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Chapter Thirty-Three

ELLIE

“Obedience is proven not in public, but in the absence of witness.”

Authority Codex

I wake with a gasp that tears through my throat, heart thrashing against my ribs as the dream splinters into pieces I can't quite hold onto. My skin burns with phantom heat, the afterimage of power still crackling through my veins.

Images slip through my fingers like smoke.

Ashenvale's imposing walls, Sacha's hand outstretched toward his ring.

Then darkness. Not ordinary shadow but something alive, ravenous, swallowing everything in its path.

A vortex of writhing black tendrils reaching toward me, toward him , hungry and endless.

Punctuated by screams and silver bleeding into blue, bleeding into something darker that sears my vision even in memory.

And beneath it all … a sense of fury, of despair, of fear.

The narrow bed beneath me is damp with sweat, sheets twisted around my legs like restraints. My mouth feels like sand, tongue sticking to the roof as I try to swallow .

This wasn't an ordinary dream. It was something deeper. A warning, maybe.

Pushing myself upright, I’m confused to find myself back in the room I share with Mira.

Early evening light slants through the window.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on the bed in Sacha’s room after the incident in the storage closet, exhausted from the adrenaline crash and trying to suppress the power inside me.

I stand up and cross to the wash basin on the shelf, splashing water on my face. Finding my pack, I take out one of the Firebloom Resin beads, pop it into my mouth, and chew. It helps take away the dryness in my mouth.

The water's reflection shows my face—the same features but subtly altered.

For a moment, my breath snags, a quick hitch in my throat.

Silver flecks in my eyes catch the light, brighter than before, no longer confined to tiny specks but threading through the iris.

I lean closer, despite the unease, studying this evidence of my changing nature.

The face looking back is both mine and …

not . Familiar in its outline but increasingly foreign in its details.

How much more will I change before this is over? How much of the woman from Chicago will remain?

The memory of Sacha's hands wrapped around mine in the storage closet floods back without warning, his fingers cool against my feverish skin as he drew the excess energy away.

But the unexpected warmth that spreads through me now isn't just from remembering his touch.

It's deeper, the connection that formed between us as our powers met.

Like a circuit closing, completing something I hadn't known was broken.

Energy had flowed between us in patterns that felt startlingly, frighteningly right .

As though our magics recognized each other while we were still fumbling in the dark.

The door opens behind me, intruding on my thoughts, and I turn around as Mira walks in. The servant’s clothes she’s wearing look dusty and rumpled, making me think that she’s been in places clothes like that aren’t meant to go.

I dig through my mind to find the right words to greet her. “ Vashna tem .”

“ Vashna tem, Ellie.” She nods, then points at the door. “ Tashak.”

“Tashak?” I think it means come, or come with me.

“ Tashak, Shadowverin … Tashak et.” She opens the door wider. “Tashak. ”

I follow her back to the men’s room, where Varam and Sacha have their heads bent over what appears to be a rough diagram sketched on paper. They look up in unison as we enter, Sacha’s gaze locking with mine.

“Feeling better?” he asks.

“Yes. The rest helped … but how did I get back there?”

“I carried you.”

I blink at him. “You … carried …”

“I made sure no one was in the hallway first.”

Heat rises to my cheeks, and I look away, pretending interest in the sheet of paper they’re studying. “What is that?”

“Varam has confirmed the vault’s location.”

“The vault where your ring is?”

“That’s right.” He taps the diagram .

I look closer. It seems to be a floor plan, with various sections marked with symbols I don’t understand.

“Are you sure your ring is there?”

“Yes. It calls to me.”

I don’t know how to answer that. I shouldn’t be surprised by the idea, not with everything else that’s happened since I arrived here.

Varam says something in a low voice, drawing Sacha’s attention back to him, and unrolls another piece of paper.

This one appears to be an official schedule of some kind.

He and Sacha speak quickly, pointing at locations on the map and the floor plan, voices low and urgent.

The discussion goes back and forth until they must come to an agreement, because Varam nods, and rolls the map up, and tucks it back inside his pack.

“What’s the plan?” I don’t really expect an answer, so I’m surprised when Sacha tells me.

“The Day of Order celebration begins at midday tomorrow. The High Commander will lead the procession from the Lirien Spire to the outer courtyard.” His finger traces a route on the map. His tone shifts when mentioning the High Commander, his voice turning colder.

“We’ll need to move quickly. Once the ceremonial address begins, we’ll have no more than twenty minutes before security rotations resume.

We’ll retrieve my ring, while you get out of Ashenvale with Mira.

Rasha and Mishak will be waiting for you.

Once we have the ring, we’ll meet you at River Crossing. ”

The way he says ‘ we’ll meet you’ carries no hint of doubt, no acknowledgement of possible failure. I wonder if it’s confidence or if, like me, he’s afraid to voice the possibility that something might go wrong.

Mira speaks again, low and fast. The words tangle too quickly for me to follow, so I only catch fragments. Something about food and water. Sacha replies. I hear Varam’s name, and a second later both he and Mira leave the room.

When I was panicking, the language had poured into my mind like instinct. Now everything is calm, it’s slipping away again. Another reminder that whatever is happening inside me isn’t mine to command.

“Where are they going?”

“To the market to pick up some additional supplies for tomorrow.” He stands up and walks over to the window to look out at the courtyard. “Is something troubling you?”

I blink. “What?”

He half-turns toward me. “Your skin is ...” He waves a hand.

Looking down, I see a faint shimmer on my wrists and hands. It vanishes when I flex my fingers, but not fast enough.

“Oh. I just … I guess …” I debate whether to tell him about the dream. It sounds stupid, but then I remember the comments he made back in the tower, when he asked me if my dreams were ever unusual.

“I … had a dream. About tomorrow. It felt different from normal. More real somehow.”

He turns fully. “Tell me.”

“You were reaching for your ring.” I close my eyes, trying to rebuild the dream in my mind.

“But when you touched it, everything changed. There were shadows everywhere, swallowing everything. And light—silver, then blue, then black—burning through it. There was screaming.” I open my eyes. “Then I woke up.”

“A vision, maybe.” I’m surprised by his immediate acceptance. “Not uncommon when natural abilities are awakening, particularly in times of stress.”

“Do you think it was a premonition? That something is going to go wrong tomorrow?”

“I think your connection to this world’s magic continues to evolve in ways neither of us understands yet.” He steps forward, stopping an arm’s length away. “What you described could be literal danger, or something more symbolic—the completion of my power, the change it represents.”

Danger. Change .

The two words knot together, impossible to separate.

What kind of danger? What kind of change?

His presence makes it difficult to think, each breath drawn too sharply, too aware. Since the storage closet, the way he affects me has only intensified—every glance, every shift in the air between us.

I force myself to concentrate. “What will happen when you get your ring back?”

“I’m not sure. My power will be complete for the first time since my imprisonment. How that will manifest, I can only theorize.”

Shadows deepen at the edges of the room, closing in, making the space seem smaller.

"And me?" The words slip free before I can stop them. "What happens to me after tomorrow?"

He’s silent for a long moment.

“I don’t know that either.” His voice is quieter now, as if admitting it costs him something. “Your connection to this world is growing. The silver in your eyes is brighter. Your abilities show more strongly every day.”

My stomach twists at the reminder—the visible proof of how little of me still belongs to the life I left behind.

"That’s not really an answer."

“It’s the only one I have.” He repeats the same answer from our conversation yesterday.

It’s that honesty, his refusal to comfort me with pretty lies, that unmoors me more than anything else.

I step closer, the space between us shrinking. He doesn’t back away.

“I’m scared,” I whisper. “Not just about tomorrow, but about—” I swallow, my voice shaking. “About what I’m becoming. Whether I’ll ever get home. What it all means.”

His eyes darken, shadows swirling in their depths. “You have reason to be.” The words are low, careful. “The unknown should inspire caution.”

“Is that what you feel when you look at me? Caution?” I step closer to him.

The pause before his answer is longer this time. His gaze locks onto mine, and for once, he seems to struggle with words.

“No.” His expression seems to shift. “What I feel is more complicated. And far too dangerous for us both.”