Page 58

Chapter Twenty-Four

SACHA

“To flee does not mean to forget. Some memories run beside us.”

Love Songs of the Mountain Provinces

The shattered lightstone scatters across the floor, fragments skidding across the stone.

Every Veinwarden in the room surges to their feet as one.

Metal scrapes against leather, and the sharp scent of disturbed dust and cold steel rises in the suddenly charged air.

Faces harden. Shock giving way too quickly to suspicion, and suspicion to naked hostility. All of it directed at Ellie.

Only Lisandra remains seated, expression unreadable, and her gaze fixed on the girl who now stands out in ways she can’t control.

“What did she do?” Lorath demands, her voice carrying more accusation than question.

“Lower your weapons.” The command leaves my mouth with a force I haven’t summoned in decades, yet it settles on my tongue like it never left. Shadows stir at my fingers, a reminder of who stands among them. “She is not a threat to you.”

Lorath doesn’t lower her weapon. Her stance hardens, jaw setting with defiance that would be admirable if it weren’t so misplaced. “ A stranger who destroys lightstones with a mere look?” Her face contorts with suspicion. “And you expect us to believe she’s harmless?”

I turn to Ellie, and for a moment, the rest of the room ceases to exist. The politics, the plans I need to make, stepping back into a role I once held, all secondary to what I see before me.

Silver flecks swirl in her eyes, luminous and shifting beneath the light. But it’s not the strangeness of the silver that holds me. It’s the confusion there. The alarm, and the effort it’s taking to remain steady under so many weapons turned against her.

She doesn’t understand what’s happening to her.

“Who is she?” Lorath snaps, and her voice forces my attention back into place.

Ellie flinches, recognizing the threat in the tone, even if she doesn’t understand the words.

“ Enough !” The word tears from my throat as I slam my fist onto the table. The shadows around us deepen instantly, bleeding up the walls, dimming the flickering light until the entire chamber feels smaller, heavier, closer. Lorath freezes mid-step, instincts overriding her anger.

The display serves its purpose. Reminding them all who I am, what I can do without effort. The fragile balance of respect and fear must be maintained, especially now, when my position is still solidifying after years of absence.

Still, her jaw sets. Defiance radiates from her as she stalks around the table, and stops in front of Ellie. The tension between them crackles .

“ Who is she? ” She repeats each word slowly, a challenge issued across the space between them.

Behind Ellie, the lightstones pulse, brighter then dimmer, their rhythm syncing to the quickening of her breath. It’s not a coincidence, it’s a warning. My gaze moves between the unstable lights and the silver swirling more prominently in her eyes.

Her skin has turned ashen, almost translucent. The reaction is progressing faster than before, and she lacks the tools to control it. If the situation escalates further, the damage could extend beyond broken lightstones.

“Ellie.” I deliberately soften my voice, stepping between her and Lorath, forcing her attention back to me.

I lift a hand, intending to turn her face to mine, then stop, letting it fall back to my side.

The impulse to touch her is becoming more frequent, more natural.

A liability I never want nor can afford. “Are you alright?”

She nods, the movement small and unconvincing. “What happened?” she whispers. “Was that me? I didn’t mean to—” Fear threads through her words.

“We will talk later. Do you wish to remain or leave?”

“I … I’ll stay.”

I turn back to the gathered Veinwardens. Their eyes track my every movement, suspicion still thick in the air, but I ignore it. Years of imprisonment have not dulled my ability to command a room, or to manipulate the currents of unease to my advantage.

“What you just witnessed is exactly why her presence is important. She affects magic in ways that should be impossible.”

Telren, the eldest among them, steps forward.

His hand rests lightly on the pommel of his blade, not in threat, but in thought.

The lines of his face deepen as he studies Ellie.

He was there, decades ago, when I was first learning to control my own abilities.

He understands the dangers of untrained power better than most. But that isn’t what comes out of his mouth.

“You speak of prophecy, my Lord.”

“I speak of observable fact.” I’m unwilling to commit to mystical interpretation. “What you just saw with your own eyes.”

“Or it was a coincidence,” Lorath counters, folding her arms. “Lightstones fail.”

“It happened when she tensed up,” Neris points out. “We all saw it.”

Ellie, caught in their scrutiny, shrinks back in her chair. She must understand, at least partially, what conclusions are forming around her. The pressure of being examined, judged, feared —a position I know intimately from my youth.

“I didn’t do anything.” She looks genuinely distressed. “I was just sitting here.”

I hold up a hand, silencing everyone, and turn back to her. The room stills, as it should. Let them remember who leads here.

“Can you tell me what happened in the moments before the lightstone shattered?”

She glances around, shifting nervously on the chair. The silver in her eyes has receded slightly, but remains visible to anyone looking closely enough.

“My head hurt,” she says finally, her voice low. “And then my arms started tingling, like when a limb falls asleep. It spread into my chest. Everything felt ... tight. And then the stone shattered.”

Interesting.

She hasn't yet made the connection between her emotions and these manifestations. The pressure she described—the tingling in her arms, the tightness in her chest—aligns too closely with the surge that shattered the lightstone. It wasn't conscious. It wasn't controlled. It was reaction.

“She doesn’t speak our language.” Lisandra steps forward, her gaze dissecting Ellie piece by piece.

Her tactician’s mind working through possibilities, evaluating threads and advantages.

“Her mannerisms are strange. Even wearing our clothing, she moves differently. Who is she, Lord Torran?” Her voice drops.

“She’s not from any settlement within Meridian, is she? ”

I weigh each response, calculating the cost of revelation against the cost of concealment.

Once, I would have revealed nothing. Information was a currency too precious to spend without necessity.

But these people have held faith in my absence.

Trust demands some measure of truth, and suspicion left unanswered will only grow.

“No, she’s not.” I meet each of their gazes in turn, waiting until each one drops before moving on. A small assertion of dominance that costs nothing but yields much. “She comes from beyond our realm entirely.”

The revelation sends a ripple of reaction through the room. Telren’s eyes narrow, searching. Lorath’s hand tightens on her weapon. The younger leaders exchange uneasy glances, superstition flickering across hardened faces .

“From beyond the Great Divide?” asks one.

“From beyond any boundary known to our world.” I allow a rare note of wonder to enter my voice, a calculated move to build their acceptance. “Her home is a place called Chicago, a city in a realm where magic as we understand it doesn’t exist.”

Lisandra rises slowly, eyes never leaving Ellie. “She walked between worlds?”

I don’t confirm or deny her interpretation. It’s more useful to let them build their own narratives. “She answered my summoning. A call I sent as the final wards closed, searching for anyone who might help me escape.”

“And it found someone from another world entirely?” Telren strokes his beard, surprise replacing suspicion. “Extraordinary.”

“That might explain why she affects magic strangely,” Neris adds, more thoughtful than fearful. “If she’s outside our natural laws?—”

“It explains nothing!” Lorath’s voice rises, her glare burning into Ellie. The tenuous calm threatens to shatter. “It only raises more questions. Why her ? What connection could possibly exist between her and our world?”

As Lorath’s intensity grows, the atmosphere in the room shifts.

The air around Ellie shimmers like heat rising from summer stones.

Now that I'm watching for it, I can sense the gathering of power—drawn toward her like iron filings to a lodestone, shaping itself around her without conscious direction.

Magic responding to emotion as naturally as shadow follows light.

Just as it responded to mine, before I learned control.

“Whether you believe it or not,” I cut in, steering away from dangerous speculation, “her arrival made it possible for me to leave a place designed to be inescapable. That alone makes her valuable to our cause.”

“And the prophecy?” Telren asks. “The dreams and visions people have reported, about a stranger who walks between worlds?”

I stiffen slightly. Prophecies shape expectations. They blind people to simpler truths. They invite action based on what should never be trusted.

“I remain focused on what I have personally witnessed.” My voice is flat. “Dreams and prophecies are interpreted after the fact. They predict nothing.”

Lisandra moves around the table, stopping in front of Ellie. She doesn't touch her—only studies her, the way a soldier sizes up the weakness in a battlefield.

“Whatever she is, her presence presents dangers. The Authority knows you’ve escaped. They’re already hunting you. If they discover someone with unpredictable abilities travels at your side …”

Ellie leans toward me, her frustration clear in the tension of her body. “What are they saying about me?”