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“They're deciding what your presence means for the Veinwardens.” I simplify the debate. “What just happened with the lightstone suggests possibilities they hadn’t considered.”

“I don’t have magic.” Her protest comes weaker this time. “These things just … happen . I’m not doing them deliberately.”

“What did she say?” Lisandra asks.

“She claims no control. She says the manifestations are not deliberate.”

Neris gives a low, thoughtful laugh. “That’s how it used to begin. Before the purges. When Veinbloods still thrived. Through emotion. Through need.”

Lisandra nods. “Deliberate or not, her existence changes things. If the Authority learns of her?—”

This sobers the gathering immediately. If the Authority discovers someone capable of affecting magic despite their systematic elimination of the bloodlines, their response would be swift and ruthless.

“She is under my protection. I owe her a debt in return for the part she played in releasing me. She stands under the Vein’s shield.

No one outside this room is to know anything of what you’ve seen or heard tonight.

” I meet each of their gazes, one by one, and they lower their eyes in turn. Even Lorath. “Is that understood?”

My word as Vareth’el et’Varin remains absolute, despite my long absence. Some habits of command never fade.

“We should return to the matter at hand.” I guide the conversation back to what matters. “The Authority knows I escaped. The patrol we encountered knew my description. Sketches have been issued. That means someone higher up now knows I survived the tower, and walk free.”

“They will try to keep the information contained,” Telren says. “If word spreads to the common people, it might ignite rebellion, and they won’t want that.”

He spreads a map across the table. Patrol routes and checkpoints marked in red ink crisscross it. “They’ve doubled the security at all major crossings. Checkpoints fortified. Mountain passes are patrolled day and night. ”

“The Lirien Spire is locked down,” Lisandra adds. “Our sources report Commander Sereven—” She cuts herself off, but it’s too late. The name hangs in the air like a drawn blade.

The architect of my imprisonment, standing at the head of those who saw my kind erased from existence.

A pulse of tension radiates outward. Even the Veinwardens who weren’t old enough to be part of the fight back then shift uneasily. Lisandra’s gaze moves to me, and stays there.

I move my gaze back to the map. “Continue.”

“But—”

“I said continue.”

She hesitates for a heartbeat, then exhales and steadies herself. “His most trusted commanders have been summoned back to Ashenvale.”

"They haven’t committed full resources yet. They're trying to conceal who escaped. That hesitation gives us a narrow window of opportunity."

“Opportunity for what ?” Lorath asks.

“To reclaim what is mine.” The words are simple. The execution won’t be. “They expect me to hide. They won’t anticipate immediate offense.”

Telren shakes his head. “We lack the numbers for open warfare.”

“Where has hiding gotten you? You’ve survived, yes. But it hasn’t stopped their expansion.”

“What would you have us do?” Lisandra’s tone is neutral, but her eyes are sharp. “Launch attacks against superior forces?”

“No, but I need what they have. They will expect me to stay as far from the Lirien Spire as possible.” I tap Ashenvale on the map. “Which makes this the last place they’ll look for me.”

Silence falls across the chamber as the implications of my statement register. Neris breaks it first, disbelief coloring his voice.

“You want to infiltrate Ashenvale?”

“I want to do more than infiltrate it. I intend to enter the Lirien Spire and take back what is mine. I will strike before they understand the shape of what’s coming.”

“Impossible!” Lorath snaps.

“What are you thinking?” Lisandra ignores her outburst.

“A targeted operation. Very small team, specific objective. In and out before they realize what’s happened.” I trace the routes on the map. “A blow that will send a message.”

For the next hour, we dismantle and rebuild possibilities. Authority defenses, Veinwarden capabilities, vulnerabilities woven into Ashenvale’s outer structures. The leaders who rose during my absence, and those who endured it, provide updates about things that have changed since I was last there.

Throughout, Ellie remains silent and still. She watches our interactions with keen attention, and more than once, her gaze finds mine across the table.

The broken lightstone has been swept away, but its destruction hangs over the proceedings. Several times, I catch Lisandra watching her from beneath lowered lashes, trying to fit this strange creature into a box that makes sense to her.

When the meeting ends, I issue orders to each member as they leave—assignments for intelligence gathering, resource shifts, the groundwork for a strike that must succeed if it happens at all.

One by one, the Veinwardens file out, the heavy door closing behind each departure until only Lisandra remains.

She waits, standing by the table, until we’re alone.

“You have something to say?”

She crosses her arms, her gaze fixing on me in a way that reminds me of when I was younger, and convinced my position was equal to experience.

“This woman changes everything. You understand what her arrival might signify?”

“She represents a potential advantage. Nothing more has been established.”

“Telren spoke earlier of dreams. But you need to understand something. These weren’t just scattered tales. They spread across Meridian without messengers. No one commanded it. No one taught it. People who had never met dreamed the same words.”

I say nothing. The concept of prophecy has always troubled me—too easily manipulated, too readily twisted to serve agendas. And yet, the timing of Ellie’s arrival, the nature of her effect on the binding, coincidence seems an increasingly inadequate explanation.

“When shadows lengthen and dawn falters,” she says softly, her voice carrying the cadence of something long committed to memory. “The Vein will flow once more. Brought forth by one who walks between worlds, beyond the boundary of our knowing.”

Nevik recited the same lines in Ravencross. I dismissed them at the time. Superstition, shaped into prophecy by desperate men and women who needed something to believe in .

“But there’s more,” she continues, eyes never leaving my face. “A continuation of the vision that came later, reported by those in settlements even farther apart.”

I remain silent, granting permission for her to continue.

She draws in a deep breath. “ Where shadow leads, storm will follow, awakening that which lies dormant in the void. ”

I wait, but she stays quiet. The words resonate with possibilities I’m not yet ready to acknowledge. Storm. Shadow. The silver light that emanated from Ellie. My mind flashes back to that moment after the mountain collapsed. When I thought I caught the edge of silver in my shadows.

The connections are too convenient, too perfect to trust without question.

“When did these dreams begin?”

“Three months after your death. We didn’t take them seriously at first. Many still believed you might return, regardless of the evidence. But when the same phrases began appearing in settlements with no way to communicate … we began keeping records.”

“And you believe Ellie is the stranger these visions foretell?”

“I believe nothing without evidence, you taught me that. But I watch patterns. Someone from another world arrives. You escape. The lightstone shatters. These are not coincidences.”

She steps toward the door. “There’s more to them though, fragments we’ve pieced together over the years. You should hear them all. But not tonight.”

Her hand touches her chest gently, then lifts to her lips, before falling back to her side. Her voice, when it comes again, carries both command and reverence.

“Tonight, we celebrate your return. The return of Shadowverin … The Vareth’el . And tomorrow, we will plan the way back to Ashenvale.”

She leaves without waiting for permission, and I allow her to go.

For a long moment, I remain at the table, letting the silence settle around me like an old, familiar friend.

The mention of Ashenvale brings darker thoughts.

Not just of reclaiming what was stolen, but of confronting the man at the head of the snake.

He walks the halls of Ashenvale, commands the forces that hunt me, and knows my methods better than any other living person. He’s my greatest threat.

It’s not until Ellie moves, her chair scraping against the floor, that I remember she’s there.

“What happens now?”

I don’t lift my eyes from the map, while I trace the routes around Ashenvale with one fingertip, memorizing the paths where risks outweigh gains, where shadows could slip unnoticed between watchtowers.

Her question demands more than a simple answer, but what happens now depends on too many variables.

Authority movements, Veinwarden loyalty, the instability of Ellie’s growing abilities, and my need to reclaim what was taken from me.

“We determine how your abilities are manifesting,” I say finally. “And whether they can be controlled through intent rather than left to react in moments of fear or distress.” I look up, watching her carefully .

“You think I can control this?” Skepticism colors her voice, but beneath it lies something else. Hope, perhaps. Or the fear of hoping.

“I don’t know, but we do need to try, regardless.”

“And my way home?” Her eyes seek mine, searching for promises I cannot give her. “Will this help with that?” Her voice carries more than longing. It carries survival. A need to believe there is an end to this path that does not keep her here forever.

“Your connection to this world’s magic may be the key to understanding how you arrived, and how you might return.” I choose each word carefully. It’s not a lie. But it’s also not a truth she can rely upon.

The interplay between world-boundary magic and innate power is neither simple nor predictable. It’s a delicate architecture of thresholds, intentions, and the will to shape or sever ties that were never meant to exist.

But what matters now is more simple. Cultivating her control. Teaching her to steady the force she doesn’t yet understand, so that when the time comes—whether to defend herself, or tear open a path back to her home—she is ready.

“When do we start?”

“Tomorrow.”

She accepts this with the same remarkable adaptability that has fascinated me since the tower. Despite everything she’s witnessed, from violence to magic to plotting, she doesn’t retreat. She chooses to move forward, to what she might learn and control.

It is this, more than prophecy or power, that will matter in the days to come. Because whatever flows through her veins, whatever connection exists between us, it responds to her will, untrained but potent.

And will, when honed to purpose, has toppled kingdoms before.