We left the Bone Prince in the ruins. He said he wouldn't follow.
Not because he couldn't.
Because he was afraid of what would happen next.
That night, the shard screamed.
Not aloud—but inside. It felt like a knife turning in my chest, deeper than thought, louder than memory.
Caeryn built the fire in silence, her eyes darting to me now and then like she expected me to shatter.
I almost did.
Because when I closed my eyes, I saw him.
Elion.
Not in the sky. Not as fire.
But in my dreams.
And for the first time since the bond began… he spoke.
"Do not listen to the dead," he said. "Their truth is twisted."
I stood before him in a realm of endless firelight, the stars above frozen like cracks in glass. Elion wore no crown now. No robes. Just a weary expression and hands soaked in golden blood.
"Why?" I asked.
"You were not supposed to be the heir," he admitted.
"So you killed my brother?"
He didn't flinch. "I saved a world."
I felt my fists clench, but I couldn't move. I was inside him now. A memory. A prison.
"You were weak," he said. "But you had something your brother never did."
I spit the words: "Blind loyalty?"
"No," he said. "A heart I could afford to break."
I woke up gasping, the shard glowing white-hot, carving pain through my spine.
Caeryn was already up, blade drawn. "What happened?"
"He spoke," I whispered.
She knelt beside me, and for a second… I saw fear in her eyes.
Not of Elion.
Of me.
"What did he say?" she asked.
"He told the truth," I said. "His truth."
I stood up.
And for the first time since this began… I didn't reach for the shard. I let it hang. Dimmed.
"I think it's time we tell ours."
Caeryn nodded. "Then read this first."
She pulled something from her satchel.
An envelope.
Worn. Cracked. Stamped with a crest neither of us had seen before.
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
She swallowed.
"It was in my tent this morning."
I turned it over. My stomach dropped.
It was addressed to her.
In handwriting that hadn't existed in a hundred years.
Caeryn tore it open.
Inside—
"To the last of Veyra's blood.The past is not past. The First Pact lives.And the city of salt remembers.Come alone. Or the heir dies before he's reborn."
She stared at me.
I stared at her.
"The City of Salt," I whispered. "That's on the edge of the Veil."
"Then that's where we're going," she said.