Page 61 of The Shattered Rite
Her skin prickled. Not from fear, not exactly. From not knowing.
She wasn’t sure which unsettled her more: the book in her hands…
Or the man who wanted her to read it.
Interlude 4: Malric
“The first dragonriders burned for the crown. The last ones burned by it.”—Fragment from the lost journal of Ser Elandros the Wingless
He watched her go.
Silent as a shadow. Fluid as silk against stone. Healer. Dragonrider.
She shouldn’t have unsettled him.
And yet… she had.
Malric drew deeper into the darkness, pressing against the cool stone behind the library shelves. The wards here were good, but not enough. Nothing in this castle was built to stop him.
His father’s mark—the brand burned into bone, woven into blood—still opened doors no mortal hand could.
And yet, she had sensed him watching.
Those failing eyes of hers. They should have seen nothing. But when she lifted her chin, when her gaze flicked over the shadows like she’d been waiting for him… he’d felt it. Like the press of a knife at his ribs. Not fear. Not surprise.
Recognition.
The dragon must have warned her. Or perhaps—worse—she simply knew.
The room still smelled of fire-touched fabric and rain. She had been… curious. Too curious.
He clenched his fists, drawing a slow breath to still the pulse behind his eyes. This was not meant to be complicated.
His father's words echoed in his head:"Watch her. Let her grow strong, if she must. But when the time comes, she dies last. The final spectacle."
He remembered the first time the king taught him to kill. He’d been ten. Small hands. Sharp blade.Cut hesitation from yourself,his father had said, the order as cold as the stone floor Malric knelt on. And when he obeyed, when the body stilled, his father only nodded. No praise. No comfort. Just approval—the coldest form of love he’d ever been given.
Malric had never disobeyed an order. Not when he was a child, and certainly not since. His father, the Sovereign King, ruled with iron in his voice, and Malric had always obeyed. That was what he was bred to do.
But this woman… She was different.
That unguarded moment in the library—the lift of her mouth, that wry, tired grin—it shouldn’t matter. A small thing. A meaningless expression from prey who didn’t yet understand the hunt.
And yet.
It lingered in his mind.
He remembered when he’d first seen her: leaving her village with smoke clinging to her skin, armor hanging wrong on herframe. And now, after the bond had remade her, she walked like something elemental. Raw. Unrefined, yes—but inevitable.
And gods help him… he liked how breakable she was pretending not to be.
His father had called her dangerous. Had ordered her watched. Stalked. Executed.
Malric should have felt nothing.
Instead, he felt… fascinated.
His fingers found the ring again. Always the ring.
