Chapter 2
CHAPTER
TWO
Morning in the warehouse starts with bread.
Not fluffy bread like I remember picking up from the local bakers for Mum in Melbourne, unfortunately. Nothing that fancy. But the grain we cracked open a few days earlier goes a long way once you know how to stretch it. It’s more like damper… but harder.
I’m elbow-deep in a mixing bowl when the first knock comes.
Three taps.
Pause.
Two taps.
I wipe my hands on a cloth and head for the side door.
The knock pattern changes depending on who’s coming through. No one gets the same one twice in a row. It makes it harder for palace guards to fake it if they’re feeling curious.
I slide the bolt back and crack the door open. A pair of narrow golden eyes peer up at me. “Morning, Letha.”
The small reptilian woman slips inside before I’ve even finished speaking. Her scaled tail flicks nervously as she scans the alley behind me.
It’s clear, so I shut the door again.
“You’re early,” I say in Glowranthian.
“The overseer changed shifts.” Her voice is soft and raspy. “I had a window.”
Varek’s gaze turns intense. “Which overseer?”
Letha’s eyes widen and she hesitates. “Commander.” She swallows hard. “Third floor. South loom.”
“Name?”
She swallows again, and I get it. Varek—careful with me or not—is still an intimidating being. “Kerris,” she answers.
Varek nods once, already filing it away. I can see it happening—how his mind locks onto the detail, turns it, fits it into a pattern I didn’t even realise was there.
“He rotates irregularly.”
Of course he does. And of course Varek knows that. Tracks it. Uses it. It shouldn’t do anything for me. It absolutely does.
Letha blinks. “You know him?”
“I know the pattern,” he says. “Irregular shifts mean internal pressure. Either production quotas are failing… or someone is stealing from the crown.”
I snort. “Or both.”
His eyes flick briefly to me. “Often both.”
“Good timing, then,” I say, getting the conversation back on track as Varek steps outside.
Letha works in one of the Queen’s textile houses. Officially, she’s paid labour. Unofficially, she’s closer to indentured property. That’s how the crown handles most Riftborn who are deemed valuable—assign them work that keeps them barely alive and too exhausted to cause trouble.
She visits every three or four days. It’s the same with the others.
I head back to the table and hand her a bowl. “Eat.”
Her shoulders relax instantly.
That right there never gets easier to see: People who’ve been hungry long enough learn not to waste time with politeness.
She devours the first spoonful of porridge like she’s afraid someone might take it away.
“Slow down,” I say.
“I am slow.”
“You’re inhaling it.”
She pauses mid-bite, considering that. Then she shrugs and keeps eating.
Fair enough.
The back door opens again a few minutes later. There’s no knock this time, just a familiar heavy tread.
I glance up as Varek steps inside. He ducks slightly under the frame out of habit.
The room changes when he enters.
Not dramatically.
But noticeably.
Like gravity shifting a fraction.
Letha freezes. Then she slides off the stool so fast, she nearly spills the bowl. “Commander.”
Varek inclines his head slightly.
“Letha.” His voice is calm, low, respectful. “Continue eating,” he tells her.
And that’s the thing about him. He treats everyone like they matter. It doesn’t matter if they’re a warrior, a scavenger, or a half-starved seamstress sneaking food before her shift. He sees them, which is probably why half the rebellion would walk into a volcano if he asked nicely.
She hesitates and glances at me.
I shrug. “He’s not here to inspect your table manners.”
Varek’s mouth twitches, and Letha climbs back onto the stool and resumes He moves quietly through the room, checking the storage racks. Food, bandages, waterskins…. Supplies that appear and disappear with the rhythm of the city.
The warehouse looks messy to an outsider, but to me it’s organised. The crates are stacked by route while the shelves are marked with symbols instead of words.
There are trapdoors hidden under rugs. The tunnels are hidden under those.
Decades ago, the building used to be part of a canal shipping hub, which means it sits on top of half a dozen forgotten maintenance tunnels.
When Varek first brought me to the city, this place was barely more than a shell. Rotting beams, cracked stone, a leaking roof, and a door that barely shut. Perfect, since no one important comes to investigate buildings that look like they’re about to fall down.
At the time, all I wanted was distance. Distance from Dathanor, from the rebellion. And most of all, distance from the male who’d killed my husband, saved my life, and somehow ended up tangled in a bond with me that I hadn’t asked for.
So Varek gave me what I wanted—a place in the city and a way to disappear.
He added no expectations or pressure to join the rebellion. He just gave me space.
Turns out space is dangerous when you’re the sort of person who can’t ignore a problem right in front of you.
I found the tunnels a few weeks after moving in.
Old maintenance passages from the canal days, half collapsed in places but still running under most of the district. Hidden access points, forgotten trapdoors, routes that bypass three patrol streets entirely if you know where to step.
Once I realised what they were, the warehouse stopped being just somewhere to sleep. It became a doorway.
Riftborn come through here all the time now. Some escaping labour houses, some slipping away from factory overseers who’ve decided they’re replaceable, while some are just trying to survive another week without starving.
I give them food and a place to breathe for a night. Sometimes it’s for longer. And when they’re ready, we move them through the tunnels, across the city, and past the patrol lines. Eventually, the journey leads them towards Dathanor.
Funny thing is, that was never the plan.
When Varek left me here, I was supposed to stay out of the growing rebellion. My mission had been to stay hidden and alive. Instead, the warehouse turned into something else entirely: a quiet doorway out of the Queen’s reach.
Not that anyone realises how directly I connect to the rebellion. And they definitely don’t know that the commander of that rebellion is my fated mate. That sort of knowledge would get both of us killed.
Varek steps beside the worktable, glancing at the bowl and the pale foam starting to bloom across the surface. “You have more firebloom.”
“Yeah,” I say, stirring the mixture. “Found a crate a couple days ago.”
His gaze flicks up to mine. “With difficulty.”
“That’s a very undramatic way of saying I nearly got caught.”
“You were nearly arrested by palace guards.”
“I was not arrested.”
“You were chased.”
“Briefly,” I shoot back. “Honestly, if they can’t catch one human with a head start, that feels like a them problem.”
His expression doesn’t change. If anything, its stillness sharpens. “You could have been taken,” he says quietly.
“And yet—” I spread my hands slightly. “—here I am. Tragic for them.”
“That is not a defence. That is an outcome.”
I roll my eyes. “Same difference.”
“No.” His voice drops—heavier, steadier. “One is chance. The other is control.”
I lean back against the table, folding my arms. “You don’t get to talk to me about control.”
That lands. I see it hit as his jaw hardens, just slightly.
Funny thing is, years ago I wouldn’t have said that. I would’ve swallowed it, smoothed it over, kept the peace. Now it just… comes out.
I don’t even try to stop it.
“You chose risk,” he says after a beat. “Without support. Without backup. Without informing anyone who could intervene.”
“Because I don’t need supervision,” I shoot back, snappier this time. “What I need is supplies. Which I got.”
His gaze locks on mine. “This is not about supervision.”
“Sounds like it.”
“It is about survival,” he says, and there’s an edge to it now. “Yours.”
Something in my chest shifts at that. It’s annoying and unwelcome.
I push off the table, grabbing the spoon again just to have something to do with my hands. “Relax,” I mutter. “It was a good crate. Enough firebloom in there to keep this place baking for a month.”
“And that was worth the risk?”
“Yes.”
Varek studies me for a long moment. “You did not tell me about this.”
“That was intentional.”
His jaw firms. “You should not face patrols alone.”
I fold my arms. “You don’t get to start issuing safety lectures now.”
“I was not lecturing.”
“You absolutely were.”
“I was observing.”
I roll my eyes.
Letha looks between us like she’s watching a strange play she doesn’t understand.
Varek glances at her empty bowl. “You should take more.”
She hesitates, looks at me again, and I nod. “Take it.”
She refills the bowl. “Thank you,” she says quietly.
Varek’s gaze lingers on her for a moment. Not assessing, just listening, watching.
That’s the other thing about him.
His talent.
The truth siphon.
I’ve seen it in action exactly twice, and that was enough.
It isn’t flashy. He doesn’t glow or chant or do anything dramatic. He just… listens, and somehow the truth comes loose around him.
It’s not mind-reading but something subtler. Like lies can’t quite hold their shape.
It makes interrogations very short. It also means conversations with him can feel uncomfortably honest, which is probably why I prefer sarcasm.
Letha finishes eating and slides off the stool again. “I must go.”
I pack a small cloth bundle for her—dried meat, grain, a tiny jar of oil. She accepts it carefully.
“Same time in three days?” I ask.
“If I can.”
“That’s the spirit.”
She glances nervously at Varek again before slipping out the side door.
The moment she’s gone, the room feels quieter. I lean against the table. “You scare people.”
“They are cautious.”
“You’re a two-metre-tall alien war commander with horns.”
“Yes.”
“Exactly.”
He studies the shelves again. “You help many.”
“Someone has to.”