Chapter 32 Verr
VERR
The doors don’t open when I reach them, and the stillness of that refusal settles under my skin faster than anger does.
The polished black stone reflects just enough of my shape to remind me where I stand and what this place is supposed to recognize, but the mechanism remains unmoved, silent in a way that feels deliberate rather than mechanical.
The guards flanking the entrance don’t shift, don’t acknowledge me beyond the bare fact of my presence, their attention fixed just past me as if I’ve already been accounted for and dismissed.
“Open it,” I say, my voice even, controlled by habit more than intention.
Neither of them responds. The air between us tightens slightly, not from threat, but from the absence of expected reaction, and I step closer, the faint echo of my boots against the stone carrying further than it should in the quiet.
“Open. The door.”
One of them finally moves, though it’s barely more than a shift of weight, enough to acknowledge the sound without conceding to it. “We have orders,” he says, his tone flat, rehearsed, like the answer has been waiting longer than I have.
“I am giving you new ones,” I reply, the words coming sharper now, faster, the edge I usually keep buried slipping through without permission.
“Those orders supersede yours.”
That lands differently when spoken aloud. Not surprising, not new, but undeniable in a way that strips away the illusion I’ve been operating under. I take another step forward, close enough now to see the faint tightening at the edge of his jaw, the subtle adjustment of his grip.
“You’re making a mistake,” I say, quieter.
“No,” he replies, meeting my gaze directly this time. “You are.”
The door opens behind him then, not in response to me, but because something on the other side has chosen it.
The shift in air is immediate, cooler, heavier, carrying the sense of a space that doesn’t bend around presence but enforces it.
I don’t wait for permission. I move past them as the door closes behind me, sealing the corridor away like it never existed.
My father is already inside.
He stands near the center of the room with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, his posture relaxed in a way that suggests nothing here requires his attention, even as he commands all of it. He doesn’t turn when I enter. He doesn’t need to.
“You’re early,” he says.
The calm in his voice grates more than if he’d raised it.
“You took her,” I say, stepping further into the room, the words pulled tight enough to keep from breaking.
He turns then, slowly, his gaze settling on me with the same detached precision he applies to everything.
“Yes.”
No hesitation. No justification. Just acknowledgment.
“Release her,” I say.
“No.”
The answer comes just as easily, just as clean, and something in my chest tightens, not explosively, but with a steady pressure that builds without release.
“She is not a threat to you,” I continue, forcing the words through a jaw that wants to lock. “She has no place in your structure, your politics—”
“She is exactly that,” he interrupts, the shift in his tone minimal but decisive, enough to cut through the rest of the sentence before it forms.
I stop, not because I agree, but because the interruption lands with the weight of something already decided.
“You brought her into this,” he says, stepping toward me with unhurried precision. “You placed her inside a system she does not understand and expected it to bend around her.”
“I expected you to recognize value,” I say.
“I do.”
The answer comes fast enough to catch, and for a fraction of a second it disrupts the rhythm I’ve built.
“Then release her.”
“No.”
The repetition is deliberate now, not just refusal, but reinforcement.
“She will be executed.”
There’s no emphasis in the words, no rise or fall, but they hit harder for it, settling into place without resistance.
My control fractures before I can contain it.
I move.
There’s no calculation in it, no measured transition from thought to action.
One moment I’m standing across from him, the next I’m closing the distance, magic rising with the motion, unrefined and immediate, pulled forward by instinct instead of shaped by discipline.
The pressure builds too quickly, spilling through my grip before I’ve fully formed it, but I don’t slow, don’t adjust—I commit.
The strike never lands.
His hand lifts with almost casual precision, catching the motion before it completes, redirecting it instead of resisting it.
The force I put into it tears sideways, ripping through empty space instead of into him, the backlash snapping through my arm hard enough to disrupt the next movement before it forms.
“Stop,” he says.
The word is quiet, but it carries through the space like it belongs there.
I push again anyway, forcing another strike into shape, tightening the magic this time, trying to control it before release, but he steps forward instead of back, closing the space I was trying to use.
His hand catches my wrist mid-motion, twisting just enough to break the alignment, the pressure precise and efficient, pain flaring sharp and contained.
“You’re reacting,” he says, his voice still calm, still measured, like he’s describing something inevitable.
I wrench free, forcing distance, driving forward again, but every movement meets the same result—nothing where I expect it, resistance where I don’t, my rhythm collapsing under his control of it.
“You’re predictable.”
His palm strikes my chest before I see the movement, the force controlled, directed, enough to empty my lungs without sending me sprawling. I stagger, catch myself, force breath back in, and try again, compressing the magic tighter this time, shaping it before release—
He intercepts it at the point of formation, turning it back along its own path, the backlash heavier now, snapping through my shoulder and dragging my arm down with it.
“You don’t control it,” he says.
“I do,” I snap, the words forced through clenched teeth as I straighten again.
“No,” he replies. “You think you do.”
I adjust, slow the next movement, try to rebuild the structure I’ve been trained into, but he doesn’t give me time to complete it.
He steps in, clean and precise, and the next moment the ground hits my shoulder as he drives me down, my arm locked before I can leverage out of it, my balance gone before I can recover it.
The fight ends there.
Not because I choose it.
Because he does.
“This is the difference,” he says, looking down at me, his expression unchanged, unaffected by anything I’ve done. “Between using power and understanding it.”
I don’t answer.
I can’t.
Because there’s nothing in the moment that argues against it.
He releases me without force, stepping back like the demonstration is complete, like I was never more than that.
“Take him.”
The guards move immediately, hands locking onto my arms before I can reset, before I can pull anything back into alignment.
“You’ve been allowed too much autonomy,” he continues, turning away as if I’ve already ceased to matter. “That ends now.”
“You used this,” I say, forcing the words out as they drag me back. “The war. The villages. All of it.”
He pauses, just long enough to acknowledge the question.
“Yes.”
The confirmation lands harder than the defeat.
“A test,” he adds.
“For what?” I demand.
He glances back over his shoulder, his gaze settling on me with that same measured distance.
“For you.”
The words settle in, and everything else follows.
“You needed pressure,” he continues. “Conflict. Variables you could not control.”
My jaw tightens.
“And her?”
“A variable.”
They pull me again, but I don’t resist this time. Not because I’ve stopped, but because something has shifted into place with a clarity I didn’t have before.
He was ahead of me.
Every step.
The cell door opens, and I don’t need to look to know who’s inside.
The air carries it, the subtle shift in presence that I’ve learned to recognize before sight confirms it.
They shove me forward just enough that I have to move or fall, and I catch myself, straightening as the door closes behind me with a finality that doesn’t echo.
Lyria looks up immediately, her eyes moving over me, taking in the damage, the imbalance, the absence of control I haven’t managed to hide.
“What did you do?” she asks, her voice sharp, cutting through everything else.
“I made a mistake,” I say.
She exhales, shaking her head slightly.
“Yeah,” she mutters. “I figured.”
I meet her gaze.
And for the first time—
There’s nothing behind it.
No plan.
No structure.
Just—
The realization that I’ve been playing a game where I never set the rules.