Page 15

Chapter

Fifteen

EIRA

Tension fills the air, though Harek, my father, and I all keep the conversation light. Our bellies are full from the deer Harek caught in the woods. The dragons are still licking their lips from whatever they got while out on flight.

The ruined courtyard is quiet, cloaked in silver-blue moonlight. Shattered columns cast long shadows, and somewhere nearby, the last ember of a ward hums like a memory still trying to hold.

I step out alone, needing space to think. Lys’s riddles consume me, and I try to make sense of them. I’m not going to get any sleep if I can’t solve them.

The stars above are fractured by the skeletons of towers, but they still burn. I tip my head back, just for a moment, letting their light wash over me.

Footsteps sound from behind. Harek joins me, silent until we’re shoulder to shoulder beneath the sky. Warmth spreads through me at his touch.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen stars this clear since we left Mirendel,” he murmurs.

I nod. “It feels like something is waiting to begin.”

“Or end.” His voice is quiet and careful.

We stand together for a while, neither of us reaching, neither stepping away. The space between us hums. My heart beats just a little faster.

“Do you remember,” he says, “the night we ran through the pass when it was snowing?”

I smile faintly. “You got us lost.”

“I saved your life.”

“You lost my brand new boot.”

He laughs, a soft huff that warms the night between us. “But I found it again.”

“And gave it to a passing fox.” I bump his shoulder gently.

He bumps back. For a heartbeat, we’re not the huntress or the werewolf or uncertain allies trying to outrun prophecy. We’re just us.

“I miss this,” he whispers.

My chest tightens. I know what’s coming because I’ve felt it building. For the moment, I let it linger, let myself feel how close we’ve always been. How simple everything was when danger was far away and the only monsters we faced had teeth, not choices.

But simplicity is gone, and the fear hasn’t left. It’s just changed shape.

I draw in a slow and shallow breath, and my fingers brush the hilt of my sword where it rests at my side. It hums faintly with a flicker against my palm.

“I keep seeing it,” I whisper.

Harek looks at me, brow furrowing. “Seeing what?”

“My mother’s face and the shield.”

His breath catches.

“In my dreams,” I continue, voice steady now that I’ve started. “And not just her. Sometimes, it’s you.”

Silence stretches between us like an extending blade.

I can’t meet his gaze. “I don’t ever want that, but the curse doesn’t care what I want.”

“I do.” His voice is quiet but fierce.

“Unfortunately, it’s not enough.”

“Then what is?”

I press a hand to my chest. “I don’t know. But if I get too close to anyone, if I let myself love someone too much, it won’t end well for them.”

“You think the curse will use that against you.”

“I know it will.”

His jaw tightens. “You think keeping me at a distance will save me?”

“That’s the idea.”

He exhales slowly, pain etched in the line of his mouth. “You don’t have to go through this alone.”

“Actually, I think I do.”

The words hang between us. This time, I don’t soften them. I let them stay.

Harek’s hands tighten into fists. “You trust Lysandros now.”

He uses the fae’s full name.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to. You want to trust him.”

I open my mouth, but he holds up a hand, cutting me off before I speak.

“He flatters you, Eira. Don’t you see that? He plays the game better than anyone in that room. You don’t see how dangerous that is?”

“He knows things we don’t. That’s different.”

“That’s what he says .”

“It sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, and I can’t ignore what he said about the curse. Not to mention Courtsview and the history no one else will admit to.”

“You honestly think he’s sharing that out of goodwill?”

I don’t answer. Obviously, I can’t speak to Lys’s motives after only a couple encounters with him.

“You keep saying you’re afraid of the curse taking everything from you, but you’re giving it power every time you pull away from the people who would fight with you.”

Harek’s words are like a punch.

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s the truth.”

Anger swells, courses through me. “You think I don’t want to believe in you? In us? I do . But I can’t risk making decisions with my heart right now.”

He exhales through gritted teeth, looking away for a long moment. “Is it only about the curse?”

I freeze. He doesn’t press. He lets the question hang there, heavy and sharp.

I can’t answer, not honestly. Because it isn’t only about the curse.

Lys sees a potential in me that nobody has ever expressed before.

Yes, Harek and my father both believe in me, but it’s different.

I need to at least explore the truth behind what Lys has to say.

And that terrifies me more than either of them.

Harek’s expression softens. “You’re not the only one who’s afraid, Eira. But I’m still here, and that has to count for something.”

My chest tightens. “It does.”

“Then why keep pushing me away?”

I glance down at my hands, curl my fingers against my palms. “Because I can’t promise you safety.

I can’t even promise myself control. It isn’t something I can rely on, and it keeps getting harder.

” The words scrape like broken glass in my throat.

“If I lose control, if the curse pushes me far enough, I don’t know who I might hurt first.”

“You won’t lose yourself. I’ve known you your entire life, and I trust you.”

“Things are changing, and you can’t know that.” My voice breaks slightly. “Neither can I.”

The silence thickens between us.

“This isn’t about trusting Lys, Harek. It’s about survival . He knows things we don’t. He’s seen what this city has become, and he knows what it was before. We need that.”

“Your father knows what Courtsview was like before.”

“Not in the way Lys does. He’s lived here.”

Harek’s jaw tightens. “Is it just about knowledge, or is it the way he sees you? Be honest.”

The question lands with more precision than any blade. I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter how anyone sees me. My feelings won’t save us. No one’s will. Our only chance is to break these curses.”

The distance between us grows wide even though neither of us moves.

“I’m not giving up on you, Eira,” Harek says softly. “Even if you are.”

“Giving up?” I stare at him incredulously. “What makes you say that?”

He narrows his eyes, but all I see is the pain behind them.

“What’s this really about?” I demand.

“I can’t believe you’re trusting him! This isn’t you, and you know it.”

“Isn’t me? How can you say that? I’m trying to find a loophole for a curse that’s going to make me fight a death match with the father I just found.

Don’t you get that? Then there’s the whole matter of my mother’s line!

Nobody knows anything about this Secret Keeper stuff.

I’m supposed to figure that out on my own, and all while my siblings and your parents are in danger.

The pressure is more than I can bear. Of course I’m going to listen to a fae who knows about these things.

If you’re going to be jealous and not trust me—or us—then I don’t think there’s anything I can tell you to make you feel better. ”

His eyes widen, his face pales. “Is that really what you think? That I’m jealous ?”

“Aren’t you?” Heat burns in my chest.

“Of that pompous, stuck-up, dung licker? Hardly.”

“Lys is only trying to help.”

“ Lys .” He says it like a disease. “How quickly you adopted his nickname.”

“He told me to!”

“Didn’t mean you had to go along with it.” Harek crosses his arms.

I sigh deeply, not that it helps release any of my tension. “Are you working with or against me?”

He gives me a double take. “You’re really asking me that?”

“Yes.” I stand taller and cross my arms too. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I am not.”

“You sound like a toddler, not someone in his twenties.”

Harek’s eyebrows furrow. “Take that back.”

“Say you’ll work with Lys.”

“Lysandros is a snake, and you’ll come to see it. Then you’ll be begging for my forgiveness.”

“No, I’m going to break every curse I come across, save all of our loved ones, and then you’ll be the one apologizing.”

We stare each other down. Finally, he spins around then sits with his back to me.

I stomp back toward the enclave’s cold firelight, leaving him beneath the broken stars. The argument clings to my skin like a second layer I can’t shed.

I storm down the winding stone corridor that opens into the wide, ruined courtyard where the dragons rest under filtered moonlight. The air is cool against my flushed skin, but it does little to cool my thoughts.

Vash lifts his head first, eyes gleaming faintly green as I approach. Sapphire follows, her heavy tail curling around her body. They watch me quietly, with no judgment or questions.

“I’m fine,” I mutter, reaching to stroke Vash’s warm flank. “It was just a stupid fight.”

He rumbles, low and steady, the vibrations pulsing through my hand.

“I’m not the one being irrational. Harek acts like I’m betraying him just for listening to Lys—as if everything has to be about jealousy.”

Sapphire’s eyes half-close as I move to her, resting my palm along the thick curve of her neck. She hums softly beneath my touch.

“I’m trying to survive, that’s all. I’m trying to save everyone.

” My voice trembles at the edges, anger twisting hotter beneath my ribs.

The words come faster, louder. “He doesn’t understand.

Nobody does. I’m carrying this curse like a noose around my neck, but he wants more trust, feeling, and risk. ”

My fingers dig into Sapphire’s scales as the pressure builds in my chest.

Heat rushes through me, like a fire beneath my skin. My breath hitches, sharp, wild. The world sharpens, the wind humming louder in my ears, every scent blooming with vivid clarity.

My vision darkens at the edges as bones shift beneath my skin, pulling me forward. In the next breath, my wolf bursts free, powerful and fluid, claws striking stone as I sprint toward the broken city’s edge.

The ruins blur as fury pushes me faster, muscles stretching with every surge of rage I can’t speak aloud. I don’t think. I run.

Not to escape, but to feel. My burning anger from the argument with Harek melts away little by little as I tear through the forest, howling every so often.

After what seems like hours of racing, an inner calm emerges. But I know it’s short-lived.

I have to go back.