Page 35

Everly

“ W ould you like tea?” Isren asked, already moving toward a side table stacked with mismatched porcelain.

I blinked. “What?”

“Tea,” he repeated, glancing over his shoulder with a faint smile. “Unless you’d prefer something stronger, but it’s a little early for Shivermark Gin.”

I didn’t answer right away. My body was still humming from too many things I hadn’t had time to process. I was mentally preparing myself for another frost-damned test, and instead, he offered…tea?

It felt harmless, which made me instantly suspicious.

“…Tea is fine,” I said at last, even though I didn’t particularly want it.

He poured a cup for all three of us, his movements unhurried, graceful without being showy.

“Please,” he said, gesturing toward a pair of armchairs near the hearth. “Sit. It will help if you’re comfortable.”

I glanced at Draven, who made no move to join us. He stood near the wall, arms crossed, still and silent as one of his damned wolves.

Batty gave a tiny chirp of protest as I sat, curling tighter beneath my collarbone, and I let my hand rest on her wing. Isren took the seat across from me, setting his cup on the low table between us.

“I find it helps,” he said, lifting a small wooden box from a nearby shelf. “The tea. Something warm in the hands. Softens the edge of difficult memories.”

I didn’t respond, not sure if he was referring to the difficult memories of my time with mages or if he planned on dredging up a different kind of hell for me. He didn’t seem to mind my silence.

“Tell me,” he continued conversationally, opening the box to reveal several polished crystals inside. “What do you remember of your childhood?”

I stiffened. “Why?”

“Because mana is a thread that weaves through experience, not just blood,” he replied, selecting a small violet stone and setting it gently on the table between us.

“Mana anchors itself in memory, especially formative ones. Early exposure. Emotional impact. Pain. Joy. Sometimes it’s buried in the places we stopped looking. ”

“I don’t remember much,” I lied, eyes flicking to the stone. “Small village. Faded memories. Nothing special.”

“Mmh.” He didn’t challenge me, just pushed the violet stone closer. “This is arctenite. Mined deep beneath the ice fields of Vyr. It resonates with hidden grief, or so the scholars claim.”

I didn’t touch it.

He didn’t force me. Just picked up another.

“This one,” he said, holding out a pale blue shard with fine golden veins, “is everglass. I found it nearly a century ago in the ruins of an old Seelie observatory. It reflects echoes of unspoken truths.”

I stared at the crystal, then at him. “Do you often monologue like this, or am I just lucky?”

Isren chuckled softly. “You’re not the first to accuse me of being long-winded. I take it as a compliment.”

He handed me the everglass. I hesitated before taking it. If ever one was going to flare to life… but it was cold in my palm, but no colder than the rest of the room.

No reaction. No spark. No pain. Just another rock. I set it down.

He offered another without pause. “Sunwrought quartz. Brightens in the presence of joy. Yours or mine, I suppose we’ll find out.”

I didn’t smile, but I took it. Nothing.

I hadn’t really believed I would react, hadn’t let myself get anywhere close to hope. Yet the boulder in my stomach felt suspiciously close to disappointment.

“I did tell you,” I muttered.

“We have many options yet,” he said kindly, reading me better than I would have liked. “Mana is unique, and as I indicated, can be as finicky and nuanced as our own emotions.”

He set down a deep green gem, oddly shaped, a bit chipped on one side. “This one’s from the Wildlands. Rare. Craves truth. Sears your skin if you lie to it.”

“Great. Add it to the pile,” I said with far more confidence than I felt.

I hated this. Hated these crystals and all the memories they brought with them. It was worse with Draven standing in the corner, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask him to leave.

“You’re doing well, Everly,” Isren insisted.

I wasn’t. I felt like a sheet of parchment someone kept writing on, then erasing, over and over until it thinned to near nothing. My hands trembled slightly as I set the green crystal aside.

“Why are you being nice?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Why are you acting like this is a conversation instead of a… procedure?”

Isren met my eyes, and the levity in his expression faded.

“Because healing starts when force stops,” he said. “And you, My Queen, have had quite enough of the latter.”

I looked away, a muscle in my jaw tightening. Batty rubbed her head against my throat again, soft and warm, trying to ground me.

Then Isren reached for a final crystal. It was darker than the midnight sky, and nearly as ethereal.

“This one,” he said, his tone quieter now, “is older than the Sanctum itself. I only use it when nothing else listens.”

He didn’t offer it to me, just set it on the table between us, like he was leaving it there for Fate to decide.

The crystal gleamed obsidian, but the longer I looked at it, the more I could swear something moved inside, like tiny streaks of violet starlight, shifting like a galaxy trapped in glass.

It didn’t feel like the others. It felt like it was watching. Or waiting.

My breath hitched, and I didn’t move.

Batty pressed close, chirping nervously against my neck. The stars inside the obsidian swirled faster.

Something in it called to me—not in words. Just a pressure in my chest, a pull in my bones.

I reached out. My fingers hovered above the surface—just barely, and then I touched it.

Everything stopped.

The heat of the fire. The chill of the air. The stinging in my palms. Time itself, maybe. It all paused. For one silent second, the world held its breath.

And in that stillness, something cracked inside me.

Not a break. A shift.

Images flooded in, uninvited, uncontainable.

My mother’s green eyes, bright and laughing.

Her obsidian hair spilling over her shoulders as she knelt beside me, conjuring dancing lights in the air.

Mana curled like ribbons between her fingers, shaping into butterflies that shimmered and twisted, leaving glittering trails of gold and violet in the dusk.

She held the sky in her hands that night.

I remembered the way I’d clapped, how I’d begged for more. Her laugh echoed, warm and wild and real, as the butterflies rose and spun like living constellations, weightless and beautiful.

I reached out to touch one. Its wing brushed my finger. It was warm. Then cold.

Then, a sting. Just a pinprick. A glass-thin edge across my skin. Barely enough to bleed.

My mother’s attention snapped toward me. I think. I was watching the butterfly. Or maybe the blood.

But I remember her expression. Not startled, horrified.

She crossed to me in an instant, faster than she should have, her hands already reaching. Not for the wound.

For me.

The scene changed from a memory to something less tangible, impressions rather than images. The air grew heavier, thicker, like something was pressing against it from the inside.

The last thing I heard was an echo of her telling me to run.

Deep purple light flared beneath the obsidian’s surface, streaking like veins of lightning through stone. Smoke curled from the edges, and the surface cracked, the sound echoing through the room. I jerked back, heart pounding.

Lumen pressed his head against my leg, letting out a low, questioning whine, and Batty trilled into my ear.

I could barely hear it over the sound of my own breath, ragged and shallow. I stared down at my hand, the memory of my mother’s panicked voice, the flash of panic burning in her emerald eyes, still flickering behind mine like an afterimage.

Isren exhaled slowly, gaze fixed on the crystal. His voice, when it came, was steady but low with reverence.

“Well,” he said. “It seems His Majesty was correct.”

I looked at him, then to Draven, then back again. “What…what does that mean?”

The Archmage leaned forward, more serious now than he’d been all morning. “It means you do have mana. Powerful mana. But it’s not dormant, My Queen.”

He paused, letting the words settle. “It’s bound.”

I blinked, my throat dry. “Bound?”

“Caged,” he added a moment later. “Whatever is inside you, someone didn’t want it found, so they built walls around it.”

The crack in the crystal still glowed faintly on the table.

“Can it be…undone?” Draven voiced the question that was building on my lips.

“Everything can be undone,” Isren replied gravely. “But there are more pressing matters at hand.”

He looked between me and Draven, and his voice dipped even quieter.

“Who bound it?” His eyes met mine. “Or more to the point, why?”