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Mira nods. “You’re certain your ring is there? After all this time? They could have destroyed it.”

“If Sereven has risen to the ranks of High Commander, he will have ensured its survival.” My voice remains steady, though the shadows in the room darken slightly. “The Authority preserves trophies from their victories. Particularly those that they feel have symbolic value.”

What I do not add is that I can feel it. Distant. Muted. But still there. It waits in the darkness, part of my power preserved in physical form. Calling to me.

“What about the girl? Do you still intend to bring her?” Varam’s tone is carefully neutral, but the tension in his shoulders betrays his concern.

“Yes.”

“Does she know?” Mira asks.

“Not yet. I’ll speak to her when she returns from language lessons with Tisera.”

Mira and Varam exchange a glance, the kind of silent communication that comes from years of survival together. They have built new rhythms, patterns that no longer include me.

Another reminder of all that I’ve missed.

“You should know that there has been talk. It reached us in Ravencross. Some of the Veinwardens are concerned.” Varam pickshis words carefully. “About her nature. Her origins. The prophecies that seem to increasingly align with her arrival have some of the elders … unsettled.”

I already know. The whispers reach me wherever I go. Conversations halt when I enter a room. Eyes following Ellie with a mixture of hope and fear. Even if they try to hide it, the shadows hear everything. The growing murmurs that her silver light is more than an accident, more than anomaly.

The return of the Shadowvein Lord, accompanied by a stranger from beyond our lands.

Where shadow leads, storm will follow.

The prophecy that took root after my supposed death, is spreading through the Veinwardens like wildfire.

I don't place faith in such things. I never have. But the Veinwardens do. And that makes it dangerous—for her more than anyone.

“Their concerns are noted.” My tone leaves no room for debate. “But I intend to go forward as planned.”

They accept my answer with the deference they have shown since my return, but the wariness in their stances betrays them. The slight shift of Mira’s weight toward the door. The way Varam's eyes do not quite meet mine.

Twenty-seven years without my command forced them to build something new. To survive without a singular voice, without a figurehead.

Without me.

My return disrupts the balance they've created in my absence. It breeds hope. It breeds fear. And I have no time to address either.

"Go eat and rest," I say, forcing my voice to soften slightly. "We'll finalize preparations this evening, ready to leave at dawn."

Once they've gone, their footsteps fading down the stone passageway, I turn back to the patrol schedules, comparing them against our planned route.

The pattern remains intact.

The Authority's system operates on structure and patterns. Their arrogance blinds them. It will be their downfall.

I extend my awareness through shadow, sending tendrils out to scout the mountain paths we'll take tomorrow. The familiar sensation of stretching beyond myself ripples through me. The landscape is familiar yet changed. New growth, shifted stones, altered contours.

A ridge collapsed where I once made camp. A stream diverted by fallen trees.

But the shadows know the way, memorizing each turn.

The door opens again without a knock. Only one person would enter without waiting for permission. Ellie steps inside. We've developed our own pattern over the past seven days. She doesn't look directly at me, and I let her decide whether we will have a conversation or not. Testing the boundaries reformed after that night.

Seven days of regular meals and proper rest have restored what her time in the tower and traveling through the desert took from her. The hollows of her cheeks have filled out, color returned to her skin. She no longer looks like the scared, ragged creature who first broke into my prison. Now she moves with quiet confidence, like shebelongs in the Meridian clothing she wears. A simple midnight-blue tunic cinched at the waist, worn leather boots that she's finally broken in, her hair pulled back into a practical braid that reveals the curve of her neck.

But it’s her eyes that have changed the most.