Page 33 of The Sol Crown (Fractured Lights #1)

Sam catches the movement and raises a brow at me in question. I shrug, then dust berries and bramble from my clothes, brushing the feeling of his palm around my bicep off me like it doesn’t still cling.

* * *

The scent of roasted garlic and charred meat hits me before I even step through the towering doors of the Great Hall.

Inside, the others are already gathered. Trent is mid-reenactment, dramatically reliving his tackle with Junie’s head tucked under his arm like a prize. She shrieks with laughter, jabbing him in the ribs until he releases her, collapsing into his seat with a grin that nearly splits his face.

Sam sits beside them, smirking quietly. His sharp eyes flick to me the instant I enter, noting every shift in my expression.

I keep my gaze steady, refusing to search the room for the one person I shouldn’t care to find, and make my way straight to the serving line.

I pile my plate with steaming potatoes, herb-stuffed meats, and glazed root vegetables.

A rich chocolate cake gleams from a silver tray, its icing thick and glossy.

I grab a slice—then pause, remembering my mood—and take another.

The hall is warm, loud, and golden, with sunlight flickering across ancient stone. It should feel comforting. It usually does .

But I feel the weight of his presence behind me. A pressure. A pull.

I ignore it.

Junie waves me over, her cheeks flushed, eyes still shining from laughter. I summon a smile and cross the room. Deacon pats the seat beside him, already draping an arm over my shoulders as I sit.

“Where were you hiding, little goddess?” he teases, nuzzling his face into my hair. “You smell like agriar berries.”

“There’s your clue, Deacs.”

His eyes skim the scrapes on my arms, and he shakes his head with a low chuckle. “Only you would be wild enough to crawl into a thorn bush.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it? No one found her,” Junie says with a grin, nudging my leg under the table.

I don’t correct her. That bitter moment with Stone stays tucked away. And the presence I’m avoiding down the table stays mercifully silent, quietly eating his potatoes like nothing happened.

Without a word, Sam slides a piece of buttered bread onto my plate, and I smile up at him.

For the remainder of dinner, I keep my gaze fixed on the food before me and don’t look down the table.

Not even once.

* * *

I’m just stepping into the library when Brynn emerges through the doorway, nearly colliding with me. Moonlight streams through the high-arched windows behind him, casting silver across the tiled floor. I wrap my arms around myself, warding off the evening chill.

“Elina,” he says with a warm smile. The scars from the peligro catch the light as his face creases. “Hi.”

“Hey,” I reply, glancing past him into the quiet library where only a few students linger over open books. “You just leaving?”

“Yeah. I lit the fire on the fourth floor if you’re looking for somewhere warm to sit.”

“Thanks,” I say, truly grateful. “That hearth never catches properly. The kindling always dies out before it takes.”

He shrugs as if it had been nothing.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your evening,” he says with a polite nod, the torchlight catching on the edge of his retreating figure as he disappears down the corridor.

I make my way up to the fourth floor, pausing only to grab a slim volume from a shelf—a worn fable about Admira and Odio, the God of Darkness and Wrath. Star-crossed and cursed, their tale weaves through love, betrayal, and a fate neither of them could escape.

Tucking myself into a hidden cubby laden with velvet cushions and fur blankets between two tall shelves, I settle close to the hearth, the fire’s warmth seeping into my skin and easing the tension from my shoulders.

For a while, I let the world fall away, sinking into the story until myth and reality blur and my eyelids grow heavy.

When I stir again, the fire has long since died. The library is cloaked in shadow and stillness. I’m bundled tightly in a heavy blanket, my body completely hidden from view. And then I hear it—the sound that must have woken me.

Footsteps. Purposefully light. The kind made by someone trying not to be heard.

Pages turn with soft rustles. Leather bindings slide smoothly across shelves, one book replaced, another pulled free. Each motion is deliberately quiet.

I sink deeper into the blankets, heart slowing, breath careful. I leave just the smallest gap to peek through.

I can’t see who the steps belong to—not at first. They’re just around the corner, out of sight. But then a single word cuts through the silence, whispered so faintly I almost think I imagined it.

“Somewhere.”

It’s a fragment, the word meaningless on its own. A slip. Whatever full sentence it belongs to remains locked behind his teeth, but I know that voice.

Stone.

Even whispered in frustration, I would recognise it anywhere. He could say one word across a battlefield, and I’d hear him. There’s a pull to him I don’t understand, as if this Gods-damned world has chosen him as my gravity. My reaction to him is visceral, completely uncontrollable.

He steps into view then, just at the end of the towering bookshelf I’m tucked beside. I don’t dare breathe.

His hand scrapes through his short hair in frustration, the sound faint, but it still makes my own fingertips tingle with a need I don’t want to name. He frowns at the shelves, eyes scanning titles I can’t see from here, lips pressed into a hard line.

Then he moves.

Footsteps, still quiet, carry him down the stairs. I don’t exhale until I hear the soft click of the library doors closing behind him.

Rising to my feet, I let the blankets pool around my ankles and step into the path he just left. My eyes scan the shelves he was lingering near—books on ancestral lines, family records, detailed family trees.

He was looking into my blood.

“What are you searching for, Stone Carlisle?” I whisper into the silence.