voice cut through the trees, low and commanding. “Again.”
Ella drew her fire back, then let it unfurl again.
It obeyed instantly, the blaze more controlled, the color deeper.
A jolt shot through her. Even at her most skilled in Orchid, her magic had never burned this fiercely.
The Claiming had deepened and honed it, as though the spring had reforged her fire.
Jakobav braced against her power, shoulders tight, his shield holding steady although she could see the strain working through the muscles in his jaw.
“More,” he demanded, and the translucent dome expanded outward, shimmering with that opalescent gleam.
The shield swelled larger than before, vibrating across the clearing, and Thane let out a rough, ringing cheer.
“There he is,” Thane called, grinning fiercely, his voice rolling like thunder. “That’s our future king.”
A sense of pride moved through the group.
Even Savina’s mouth twitched faintly, though she masked it quickly. Their excitement settled over Ella, her flames feeding on it until she was alight from fingertips to crown, grateful now more than ever for the impressive garment she wore.
She released her fire in one final rush, then drew it back, letting the white-gold arcs gutter and die against the wind drifting through the clearing. Jakobav’s shield still hung in the air, bright and suspended like glass, until the surface shuddered.
It pulsed once, faltered, and split with a jagged seam. A shockwave burst outward, splintering the ground in a widening fissure that tore straight toward Soren.
The world narrowed to a single point. Something surged inside her, an instinct so deep it hollowed her chest and bent the air around her. Her body moved before thought could form. She thrust out both hands.
The clearing warped. Light folded inward, and a ripple opened in front of her, thin and gleaming—roughly the height of Thane. Jakobav’s power slammed into it and vanished. Not broken. Not destroyed. Simply gone—pulled through to somewhere beyond this realm.
The tear in the Veil snapped shut as fast as it appeared.
Ella staggered. She’d opened it without thinking at all.
The Claiming had awakened her more than she realized.
The hum in her ears deepened, rattling her bones.
She stood on the edge of the fissure Jakobav’s shield had torn into the ground, the split running jagged toward where Soren had been standing.
Its path ended in an abrupt line, the earth severed cleanly at the exact point where the rest of Jakobav’s power had been shunted into the tear in the Veil she had created.
The ripple wavered once, the air thinning around its edges before the tear sealed shut. The last trace of it vanished, leaving only the raw scar in the earth. Ella stumbled back, sweat slick on her skin.
When the haze lifted, Soren stood unscathed. He raised one dark brow, his expression flat, though his eyes betrayed a flicker of surprise. “Not bad.” His tone was flat, but the respect was unmistakable.
The clearing held its breath. No one moved, no one spoke, the silence ringing louder than a roar. They only stared at her.
Bryn’s brows shot up, and for once, his grin was muted. “Remind me never to stand in front of you when you’re improvising.”
Jakobav clenched his jaw and ignored their comments, his gaze cutting to Ella as he closed the space between them. “What was that?” His voice was low and edged with fury, but fear hid beneath it. “You could’ve been hit. And by my own shield. Unacceptable.”
Ella’s temper rose, raw and unchecked, shoving his chest hard enough to force him back a step. “And you could have killed him, Commander.” She let the title linger like an insult.
The air throbbed, deeper than anger, intensified by the effects of this place. She understood why no one ever came here.
His face eased for a single breath, something unguarded flashed before he forced it down. “Will you stop hurling yourself toward death before I can reach you?” he asked, the last word breaking rough in a way she’d never heard from him. “Please.”
She crossed her arms, refusing to respond.
Jakobav’s hand brushed a strand of her hair, fleeting and almost tender, the touch deflating her fury before she could hold onto it.
Maeren stepped forward, her voice ringing like tempered iron. “You ripped his power out of the air, Ella. That wasn’t fire. You opened a seam in the Veil. How did you even do that? Was it the Claiming?”
Savina’s gaze was cool, assessing, her tone softer but no less direct. “Any other tricks you’ve been hiding, Princess? If there are, now’s the time to speak. You’re in this circle. That means no more surprises.”
The words tightened within her chest. Being “in this circle” should have felt like safety, but it carried expectation, and the knowledge that she was no longer only responsible for herself.
She still held secrets, some Jakobav knew, others she hadn’t dared to voice.
But for the first time in years, she felt guilty for keeping them.
“I don’t even know where to start. The last few weeks have swallowed me whole,” she admitted, her voice unsteady. “I’m still catching up to what happened days ago, let alone what happened in that arena.”
Their eyes focused on her, questions brimming, especially in Thane, whose usual grin was absent, his watchfulness turned solemn.
Jakobav stepped between them, his voice snapping the tension in half.
“Enough. Ella stepped in front of Soren without hesitation. She’s fought beside you all.
Never backing down, even when she should.
” He shot her a pointed look before turning back.
“She’s earned the time to process. I shouldn't have pushed her.”
His hand brushed her elbow as he moved past, an anchoring touch, before his voice cut across the clearing. “The Ridge twists minds. Heightens what’s already there. Weak spirits fracture. And none of you are weak, so hold steady.”
Savina’s lips parted as though she was about to argue, but before she could speak, Soren’s quiet voice followed, even and sure. “He’s right.”
The effect was immediate—a testament to Soren’s standing within the circle. The last of the tension eased, though questions still lingered like smoke in the air.
Ella wished she had answers for them. The fates may have bound her to Jakobav in the spring, but trust here was still delicate, fragile as spun glass.
The wind shifted, carrying the crisp bite of pine.
And beneath it…something else. A presence that hovered over the Ridge, brushing against her like unseen fingers.
A sweet scent unfurled—night-blooming jasmine twined with the metallic whisper of rain on pebblestone.
It tugged at the back of her throat like recognition, too intimate to be imagined.
By the time she turned to ask the others if they sensed it too, the scent was gone.