Chapter 32 – Quinton
QUINTON
Istood in the doorway long after she left, staring at the empty hallway. Something was wrong. Not just wrong—dangerous. I felt it in the way she held herself. The careful distance she maintained even when I touched her. The practised calm in her voice when she said she was fine.
She wasn’t fine.
My magic stirred under my skin, reaching for her through the attunement even though she was already gone. The bond hummed faintly—distance, determination, and underneath it all, a cold fury I’d only felt once before. After the cell, when they broke something in her.
I closed the door and leaned against it, jaw tight.
She was planning something. And she didn’t want me involved.
I’d seen it the moment she walked in. Read it in her body before she said a word—the tension in her shoulders, the way her eyes swept the room like she was confirming exits.
Captain’s habits. But this was different.
This was Azaria preparing for something she didn’t expect to walk away from clean.
And when I’d touched her arm, cupped her face, pressed my forehead to hers—she softened. For one breath, one heartbeat, the armor cracked. I felt it: the pull toward me, the want, the exhaustion of holding everything alone.
Let me help. Please.
Then she shut it down. Pulled back. Put the mask back on.
And the look in her eyes when she left was cold, determined, already somewhere I couldn’t follow.
I felt that same fury the day she came back from the cell. When she read the council’s letter and her face went blank; not empty, but controlled. Like she’d already decided what she was going to do, and the only question left was when.
She’d said she was going to see Rylen. Maybe she was. But whatever she told Rylen, whatever she was setting in motion, it wasn’t a conversation. It was a plan.
And she’d come to see me first.
That’s what sat wrong. She came to confirm I was alive, to look at me, touch me, make sure I was real; and then she left. Like she was saying goodbye without saying goodbye. Like she needed to see me whole before she did something that might break her.
And gods, she’d forgiven me too easily. As if telling her I’d helped animate those abominations was nothing.
As if one of them hadn’t nearly killed her.
She’d looked at me like the confession changed nothing, like Malphyr’s sins could never stain me enough for her to turn away.
I didn’t know whether to be grateful for it or sickened by it.
My magic pulsed, restless and agitated, pulling toward the space where she’d stood. The attunement still carried the ghost of her presence. The warmth had faded. The fury hadn’t.
I pushed off the door and crossed to the window. The courtyard below was busy—soldiers drilling, horses being led to the stables. Normal. Ordinary. Like no one had any idea what was building.
My magic was back, fully. Myrin said I was lucky. I’d felt the truth of that in those first days in the recovery wing. The hollow emptiness where my power used to live. The terrifying silence when I reached for the attunement and found nothing.
Then it came back. Slowly, like a tide returning: first a trickle, then a rush, then the full weight of it settling into my veins like it had never left. I could feel her again. That was the first thing I checked when the magic returned. Not my own strength. Her.
I pressed my fist against the windowsill.
Three days. I’d give her three days.
If she came back—if she talked to me, let me in, told me what she was doing—I’d follow her lead. Support her. Whatever she needed. But if she didn’t—if she kept shutting me out, kept walking toward whatever darkness she was building?—
Then I was finding her, whether she wanted me to or not.
Because I’d already burned myself out twice to keep her alive.
I’d felt her heart stutter under my hands, felt the rot eating through her blood, felt the moment her body almost gave up.
I would not lose her to her own rage. Not after everything it cost to save her.
I turned from the window, grabbed my jacket from the chair, and headed for Dain’s office. He’d know. If anyone knew what she was planning, it was him.
And if he didn’t, we’d find out together.