Page 19 of Alpha’s Divine Claim

“Months ago,” she says, “the family caught one attack. A sabotaged portal. It threw Rhonan clear to Earth.”

“I’ve heard the story.”

“They repaired the damage they found and stopped there. Faelan’s magic was already laid into the foundations before that attack happened. Nobody knew to look deeper than the damage. He walked through this fortress once, planted his work, and left. Nobody ever knew he’d been inside these walls at all.”

If he got into this fortress once without anyone knowing there’s nothing to say he isn’t still watching. I check the door. There’s one way into this room,two blind turns between here and the stairs. I stay on my feet. Whatever ease this place gave me is gone. I’m back on watch. The realm that looked safe is the proof no realm is.

She’s still at the table when I come back, both hands around the piece. The woman who arrived here as family last night is holding proof that the start of her mother’s line was cut out and hidden. Her face gives me nothing I can read. For once she’s the closed one.

I take the spot at her side, between her and the door, closer than guarding her requires. I can’t fight what’s already inside her blood. Guarding the door is what I have left. She leans until her shoulder comes to rest against me. I don’t move; I’d stand here all night.

“Niko has to know before we leave,” she says. “Not just what’s in his foundations, all of it.”

“Yes.”

We stay where we are a while longer, the two of us and the stone.

From here I can hold the door in my sight line and her weight against my arm at the same time. Somewhere else in the fortress the midday meal carries on, her family’s voices reaching us only as a faint hum through the old stone. Nobody out there knows yet. All of this sat far off an hour ago, now it’s here in the room with us. I had one morning of being just a man beside her. I’ll want it back for a long time. Everything in me that isn’t watching the door is pointed at her, that isn’t going to change.

Chapter 13

Nyxiana

Iwake in the guest chamber at Briarstone with the shard’s account still running behind my eyes. I lie still and let it finish. My mother’s line goes back, back and then stops at a wall someone built on purpose. I know that now. I knew it last night too but it didn’t get lighter overnight.

Morning light comes warm through the shutters, the kind of light that belongs to a house where nothing is supposed to be wrong. Down the hall, someone is already moving, footsteps and low voices, the ordinary sounds of a family starting its day without knowing what I know yet.

The shard itself is already wrapped and secured, tucked safe for the crossing. That much, at least, is done.

I get up and dress myself, no maid called, no one summoned to help with the laces. I’ve always done this alone. Today isn’t the day that changes.

I open my door to find Valen already in the hallway, dressed, a small, enchanted pack slung over one shoulder. Torchlight catches the silver threaded through his hair leaving the rest of him in shadow. He takes up more of this corridor than one man ought to. He’s standing far enough back from my door that I have to come out to him.

“Ready?” he says.

“Ready.”

Rhonan and Serena catch us on the way to the breakfast hall, Serena still tying her hair back, Rhonan already dressed for the day like he’s been up for hours. Rhonan claps Valen’s shoulder hard enough to rock him.

“Get her home in one piece,” he says. Then he looks Valen over. “Didn’t say much at the feast last night either. Talking not really your thing?”

“Not really.”

Serena pulls me into a hug and holds on, studying my face before she lets go. She doesn’t ask what’s wrong, just looks like she already knows something is.

Niko and Saige find us in the same corridor a moment later. Before we reach the hall, I ask for a private word with all four of them. I tell them about the shard from the vaults and what reading it showed me. Then I tell them about Faelan, his magic already woven into Briarstone’s foundations, laid there longer than anyone in this house has been alive.

Niko goes still. For a moment his composure slips before he pulls it back into place. “How deep does it run?”

“Ancient. Deliberate. Faelan didn’t erase your family’s beginning. Someone else did that, long before him. He only found where it was hidden.”

Niko doesn’t ask anything more than that. His hands go still at his sides. Rhonan’s easy manner from a moment ago is gone entirely. Serena’s hand goes to his arm without either of them looking.

Saige puts a hand on my arm. “We’ll check the foundations ourselves and see what else Faelan touched,” she says. “You take the shard and keep going.”

We sit down to breakfast, the smell of eggs and a spice I don’t recognize filling the hall. Nobody brings up what I told them in the corridor. I steer the conversation toward ordinary talk, mentioning that Evren seemed off before we left Ash Hollow.

“That’s just Evren these days,” Rhonan says, reaching for the bread. “Nobody thinks much of it.”