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“How does it feel?” No mocking laugh in his voice, no reprimand for my sass. Just invitation. He’d trained many warriors, I realized. And this was how—not with fear or his powerful magic. With dedication.

He was going to be a magnificent High King. Already was, though we’d hardly had time to rule before departing on this mad quest.

I knew he’d earned the title Brutal Prince honestly. I’d seen him fight, had fought at his side. I knew he was capable of death and destruction. But this… gentleness. This steady affirmation. This was new.

I couldn’t help but answer him.

“It starts as a tingling. Like when you step too close to a fire without realizing it. The way it feels in the seconds before you realize you’ve been burnt. A tingling of awareness.”

“Keep going,” he urged.

“It builds, spreads. The thing inside of me… it feels like a flame, but different. Brighter, more powerful. It is always there, but sometimes it is different…”

“Sometimes it slumbers, and other times it roars to life,” Arran finished.

My eyes snapped open. “Yes.”

Arran hadn’t moved. He still stood a few yards away, his weapons holstered, arms crossed over his chest.

I dug my other heel into the ground. “How…”

His face was firm, the lines set to hide any emotion. His voice was just as even. “The first time my beast awakened within me, I killed dozens in a matter of minutes.”

I nodded, remembering. The water gardens, after I’d told him about—

No. No room for that here.

Arran spared me, distracting me with his words. Had he seen the flash of memory on my face? Or had he sensed it through the bond?

“For years, every time that my beast awoke, I lost control. Eventually I could wrest it back, but only after that initial shift, that first burst of power. Perhaps that is part of your problem.”

I lifted an eyebrow.

“I had to learn to never fully release the beast. I could let him doze, let the power within me quiet, but I couldn’t release my hold on it completely. Otherwise, when it woke again I had to wrestle control back.”

Now both of my eyebrows rose to my hairline. “I am not a shifter.”

Arran rolled his eyes emphatically. “Thank the Ancestors. I don’t want to imagine the type of beast you’d turn into.”

The kind that could tangle with you.

A growl of appreciation—a blaze of black eyes. I was certain mine glowed in answer.

But Arran leashed the beast within, forcing us back to the moment at hand.

“You are powerful, Veyka. Falling through rifts, commanding the void… it isn’t a small thing.”

I could feel the blood rushing through my veins. The gurgle of my stomach. My entire body, wanting to rebel against that knowledge. The understanding. I’d worked so hard to train, to hone my skills with weapons so I wouldn’t be powerless. Now, I was a whole other kind of powerful.

“I know.”

I traced the tick in Arran’s jaw with my eyes. It was less visible now beneath a week’s worth of stubble.

I watched his lips form the words. “Can you feel that core of power inside of you now?”

Yes.

Always.