Page 98 of The Shattered Rite
Eliryn exhaled. Long. Shaky. A thread of tension unraveled from between her shoulders.
Without a word, she kicked off her boots and loosened her soft leathers, clasps unfastening with a slow, respectful ease. It peeled away like shed skin and she folded it neatly before placingit on the table near the bath. When she moved to step into the bath, the floor beneath her reshaped itself to be gentle on her now bare feet. A small towel fluffy and soft appeared draped over the side of the tub.
She slid into the pool without resistance, sinking deep. Heat curled around her freshly forming bruises. The aches she hadn’t noticed until now pulsed, then dulled. Her head tilted back against the smooth rim, flame-streaked hair fanning out across the surface like threads of light.
Still, something inside her didn’t relax.
Her fingers touched the pendant at her neck, the etched stone warming faintly under her touch. She traced its edges again and again, steadying herself without realizing it.
She reached inward.
“Vaeronth?”
Silence. Not absence, just… distance.
Eliryn furrowed her brow faintly and closed her eyes, breathing deeper, slower, trying to focus inward on the coils of their bond.
“You’ve been quiet.”
A beat passed. Then:
I did not wish to burden you.
His voice was there at last, low and steady as fire beneath stone.
“You could never be a burden to me.”
You faced your dead and did not flinch. You named your grief, burned what tethered you, and stood unbroken.A pause.I felt every breath of it. I felt… pride. I did not know that emotion before you.
Eliryn opened her eyes, blinking fast against the tears that rose, unbidden.
“I thought you were angry with me. Or tired.”
No.
His presence gently curved, like a wing wrapped around her thoughts, but there was an old, hollow ache at the edges of it.I was watching. I was… remembering. Your grandmother’s dragon was the last I called kin. And I knew when he fell. I remembered that pain through you today. And I wanted you to have space from my pain.
She touched the water’s surface lightly. The motion steadied her, though her voice in her mind felt scraped raw.
“You were alone a long time,” she said. “Longer than I can imagine. When your kin fell… do you know what took them? What kind of magic could do that?”
For a few heartbeats, nothing moved but the slow ripple of water over her fingers. When Vaeronth spoke, the words were quiet as embers.
I have asked myself that question every day since the ruin came. There are no records left, no witness who stood beyond it and survived whole. But I have long suspected King Thalen's hand.
Her breath caught. “You think he killed them?”
I think he could not have become what he is while dragons yet lived. We were not so easily bent to mortal crowns. If any of us had remained, we would have challenged his rise before it rooted itself. Whatever power unmade my kind… it cleared the path for him.
Her pulse beat hard in her throat. “But you don’t know.”
I have no proof,he admitted, and for all the weight of his voice, there was something almost fragile in that confession.Only the whispers of those who passed through the Undermire after the fall. Only the stories carried here into this castle. I have listened to secrets spoken into the veil in search of answers for longer than you have drawn breath. And when none came, I waited for you. For your blood. For your power. So that,together, we might set right what should never have been allowed to happen.
Eliryn closed her eyes. The water lapped at her wrist, cool and steady.
She did not flinch from the enormity of his vigil, his purpose, or the long hunger for justice beneath it all.
“I won’t turn away from this,” she said softly.
