Chapter 2 – Azaria
AZARIA
The cold of the stone floor soaked into my boots as we moved deeper into the palace’s underbelly, down corridors that hadn’t seen sunlight in years. My wrists were bound, but loosely, more symbolic than necessary. I wasn’t resisting. I didn’t need to.
Callan walked beside me. He hadn’t spoken since we left the courtyard.
Not after the guards descended. Not after I surrendered my artifacts to Thorne with fingers that didn’t tremble.
Not even when I flinched at the word confiscate.
He looked forward, jaw tight, hands fisted at his sides, stopping himself from touching me.
The door to the cell scraped open. Old metal and damp air. Familiar. This wasn’t the first time people who feared what I might become had caged me. I stepped inside without prompting. The guard behind me moved to rebind me to the wall, but Callan’s voice cut through the stale air.
“Leave us.”
They hesitated.
“That’s an order,” he said, colder now. The shift in him was quiet but absolute. Authority wrapped in silk and steel. The guards obeyed, footsteps fading up the stone hall until only silence remained. He turned to me. Held my eyes.
Then the air shimmered, and the cell shifted. The walls blurred, folding into shadow and silence. An illusion wrapped around us, cloaking everything. To the guards outside, we’d look like blurred shapes, nothing more.
“I’m sorry,” he said, low and tight. “They outmaneuvered me. I should’ve seen it coming.”
I didn’t answer right away. I looked at him—the man who’d held me the night of the ball like I was something precious, then handed me over in the courtyard like a prisoner.
I knew he was telling the truth. Every word felt true.
But the sting from the courtyard still lingered, an ember I couldn’t quite stamp out.
They chose him on purpose to make this hurt. And it worked.
“I knew it would happen eventually,” I said, voice steady. “They moved faster than expected.”
Callan stepped closer. “They’re afraid of you.”
“They should be.”
That pulled the ghost of a smile from him, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He looked wrecked. Controlled, but barely. Only someone trained to hide pain could manage that stillness. His gaze swept over me. He wanted to touch me, I could see it, but didn’t trust himself to.
“Rylen isn’t happy,” he murmured. “Neither is Serah. Even Veshar looked ready to burn the council wing down.”
That almost startled a laugh out of me. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
His expression didn’t shift. “You won’t be here long. I’ll make sure of it.”
I believed him. That was the dangerous part.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Make sure they don’t twist this against my team.”
“I already am.” His voice broke a little there, a crack he couldn’t hide. “But I hate it came to this.”
“I don’t.” I looked up at him. “Because now we know where the lines are.”
Silence stretched between us, heavy and full of everything we couldn’t say.
Then he stepped forward, and this time he didn’t stop.
Callan’s hands rested on my arms, thumbs brushing my shoulders in slow circles.
I let him. Didn’t lean into it, didn’t pull away.
I just stood there, feeling the weight of his touch and everything behind it.
“I’ll get you out of here. I’ll do everything I can, I promise.”
“I know.”
“I have to go,” he whispered.
I nodded. “Stay away from me. For now. It’s better for both of us if you’re not seen around me while this is happening.” My voice was steady, but the space between us felt heavier than it ever had. “You know it is.”
He hesitated.
“They can’t know where you stand,” I added, softer this time. “Not yet.”
His silence lasted too long. Then, quietly, “I know.”
The illusion began to fade, edges cracking like frost under heat. His hands dropped from my shoulders as slowly as if he were letting go of something he'd never get back.
“Go,” I said. “Before the guards suspect anything.”
After the door closed, I didn’t move.
The illusion was gone. The silence returned.
The cold stone pressed into my back, into my wrists, into the hollow ache I’d been carrying for years now.
It wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d been here before.
Different rooms, different chains, different wars.
But this time, it wasn’t my failure that had brought me to the ground. It was fear. Theirs.
The council had been circling for months, dropping threads like blood in the water. First Koulan. Then the budget inquiries. Then the shifting patrol rotations. Too many shadows in too many corners. I knew. I’d always known.
And Torven. Even after Vasirien filed for his relocation and he’d walked free, I’d hoped his reach had limits.
I was wrong. This had his scent on it. His polish.
His precision. The way the accusations had been wrapped in something official, procedural, and clean.
This was retaliation—for refusing him, for surviving him, for daring to build something he couldn’t control.
Accuse the captain. Shake the unit. Send a message.
It wouldn’t stop here. This was only the opening move.
I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes, breathing in the damp chill of stone and dust. My stomach clenched. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The cold was settling deeper now, seeping through my clothes and into my bones.
I glanced at the summoning tattoo on my wrist, Darann’s parting gift before we left Calvessan.
It wouldn’t work here. The walls were etched with runes blocking shadow magic and spatial manipulation.
Even if I could access the in-between, the bindings on my wrists would stop me.
But the runes didn’t ward all magic. Only the kinds that could get me out.
No need for a heavily shielded cell for a magicless captain, I supposed.
I thought of my squad. The way Reyna’s voice had cracked with fury. The way Kael had stepped beside me like a blade. The stillness in Elias. Thorne, silent and steady as ever, guarding my artifacts like they were pieces of me, and maybe they were.
Dain had wanted to protect me, but he’d listened when I told him to stand down. That was the part that broke me a little: how deeply he trusted my command, even when it meant letting me be taken.
I wondered what he’d do now. How hard he’d fight to keep the team together. I wondered if they hated Callan for this.
My fingers curled. His hands had been gentle.
His voice quiet. And yet he was the one who’d bound my wrists.
But gods, that look in his eyes. The way he’d said I’m sorry, like it was the only truth left to him.
Like he would’ve taken my place if it meant I didn’t have to stand there with the world trying to burn me again. And now he was gone. They all were.
I was alone again.
But not broken. Never that.
Hours passed. Maybe more. Hard to tell in the dark. The stillness had wrapped itself around me. I’d stopped counting breaths. Stopped thinking about the cold. Then I felt him.
Not the sound of boots—that came after. The sense of him, the way you know someone’s watching before you see them. I looked up.
Dain stood beyond the threshold, flanked by two palace sentries who looked more nervous than strict. He was glaring at them, jaw tight, posture iron-straight.
“I’m stepping inside,” he said.
“No one’s allowed in—” The guard’s protest died when Dain’s eyes cut to him.
“Are we going to have a problem?” Dain’s voice was cold steel. “Because I assure you, you will have a very big one if I don’t speak to my Captain right now.”
The guards shifted. One opened his mouth, but something in Dain’s stance shut him up. Not a threat, but a quiet command—the kind only someone like Dain could wield without raising his voice. Eventually, one stepped back.
“You get five minutes,” the taller sentry grunted. “And we’ll stay where we can see you.”
Dain didn’t even glance at him. His eyes were on me. He stepped inside. The door scraped closed behind him, not locked, not secure, but closed enough for something like privacy.
He didn’t speak right away. His gaze flicked to the runes etched into the walls, then to the bindings on my wrists.
I noticed his expression tighten; the cord had been retied after Callan left, pulled snugger than before by guards who didn’t share Callan’s restraint.
Something shifted in his face: recognition.
The runes blocked spatial manipulation and shadow walking, but not mind magic.
I sat on the stone bench, legs drawn up, arms loose over my knees. I looked at him, at the worry carved into his face, at the unrelenting stillness of his presence.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said softly. “I’m fine.”
His eyes flicked to my wrists. He didn’t answer. He stood there, steady and solid, as he always had been.
I held out a hand. He took it without hesitation. Then I shifted forward slightly, and he stepped closer, kneeling in front of me. I placed his hands carefully against my temples. He stilled, closing his eyes. The world quieted, then I opened the thought to him:
Callan is innocent. This is retaliation for Torven. Keep everyone safe.
Opening my mind like that, even to Dain, cost me more than I’d expected. Telling him about Torven, even in thought, felt like ripping open an old wound. But he needed to know. Needed to understand what we were really fighting.
His hands were warm and steady. He didn’t speak, not with his mouth. He pressed his brow to mine for the briefest moment, a touch that said I hear you. I’ve got you.
Then I pulled back. The moment shattered as the sentries barked from behind the bars, impatient.
“Time’s up.”
Dain stepped away slowly, his eyes still locked on mine. He didn’t look at the guards. Didn’t say goodbye. He nodded and walked out.
I closed my eyes.