Chapter 14 #2
Kael is at the opposite side of the table, jaw set, gaze steady and hard. There’s a tension in him that wasn’t there before, something personal threading through the strategic. Sonny moves towards him without thinking, not touching, just… there.
“They’re secured,” I say.
Varek nods once. “Good.”
“Any sign he was followed?” Sonny asks.
“No immediate indication,” Shanae answers. “But we’re not assuming anything.”
“Smart.”
“Necessary.”
I step closer to the table, taking in the layout. Routes in and out of Dathanor, the outer settlement, the path towards the bowling alley that serves as the front. All of it suddenly feels a lot more fragile.
“She let him come back,” I say, more to the room than anyone in particular.
Varek’s gaze shifts to me fully this time. “Yes.”
“That’s not mercy.”
“No.”
“It’s pressure.”
A trace of approval crosses Shanae’s face. “Exactly.”
“She wants us to react,” I continue. “Split and panic. Make a mistake.”
“And you think we won’t?” Sonny asks.
“I think she’s counting on it,” I reply. “Which means we don’t give it to her.”
Kael studies me for a moment. “You’re suggesting we do nothing?”
“I’m suggesting we don’t do exactly what she wants us to do.”
“Which is?”
“Hand over Jamie,” Sonny mutters.
“Or rush in blind,” I add.
Aelith’s voice cuts through from the doorway behind us. “You assume there is time not to.”
Every head turns.
He’s on his feet, sort of.
Iris is right behind him, clearly seconds away from either dragging him back or knocking him out again herself. The bandaging on his side is already stained where he’s pushed himself too far too soon, but he stands anyway, one hand braced against the wall for support.
“You should be lying down,” Kael says.
“You should be less bossy,” Aelith shoots back.
“Sit,” Iris snaps.
“No.”
“Sit or I make you.”
He ignores her. Brave considering that at any moment, she could ask her mate to do it instead.
Varek watches him without moving. “Speak.”
Aelith pushes himself away from the wall and steps into the room, every movement controlled through sheer will. “She is not waiting,” he says. “She is preparing.”
“For what?” Shanae asks.
“For something she believes will make the storms… usable.”
That word twists wrong.
Usable.
Not studied. Not understood.
Used.
“She has access to my father’s work,” Aelith continues. “Fragments. Enough to identify patterns. Enough to know that certain arrivals coincide with certain storm events.”
“Jamie,” Sonny says.
“Yes.”
“And Dawson?” I ask.
Aelith’s raw, unguarded gaze flicks to me. “Leverage.”
The word comes out flat, but it carries weight.
“He was alive when you left?” I press.
A pause rings in the air before he answers, “Yes.”
“He knows you came here?” I ask.
Aelith’s lips twist. “He told me to come without a fight.”
That does something strange to my chest.
Of course Dawson, with his easy grin and ridiculous optimism, would tell his mate to go and leave him behind if that’s what it took to save a child.
“Then we don’t waste that,” I say.
Aelith’s eyes narrow. “You think this is a game?”
“I think she’s playing one,” I reply. “And I think we don’t win it by following her rules.”
Silence stretches for a second.
Then Varek speaks. “She wants three outcomes,” he says. “The child. Dawson. And me.”
That last one echoes like a quiet explosion.
No one argues with it because it’s obvious.
Because Varek is the one she cannot control, which makes him the one she will want to kill. And Dawson’s entry into Terrafeara wasn’t normal. Then there’s Jamie, who, as far as any of us are aware, is the first child to have been dragged into Terrafeara.
“She’s setting multiple traps,” Shanae says.
“Yes.”
“And we’re standing in the middle of all of them,” Sonny adds.
“Not for long,” Varek replies. His gaze shifts to me again, something unreadable flashes there before it stills. “We move carefully,” he says. “We gather information. We do not react without understanding fully what she intends.”
Aelith lets out a rough laugh. “And while you do that, she—”
“She loses leverage if she kills him,” Varek cuts in.
Aelith stills. “Not immediately,” he says.
“No,” Varek agrees. “Which means we have time.”
Not much.
But enough.
Enough to matter.
Enough to act.
Aelith exhales slowly, the fight bleeding out of him in increments. Not gone. Just… contained. “For now,” he says.
“For now,” Varek echoes.
Momentum builds quickly once a direction is chosen.
Shanae starts assigning scouts, sending them out in pairs through secondary routes to confirm whether Aelith’s arrival was clean. Sonny volunteers without hesitation, earning himself a flat look from Kael that he dodges with practiced ease.
“I’ll be fine,” Sonny says. “I’m fast.”
“You’re reckless,” Kael replies.
“Also true.”
They stare at each other for a second, something unspoken passing between them, before Kael exhales and nods once. “Stay within range.”
“I always do.”
That’s a lie, but I imagine it’s a comforting one.
Across the room, Aelith has finally allowed Iris to push him into a chair, though the way he’s gripping the edge of it suggests he’d rather be anywhere else.
“We need to understand the storms,” he says, quieter now but no less intense. “If she can use them—”
“Then we need to learn how before she does,” I finish.
Varek’s gaze shifts to me again. “Everyone here has seen the storms, travelled through them,” he says.
I wait, wondering where he’s going with this.
“But you have seen many.”
I nod. “While everything isn’t centred in the city, not a single rift has happened that’s not been visible from there.
“What did you notice?”
I run a hand over the back of my neck, thinking back. “They’re not random. They look chaotic, but… they build. Like pressure. Like something’s pushing through.”
“And Jamie’s the first kid who’s arrived during one,” Shanae says.
“Yeah.”
Aelith shifts uneasily in his seat.
Even forced into the chair by Iris’s insistence and Kael’s unspoken threat to physically put him back there if he so much as twitches, he remains coiled, every line of his body taut with restrained motion.
Blood has already begun to seep faintly through the fresh bandaging at his side, but he ignores it with the same stubborn arrogance that carried him through the palace and back here in one piece.
Around him, the room holds steady in that strained, anticipatory way that comes after impact but before the next blow lands.
Maps sit abandoned on the table for now, markers left where they were dropped when Aelith spoke of the queen and what she knows.
Sonny leans back against the wall, arms folded, restless energy barely contained.
Shanae watches with cool, assessing focus.
Kael stands close enough to Aelith to intervene if needed, though whether that’s to support him or stop him remains an open question.
Varek says nothing. He doesn’t need to. The space bends around his silence.
Aelith drags a careful breath into his lungs, as though recalibrating himself around the pain. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter, but the edge in it hasn’t dulled. “My mother… she is not waiting,” he says. “She is accelerating.”
Shanae’s gaze narrows slightly. “Towards what?”
“Control of the rifts,” Aelith replies. “Not observation. Not containment. Control.”
That word carries differently now.
No one here needs it explained. Everyone in this room has seen what happens when the queen decides something should belong to her.
“She has always sought to control Riftborn,” he continues, his tone constricting just enough to betray how much he hates saying it aloud. “That has not changed. What has changed is her understanding of what they represent.”
Sonny shifts his weight. “Assets,” he mutters.
Aelith’s mouth pulls thin. “Yes. But more than that. Potential.”
The silence pulls taut.
“She understands what bonded pairs become,” he goes on. “The amplification of strength. How abilities evolve when the bond is complete. She has seen enough to recognise the pattern.”
“Course she has,” Sonny says under his breath. “Bloody collector.”
“She wants that power under her control,” Shanae says.
Aelith inclines his head once. “She always has. But now she believes she can direct it.”
A flicker of unease moves through the room because that implies more than just capture. It implies design.
“She’s studying the rifts,” I say, thinking it through as I speak. “Tracking them. Looking for consistency.”
“Yes.”
“And trying to force them?”
Aelith meets my gaze. “Yes.”
That sits wrong in my chest, even though I’m a bit surprised none of us considered she’d want to understand them as much as we do.
Before anyone can respond, a heavy set of footsteps sounds in the corridor, purposeful and fast. Heads turn instinctively as a large figure fills the doorway, broad shoulders blocking out the light behind him for a second before he steps inside.
Solan.
He looks like he walked straight out of a fight he enjoyed too much, all solid muscle and hard edges, his red skin marked faintly with the aftermath of old battles. His gaze sweeps the room in one quick pass, assessing, calculating, and then lands squarely on Jack.
“You good?” he asks.
Jack nods once, though the tension in his shoulders doesn’t ease. “For now.”
Solan grunts, then shifts his attention to Aelith, eyes narrowing slightly before he looks at Varek. “I did not see signs of anyone’s tracks but Aelith’s close by.”
Varek inclines his head in thanks, but Aelith’s slow exhale grabs all our attentions.
The prince looks back at Varek. “That is not all,” he says. The shift in his tone has everyone’s undivided attention. “She believes the boy may be her fated.”
The words hit like a physical force.
For a heartbeat, the room freezes.
Then everything breaks.
“What?” Sonny snaps, pushing off the wall.
“That’s not—no,” Jack snaps, stepping forward without thinking, his entire posture changing in an instant. “Absolutely not.”
“He’s a kid,” Solan adds, his voice dropping into a tone so deadly, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “That’s not how that works.”
“It shouldn’t,” Shanae says.
Aelith doesn’t flinch under the reaction. If anything, he looks like he expected it. “She does not know for certain,” he says. “But she believes the possibility is sufficient to act upon.”
“To act upon?” Jack repeats, incredulous. “You mean what—lock him up until he’s old enough to confirm it?”
Aelith’s silence answers him.
The fury that follows is immediate and visceral.
“That’s insane,” Sonny says.
“That’s not just insane,” Jack adds, his voice hardening. “That’s fucking wrong.”
“That’s her,” I say quietly.
Jack’s hands curl into fists at his sides. “He’s twelve.”
“Yes,” Aelith replies.
“And you’re only telling us this now?” Sonny demands.
Aelith’s teeth grind. “I delivered the information as soon as I was capable of doing so.”
“Fucking princes,” Sonny mutters.
“Enough,” Kael says, stepping forward before the tension tips into something worse. His steady gaze locks onto Aelith. “Would it even be possible to know at his age?”
That question cuts through everything.
Because it matters. Because if there’s certainty, or even the possibility of it, that changes the stakes all over again.
Aelith shakes his head once. “Not definitively.”
“Among my people,” Varek says, his voice calm and measured, “the bond does not fully declare itself until maturity. Approximately twenty-four cycles.”
“So even if she’s right,” I say slowly, “she wouldn’t know for years.”
“Yes.”
A beat passes.
“And in the meantime?” Sonny asks.
Aelith doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.
“So, what?” I snap, unable to keep it contained. “She actually wants Jamie to imprison him until he’s twenty-four? Just in case he turns out to be hers?”
The words land hard, and Aelith has the decency to look guilty. “She believes the outcome would justify the method,” he says.
“She will never get close enough to Jamie to test this,” Solan practically growls.
“Complete bonds increase capability,” Aelith adds, quieter now. “She has observed the results. She understands the value.”
“Why does she even think it’s a possibility?” I ask. My stomach turns. Because again, she’s not wrong. She’s just using it in the worst possible way.
Aelith shakes his head. “I do not know for sure. As far as I’m aware, she didn’t ‘feel’ her bonded come through the Rift. But she knows there is a human child, so I can only assume she believes that she will know for certain when he is older.”
Silence pulls taut, thick and heavy.
Then Aelith moves. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts his hand to his throat, fingers curling around the chain resting there. “That is not all,” he says. He pulls a chain free.
A medallion swings into view, catching the light in a way that feels… off. Not reflective. Not passive. The surface shifts subtly, patterns moving across it in a way that makes it hard to focus on directly.
A faint pressure builds in the air, like in the moment before lightning splits the sky.
“This belonged to my father,” Aelith says.
No one interrupts.
“I found it in a sealed chamber beneath the palace,” he continues. “Hidden. Preserved. Referenced in the older texts.”
“What does it do?” Kael asks.
Aelith exhales slowly. “I do not fully understand it.”
“Comforting,” Sonny mutters.
“But it reacts,” Aelith adds.
“To what?” I ask.
His gaze flicks to me.
“To the rifts.”
The word settles cleanly.
“Or at least it does according to the information we discovered. I believe it is part of whatever allows them to be opened,” he says. “Whether alone or in conjunction with something else, I do not yet know.”
Something else. The thought flickers through my mind uninvited.
Jamie.
Storms.
Timing.
Jack leans forward slightly, eyes fixed on the medallion. “So that could get Jamie home?”
The question hits me like a punch.
Home.
Earth.
Normal.
Safe.
My heart slams hard in my chest, the reaction immediate and impossible to hide. For a second—just one—I can see it. I can feel it.
And then the bond flares.
It’s not painful. Just… there.
Aware.
I look up, and Varek is already watching me.
There’s no accusation in his expression or anger. Just awareness.
Guilt crashes in right behind the hope. Because I want that. I want home… and I want him.
And I don’t know how those two things exist in the same future without something breaking.
My throat clogs as I force myself to look away, back to the room, back to the problem in front of us. Because whatever that medallion is, it changes everything.
And not one of us is walking out of this clean.