Page 112

“No.” One word. Uttered beneath her breath, but in the silence, it carries.

She takes another step forward. Her boots strike the stone floor. Her voice, when it comes, is taut, iron-edged.

“Varam’s message said nothing about you. Only that Tisera was bringing someone for refuge.”

For an instant, she sways, barely perceptible, then steadies herself, taking in a quick breath. Her fingers flex against the hilt again.

“But here you stand, looking like you stepped out only yesterday …” Her voice roughens, and her next words leave her mouth, almost against her will. Low but clear.

“Vareth’el et’Varin.”

The ripple that moves through the room is different now. No longer fear alone, but something older.

Recognition. Memory.Allegiance.

Ellie shifts at my side. She holds her ground, but I feel the tension in her stance. The way she edges half a step behind me without meaning to.

Lisandra’s gaze cuts to her immediately, cataloging every weakness with the speed of a battlefield veteran. She takes in the stiff line of Ellie’s spine, the way her fingers tremble despite being balled into fists.

“And who is this?”

"Later." One word, but my voice sends new whispers through the cavern like wind through dry leaves. It carries a note of command that hasn't diminished with time.

Lisandra lets out a long breath, exhaling through her nose, steadying herself with visible effort. The struggle plays across her face—confusion, disbelief, calculation—before she finally inclines her head. Not quite a bow, but an acknowledgment.

“Of course. Follow me.”

The crowd parts before us as we move deeper into Stonehaven,whispers trailing in our wake like shadows. I don’t need to pay attention to know what they’re saying.

The Shadowvein Lord has returned. The tide will turn. The Authority will fall.

Years of imprisonment fall away with each step, replaced by the weight of expectation settling back onto my shoulders. I feel the shift inside myself. From survivor to leader, from fugitive to symbol. Duty, strategy, and the responsibility for every life in this mountain sanctuary reasserts itself.

My shadows darken in response, the patterns growing more formal, more structured, returning to the traditional markings of the Shadowvein Lord. I straighten my spine, and adjust my stride to the measured pace that once carried me through war councils and strategy sessions.

They need their lord returned from the dead, not the man who survived the tower. They need the symbol, the power, the name.

So be it. That is what I’ll give them.

As we move deeper into the stronghold, the air thickens with tension and whispers. The torchlight catches on weapons and watchful eyes. Fighters steal furtive glances, their expressions a complicated tangle of disbelief, hope, and naked awe. Some press fists to hearts in the old warrior's salute. It’s a gesture I once took for granted, saw a thousand times daily, but now it feels foreign in its formality. Others simply stand frozen, as though facing a ghost made flesh, their bodies rigid with shock that borders on religious experience.

A grizzled veteran with a scar bisecting his face steps partiallyinto our path before thinking better of it, his eyes drinking in my appearance with desperate thirst. His lips form words I can't hear but recognize from the shape. The shadows across my skin respond to his devotion, darkening slightly, acknowledging memory of prayers once offered before battles I led.

Paradoxically, Ellie shifts closer to me despite her evident fear, choosing the familiar danger over the unknown one. Her shoulder nearly brushes my arm, her body language a contradiction of revulsion and dependence. The scent of her lingering terror mingles with the earthy smell of the stronghold. She doesn't understand what's happening, but she can read the room with perceptive eyes. The way these hardened fighters stare. The force of their reactions. The reverence and fear intermingling. Her pulse flutters visibly at her throat, quick as a trapped bird.

I wonder what will be worse for her. Discovering what I'm capable of, or discovering that others have always known. That the violence she witnessed isn't an aberration but the foundation upon which my reputation was built. That the man who walked beside her through the desert is a fraction of who I truly am.

"Do they all know who you are?" Her voice barely carries over the whispers surrounding us, but I hear the strain beneath the question.

“Yes.”

"And this is why you ... killed those men?" Her words catch slightly onkilled, as if she's substituting a gentler term for what she actually witnessed.

"Yes." I glance at her, at the tension in her face, the way she won't quite look at me directly, her eyes finding a point justpast my shoulder instead. "I told you, the stronghold would have been compromised if I didn't act."

She doesn’t respond, but the distance between us says enough. She sees me differently now. I'm no longer the prisoner who needed her help. I'm something far more dangerous. Something she helped unleash upon this world without understanding the consequences.

Now she knows. Now she understands. And she's afraid of what that might mean.