Chapter 42 Dining Hall Stories
Griff’s laughter rings through the open-beamed hall, bouncing off timber and vine-draped rafters, loud and utterly unashamed.
It draws grins and raised glasses from every direction.
He doesn’t command attention so much as invite it, his broad-shouldered charisma tangled with irreverent charm.
It’s a far cry from the curated dominance of Eclipsera.
Here, energy replaces calculation, and authenticity trumps performance.
I end up wedged between Griff and Kane at one of the long, candlelit tables, the bench worn smooth by years of shared meals and louder nights.
The air thrums with genuine camaraderie.
For once, I’m not bracing for veiled barbs, or reading subtext between mouthfuls, only food, people and .
. . this. Kane is nearly unrecognizable.
His usual sharpness unraveling into something looser.
He seems younger, even boyish. And I wonder, not for the first time, how much of him was carved by survival rather than nature.
“—so there’s Rowe, right?” Griff gestures wildly, nearly upending three mugs in the process.
“Our resident beast whisperer, trying to convince a baby Moonmare that his organic oat blend was a viable substitute for literal starlight. Like, actual starlight. As if the damn thing was going to be moved by protein ratios and mineral charts.”
“You’re making it sound worse than it was,” Rowe mutters from across the table, but the tips of his ears are turning pink. “The oats were perfectly reasonable.”
“Oh yeah?” Griff’s eyes dance with unholy glee.
“So that wasn’t you yelling, ‘Griff, help me, this demon is eating my jacket!’ while being dragged face-first through mud beds?
” He spins to the others. “Also, it tried to chew off his hair. Apparently, the pretentious shampoo smells like moonflower nectar.”
Kane leans forward, clearly invested. “Please continue.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Rowe warns, though a thread of amusement slips into his tone. “Some of us actually take our work seriously.”
“Oh, he’s very serious,” Griff stage-whispers to me. “The lectures on proper creature etiquette? Full-day affairs. We have trauma.”
A woman passing behind us snorts into her drink. “Better that than the drama of his morning ritual. You should see him when the Whispersilk arrives. Nobody’s allowed near the paper until he’s done ‘checking the headlines.’”
Rowe’s spoon clinks sharply against his bowl. “Lisa, don’t you have a habitat rotation tonight?”
“Already handled,” she chirps, leaning against a support column with a wolfish grin. “Funny how the same pages disappear every week. Especially the ones with certain profiles and event photos.” She casts a knowing look at me.
“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Rowe mutters, ears now fully crimson. “Those pages are useful. Operational awareness.”
Griff looks moments away from combusting. “He nearly took out Simon last week when he reached for the paper first. Poor guy just wanted to check the sports news.” He shifts conspiratorially toward me. “And Rowe keeps the clippings. Every one. Catalogued, protected, stored like sacred relics.”
Rowe slouches further, his posture suddenly very interested in the structural integrity of the flagstone floor.
And that’s when it hits me—this is who he is here.
Not the heir to Eclipsera’s most severe legacy, not Alexander Darkmoor’s shadow, but a man whose people love him openly.
Who endures their teasing without retreating into power.
He governs through trust, not threat. Devotion, not fear.
They aren’t his subordinates, they’re his kin; needling him, challenging him, drinking beside him without deference and without distance. And for the first time in longer than I can remember, it warms something in me I thought had long since died.
Stories pour out like wine, passed from mouth to mouth along the glowing stretch of tables.
Accents bleed into laughter, some tales grand and dramatic, others mundane in the best way.
I catch only fragments: burned spells, smuggled creatures, first loves under moonlight.
It all blurs as the warmth in my limbs yields to the slow weight of exhaustion.
“—and I told him, you can’t rewire a synthetic core without containment protocols—”
“At least in Helisvein they let you experiment. Try getting approval in Vairen when the elders are in session—”
The sounds blur, and I lean into the moment, letting it carry me, wishing I could bottle the strange serenity rising beneath my ribs. There’s peace in this place.
“—swear the void hounds actually understood what I was saying—”
The hall’s warmth seeps into my limbs, soothing the tension buried in my bones. The quiet hum of conversation, and the gentle clatter of dishes, lull me into a haze too soft to resist.
A boot brushes mine beneath the table.
“You okay?” Kane’s voice is barely audible, pitched low enough to shield it from the rest.
“Mhm. Just tired,” I murmur, forcing my eyes to refocus. Even the simple act of staying upright feels like an effort I didn’t consent to make.
Across the table, Rowe is already watching. Of course he is. That familiar crease has settled between his brows again. He sees too much, always has. Even now, after years apart and worlds between us, he can read my fatigue before I’ve acknowledged it myself.
The conversation drifts again, but something in Griff’s voice draws my attention back. He’s talking about his homeland, but there’s a shadow behind his eyes.
“Born and raised in the Wastes,” he says, and for a moment that darkness lingers. Then it’s gone, buried beneath his trademark grin. “Where we solve problems with either fists or drinks. Sometimes both. Nobody cares which fork you stab your dinner with, as long as the food’s dead.”
“Sounds badass,” Kane laughs, though his gaze sharpens with understanding.
“Oh, it was a hell of a time.” Griff’s grin doesn’t falter, yet his attention flicks toward Rowe. “Drove this one absolutely mad when I first arrived. Remember when I called your father ‘buddy’ during his visit?”
Rowe exhales slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I remember having to explain to him why my new handler was referring to one of the most powerful men in Veldrith like a bar regular.”
“I was trying to be personable.”
A lull settles, brief but comforting, broken only by the ambient clinks of cutlery and the soft cries of distant creatures echoing through open timber arches and ivy-laced windows. Then, Griff’s eyes light up with that dangerous gleam that seems to precede all his most outrageous questions.
“So, what’s he really like?” he asks, leaning forward with unrestrained curiosity. “The terrifying Dominic Blackwood. Your fiancé.”
I catch how Rowe’s shoulders stiffen, his gaze dimming before he fixes it on his bowl, and my fingers drift toward my hand before I even realize. The bare space where the ring once sat pulses with phantom weight. I sense it still, expect it, as though memory alone could force it back into being.
“He’s . . .” The words tangle in my throat. What is he, now? After what he did. After what I did. After everything. There are too many truths to choose from, and none of them are safe to speak aloud.
“I heard he once made a man cry by lifting an eyebrow,” Griff continues, blissfully unaware of the sudden shift in air pressure. “Though Rowe claims that’s just a typical Tuesday.”
A sound escapes me, too thin to be called a laugh. “Dom isn’t exactly . . .” I falter again, remembering the moments when his hands were careful, despite what they were capable of. When a rare softness touched his eyes. When he looked at me as though I were a secret worth guarding.
But those moments have edges, and the question gnaws at me—what if those memories are all I have left?
The room seems to constrict, walls pressing closer as my breath falters.
What if Margaux failed? What if Kian didn’t wait?
What if Dom’s already dead?
The image strikes whole: his body abandoned in some Blackwood stronghold, blood soaking into stone. The thought lodges beneath my ribs, and for a moment all I can think is that I trusted Margaux to keep him safe, but what if—
“Aria?” Kane’s voice sounds distant.
I force my breath into rhythm, count the seconds between each inhale, pushing the panic down. Not here. Not now. I can’t afford to fall apart in front of everyone.
“Aria needs rest.” Rowe’s voice cuts through the clamor building inside my skull. He’s already standing, his chair dragging across the floor. “Griff, show Kane where he can sleep tonight.”
“But I haven’t told them about the time you—”
“Now, Griff.”
There’s a shift in his tone that makes Griff falter, and when he glances at me, mischief ebbs into kindness, softened and unguarded.
“Right. Come on, Kane. Let me show you where we hoard the soft blankets, and half our dignity.”
I follow Rowe, the dining hall’s warmth fading as the door thuds shut behind us. Night unfolds in its vast expanse, the sky above riddled with stars that gleam. The air bites at my lungs.
“I’m sorry about him,” Rowe says, dragging a hand through his already-messy hair. In the moonlight, the strands glint like spun gold. “He means well. But once he gets going . . .”
“Don’t apologize.” I reach for levity, for anything that might keep the edges from cutting deeper. “Though now I’m invested in these press clippings. Organized by date? Tell me you color-coded them.”
I expect a laugh. Even a scoff or quip, but Rowe doesn’t bite. His gaze stays on me, and something in his expression shifts. He hears the false note in my voice, the way my fingers won’t stop tracing absent patterns against my leg.
“Aria . . .”
I speak before he can finish. “It’s actually nice here.” The words spill out too fast. “All of it. The people, the quiet. How they talk to you without layers. No veiled threats or polished deceit. Just terrible jokes, and casual mockery of their supposed leader.”
“You’re allowed to stop,” Rowe says quietly, taking a careful step closer. “You can rest, take a breath, and admit when you’re not alright.”
“I am okay.” I force another smile, wider this time, as if sheer determination could convince us both.
“Really. Just tired. It’s been . . .” The words tangle as memories surge, heavy with choices I can’t undo.
“Quite a day. But I’m fine. Better than that.
I mean, look at this place. It’s beautiful.
And your work here, with the creatures—”
“Stop,” he interrupts softly. “Don’t do that. Not with me.”
“Do what?” I keep the smile fixed in place even as it threatens to shatter.
“Pretend.”
One word. That’s all it takes, and it lodges beneath my ribs and begins to twist.
His eyes hold mine, midnight blue; filled with a patience that makes me want to scream. Because he’s looking at me the way he used to.
“I’m not pretending. I’m just tired.”
Rowe doesn’t push. He watches me for a moment longer, then nods once.
“My place isn’t far,” he says finally, gesturing toward the path. The trees overhead bend together, their limbs woven into a canopy that shelters the forest floor. “You can sleep there tonight.”