Page 51 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

Chapter Twenty-Four

ELLIE

In every resistance, there is a beginning that looked like surrender.

Fragments of the Lost Veinwardens

“Find Varam. Bring him here. Say only that it’s urgent.”

Sacha’s instructions echo around my head while I hurry through Stonehaven’s passageways.

I can’t shake the look in his eyes when he faced Lisandra—cold, hard, and utterly without mercy.

The darkness that’s shown in hints since his transformation was never more evident than in that moment.

The way his fingers flexed at his sides with barely contained violence, the shadows that swirled around him, the way the entire room seemed to darken.

I’m scared of what I’ll find when I return.

Are you going to kill her the second I leave?

I didn’t need to voice the question. He’d seen it in my face. His slight headshake hadn’t been reassuring. It wasn’t a promise of mercy, but merely a ‘not now. ’ I know him well enough to recognize the distinction between restraint and reprieve.

And the terrifying part is how much I understand it. How much of me secretly agrees with the fact he might have to kill her.

I should be furious with Lisandra. I am furious with her.

She betrayed Sacha, betrayed everyone inside Stonehaven.

She pretended to be concerned about him.

She stood beside me, her face a mask of concern, and tried to convince me he was dead.

She mourned him, while knowing her actions led directly to his capture, to the torture that nearly destroyed him, to the wounds that festered and the fever that nearly claimed him while I watched, helpless to stop it.

He has every right to want her dead.

And yet …

The power inside me flickers, responding to my unease. Back in Chicago, I’d have called this murder. Here in Meridian, with war and magic and prophecy swirling around us, the lines between justice and vengeance are beginning to blur.

Is this who I’m becoming? Someone who weighs the value of a human life so clinically?

The memory of the soldiers he killed at the mountain pass returns. The casual way his shadows moved through them, tearing through flesh and armor without any hesitation or remorse. I remember his face, cold, emotionless, as men fell screaming.

The man who emerged from that night when I awoke to find him healed, isn’t just Sacha restored. He’s been remade into something harder, colder, and more absolute in his judgment.

And the most disturbing part isn’t the killing. It’s how much I still want to be near him. How the ruthlessness that should repel me instead draws me closer. How the strange power inside me seems to reach for him whenever we’re together.

My steps falter, doubts assailing me from all sides. A torch on the wall flickers as I pass, casting my shadow in strange, distorted shapes across the floor.

Should I warn Varam about what we’ve discovered? Should I tell him that Lisandra is the traitor, and prepare him for what we might find when we return?

But Sacha’s instructions were clear. Say only that it’s urgent .

But why ? Why the secrecy when he clearly wants Varam to know? Unless …

I stop in the middle of the passageway, muttering an apology when someone knocks into me on their way past.

Unless he wants Varam’s genuine reaction. Unless he’s watching for something in that first unguarded moment.

Does he suspect Varam might already know? That he’s also a traitor?

I press my palm against the rough stone wall, steadying myself as theories cascade through my mind.

The Veinwardens have been Varam’s entire life.

His loyalty to Sacha borders on devotion.

I’ve seen how he looks at him. Like a man who’s found his north star after years of wandering through darkness.

Like a soldier who’s finally reunited with his rightful commander.

No … no, that can’t be it. Varam risked his life to rescue Sacha from that convoy. He fought at our side through mountains and ravines to keep him alive. The idea that he could be part of Lisandra’s betrayal makes my stomach twist.

But Sacha trusts no one. Not completely. Especially now, after everything he’s endured. After imprisonment, after torture, after betrayal upon betrayal, trust is as fragile as shattered glass.

And maybe that’s wisdom, not paranoia.

I push off from the wall and surge back into movement, decision made.

I’ll do what he’s asked. Whatever plan he’s formed, I won’t risk undermining it.

Not when the stakes are this high. Not when Sereven could have informants everywhere.

Behind every face, beneath any oath of loyalty, could lie another traitor.

I eventually find Sacha’s second-in-command in the common hall.

He stands surrounded by fighters clustered around a map table, their voices a low murmur as they discuss patrol routes.

The fighters here move differently than when I first arrived—with sharper purpose, as if Sacha’s return has electrified the very air they breathe.

When Varam sees me, he breaks off mid-sentence. Something in my expression must betray me, because concern immediately covers his face.

“What is it? Is Lord Torran okay?”

“He asked me to come for you.” I keep my voice low, aware of the curious glances from the other fighters. Their eyes follow us, hungry for any news concerning their returned leader. “He wants you to return with me. He says it’s urgent.”

He nods without asking any questions, and falls into step beside me as I turn to leave. His immediate obedience is another reminder of his devotion, and another reason why Sacha’s potential suspicion feels so wrong.

We make our way back to Sacha’s quarters in silence, my mind racing with what we might find when we get there.

Will Lisandra still be alive? Or will we enter to find her body cooling on the floor?

Part of me—a part that grows stronger every day—hopes she’s already dead, and I’m shocked at the coldness of my own thoughts.

But it would be cleaner. Simpler. The judgment carried out, the betrayal answered with finality, nothing left but the aftermath to manage.

No messy complications. No risky plans. Just justice served swiftly, the way it happens in a world at war.

The other part—the part that still remembers being Ellie Bennet from Chicago, who once called 911 when she found an injured bird, who volunteered at homeless shelters, who believed in second chances— that part recoils at the casual acceptance of execution.

That Ellie seems more distant every day, fading like a half-remembered dream as Stormvein takes her place.

What am I becoming?

As we get closer to Sacha’s quarters, my pulse quickens. The guard outside, one of the fighters from Glassfall Gap, nods solemnly when we arrive. His expression reveals nothing as he opens the door to allow us inside.

My eyes immediately dart around the room, looking for any hint of what might have happened while I was away, but there are no signs of a struggle. No overturned furniture. No bloodstains on the floor. There’s also no noise, and the stillness feels wrong.

“Where is he?” Varam’s voice is tight with tension.

“I left him in his bedchamber.”

I cross the room, Varam on my heels, and push open the door. What I see stops me in my tracks.

Lisandra is standing against the far wall, alive but pale.

It’s impossible to miss the angry marks around her throat.

More disturbing are the faint dark lines beneath her skin, following the path of her veins.

The floor where Sacha was standing when I left is scorched in a perfect circle, and hairline cracks spider across the wall behind her.

His raven is perched on his shoulder. Its head tilts to assess us as we enter, eyes gleaming with unnatural intelligence.

Sacha stands before her, his stance deceptively relaxed, the fingers of one hand curled around the pommel of her sword, holding it loosely at his side. Yet somehow he appears more dangerous than if he’d been openly threatening.

Relief floods through me at the sight of her alive and breathing, followed immediately by confusion mixed with a strange, unsettling disappointment that I’m ashamed to acknowledge.

Why is she still alive? Why didn’t he kill her?

The Sacha who stood here when I left seemed ready to tear her apart. The evidence of how close he came is written in the damaged stone, in the shadows still visible around him. What stayed her execution?

“What is going on here?” Varam asks.

“We’ve found our traitor.” Four words. That’s all Sacha says.

“ You? ” The word drips with disbelief. Fury colors his voice. “ You betrayed us?”

She doesn’t speak, doesn’t even acknowledge Varam’s presence, her eyes fixed on Sacha with the kind of terror usually reserved for forces of nature—earthquakes, storms, avalanches.

Whatever passed between them in my absence has stripped away her resistance, her defiance, leaving only naked fear behind.

She looks like someone who has glimpsed something beyond mortal understanding.

I look closer at Sacha. Something has changed in the short time I was gone.

There’s a new quality to his stillness. It isn’t tension, but coiled power.

He reminds me of a predator who has already tasted blood but has chosen to delay the final kill.

His eyes are dark, not fully black like when he’s channeling shadows, darker than their usual shade, as though the power inside him is close to the surface, but hasn’t quite broken free.

The raven shifts on his shoulder, spreading its wings for a moment before folding them back in. Its shape is crisp, defined. This manifestation of his power is different than any version I’ve seen before, more than the desperate, dying shadow that flew to me at River Crossing.

The air around him feels different, too. Heavier. The shadows in the corners of the room have deepened, becoming more substantial, responding to his presence, his mood.