Page 136 of The Shattered Rite
It wasn’t fear that left her unsettled.
It was the idea that he meant it.
She glanced skyward as Vaeronth’s shadow crossed the sun. His quiet hum in her mind steadied her, distant but present, content—for now.
When she reached the kitchen door, she hesitated for a breath. Then stepped through.
The warmth hit her first. The familiar weight of it: woodsmoke, roasting roots, the unmistakable scent of butter hitting hot stone. She breathed it in like a balm. Normalcy. Safety. Something human.
“Eliryn!” chirped Nim, flour on his nose, arms elbow-deep in dough. “Come to steal more pies?”
“I came for the company,” she said softly. “The food’s just a bonus.”
“Well,” Marta called, “you’re in luck. Pies are fresh, and company’s half-trained.”
The humor tugged a reluctant smile from her. She drifted toward the prep table, accepting the slice Marta handed her without question.
Marta smirked. “Your favorite guard’s not working today, by the way.”
Eliryn froze halfway through her first bite. “What?”
“Silas,” Marta said innocently, barely glancing up as she chopped a bundle of greens. “The one with the long lashes and the gentle smiles. Thought you might ask.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Eliryn said a little too quickly, cheeks warming.
Marta grinned like a fox. “It’s fine. We all see it.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Uh-huh. And dragons don’t fly.”
Eliryn rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t quite suppress the smile curling at the edges of her mouth.
Marta slid a bowl of chopped herbs to the side. “Honestly, if any of them deserves a soft place to land, it’s Silas. Boy’s got theloyalty of a mastiff and the eyes of someone who’s never seen spring. Let him have a real reason to smile.”
“I’m not…” Eliryn hesitated. “It’s complicated.”
“Everything worth it usually is,” Marta said.
But Eliryn wasn’t listening anymore.
Because Silas had soft eyes. And steady hands. And when he had held her hand, she felt like a person, not a prophecy.
And then there was Malric.
She remembered the cold precision in his voice. The hunger buried deep. The way he looked at her like she was something inevitable. Something he’d already decided he couldn’t stop wanting.
Silas felt like the edge of a hearthfire.
Malric felt like the blade that cast the shadow.
She wasn’t sure which terrified her more.
They lapsed into a companionable silence for a few minutes, punctuated only by the scrape of knives and the low hiss of boiling pots. The warmth of the hearth soaked into her bones. But beneath it, something tugged at the edges of her mind—a quiet wrongness she couldn’t name.
“There are only three of us left,” she said quietly.
Marta’s busy hands stilled.
