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  Chapter 7

  The wooden door closed behind her with a muted thud, the scent of ancient incense and rootwood still clinging to her robes. Vael stepped into the open air beneath the boughs of the Sacred Tree. Sunlight spilled through the canopy in broken strands, dancing across the moss-strewn flagstones of the elevated path that wound outward from the tree’s great trunk.

  She didn’t know where she was going; only that she had to walk.

  The breeze caught her hair, and she welcomed the quiet hush of the forest-city, high among the branches, where walkways wound between trunks like arteries. The Sacred Tree loomed behind her, but she did not look back.

  I had no choice. The thought struck hard. Firm. But beneath its steel edge was a softer voice, questioning. She had marked an Outsider, not with ceremony, nor with clarity. But it was done. The Oracle had seen through her silence and had not needed to ask.

  Vael’s hands clenched at her sides. The Outsider was dangerous; but more dangerous was what he stirred in her. The feeling that the cycle had shifted, that the old rules were bending around something ancient and restless. And yet… it had felt right. In the moment; in her blood. Something older than her title or training. Something she hadn’t been taught to listen to; but had, nonetheless.

  She passed beneath an arch grown from twin birches, their pale bark kissed with runes. The path sloped gently downward, winding toward the city’s edge. She let it take her there.

  Behind her, Rinan’s steps followed; soft but certain. A shadow stitched to her presence. She didn’t speak to him, not yet.

  The border came into view in the distance: a living wall of dense trees woven with vine and light, and just beyond it, the forest that lay outside the city’s sacred bounds. There, poised at the edge like a statue carved from bark and will, stood a sentinel.

  His eyes; glowing faintly with Druidic light; watched her. Silent. Unmoving. Vael stopped a few paces away. She didn’t cross the threshold. A single breath. Then another. Her pulse quieted. She had not broken faith, and she turned back. The path now led her toward the heart of the city, where voices murmured and footfalls thickened. Life resumed its rhythm around her, as if her world hadn’t tilted.

  And still, Rinan followed.

  “Your Highness,” he said at last, as they reached the first tier of the central ring. She did not answer. Her eyes had already found him: Ruwan Eberflame, cloaked in wine-red silk and leaning with easy charm against the rail of a flowering terrace. His smile was smooth as always, but something keen glittered in his gaze. She knew that look. He must had heard. She saw him before he saw her; Ruwan, gilded by sunlight and ease, always where he was most likely to be noticed; composed, as if the world bowed to the tilt of his shoulders.

  She slowed her steps but did not stop.

  He will ask. Of course he would. The city was too tightly wound for secrets to stay hidden. Rumors here bloomed like spores, drifting on whispers and flowering into certainty. And Vael, she knew, had become the favored subject of too many such blossoms.

  A mark was not something bestowed lightly; least of all to an Outsider. And she had done it without a council. Without a word to the magistrate to make it official. Was it pride she felt, curling in her stomach like heat? Or fear? She could not untangle the two.

  Her pace did not falter, though the pressure of it all coiled tighter across her chest. The Oracle’s words echoed faintly, not in speech, but sensation. The heavy silence. The way truth had seemed to pool between them, deeper than her own voice could reach.

  Vael lifted her chin. I did what no one else would have dared. That thought steadied her. She had acted when others would have waited, stalled, debated until rot crept through the bark of their hesitation. She thought of the Outsider’s eyes. The defiance. The pull. Something raw and dangerous and real, like the first spark to dry tinder.

  She had claimed it. Not because of weakness but because of strength. And yet; what would they see in her now?

  Not strength. Not vision.

  Perhaps a woman swayed by instinct? A royal noble unraveled by something wild and unknown. She could already feel the judgment gathering, unseen but tangible, like a storm building behind clouds. Ruwan would not speak with cruelty; he didn’t need to. His words would be honeyed. Concerned. Gentle enough to cut beneath armor.

  She drew a breath and steadied herself. If she were to be questioned, let it be on her feet. Let them see a woman unshaken. Even if, beneath her skin, everything felt as though it was beginning to shift.

  “Lady Vael,” came the voice; smooth as silk drawn over steel. She paused, unsurprised, and turned to face him. Ruwan Eberflame descended the steps of a wide stone veranda, the sleeves of his deep crimson tunic rolled to the forearms in deliberate, careless elegance. A golden clasp at his throat caught the afternoon light, gleaming like the sigil of a man who always knew where to stand when the sun shone brightest.

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  He smiled, and it was the kind of smile that made people forget the blade behind it. “I had heard whispers,” he said, pacing toward her as though this meeting were happenstance; an elegant fiction neither of them bothered to believe. “But I didn’t want to give them shape until I could see your eyes for myself.”

  Vael met his gaze with practiced stillness. “And what shape would they have taken?” He chuckled softly, but there was little humor in it. “Something daring. Something... unbecoming of a woman so carefully watched.”

  Rinan, ever silent, lingered behind her; close enough to listen, distant enough to not intrude. Vael did not glance his way. Ruwan’s tone gentled, and he stepped closer, gaze tracing her as if looking for cracks beneath the surface. “Is it true, then?” he asked. “You’ve marked the Outsider?”

  The air between them shifted, quiet and heavy, like the breath before fire. Her voice, when it came, was low and deliberate. “Yes.”

  A pause. Just long enough to wound. Ruwan’s eyes narrowed fractionally. He masked it well, but not perfectly. “Such a gesture, Vael,” he said, no longer pretending at formality. “Even the Elders wouldn’t dare it. Do you know what they’re saying?”

  She lifted her chin, taking note of his increasing familiarity. “Let them say it.” He tilted his head, stepping close enough that she could smell the faint hint of myrrh on his collar. “Then let me say this; there are others who would take your boldness for strength. Who would stand beside you, not just in whispers, but in deed.”

  Vael’s jaw tensed. He smiled again. Softer this time. “I would stand by your side, Princess.” And for a heartbeat, she felt the trap of it; the false kindness, the glint of possession behind the courtly words. As if her fire was something to be caged and carried. As if he could offer her protection from a blaze he never started.

  She stepped back; not far, but enough. Just enough. “I have no need of a shield, Ruwan.” He inclined his head, lips still curved. “No. But every flame needs air to rise.”

  Vael turned without answering, her footsteps smooth and certain as she left him standing in the filtered sun. The sound of her boots on stone echoed softly down the path as she moved from the forest’s edge into the living veins of the city.

  Ruwan followed.

  He didn’t call to her again; he didn’t need to. His presence was loud in its silence, an elegant tether that matched her pace without demanding it.

  The city’s heart unfolded ahead of her. Pale sandstone buildings curved like petals around the central plaza, and flowering vines climbed the carved walls in quiet celebration of spring’s return. Market stalls lined the square, their awnings fluttering in the wind, perfumed with crushed herbs and sun-warmed fruit.

  Eyes followed her; some subtle, others brazen. A few lingered on the man behind her. Ruwan knew the effect he had. He wore his house crest like it was woven into his bones, and his steps carried the weight of someone born to be observed.

  “Does he know?” he asked, voice lowered as he drew close again. “The Outsider.” Vael didn’t pause. “That you’ve painted him with the mark of the Sacred Guardian,” Ruwan continued. “That you’ve made him... yours, and on the path to being your Chief.”

  She didn’t look at him, but her voice was sharp as flint. “He knows what he needs to.” He laughed softly. “Ah. And what about what you need, Vael?”

  They passed a group of acolytes gathered near the fountain, their whispered gossip like wind over dry leaves. The white-robed youths parted as she passed, bowing their heads in her direction; but their eyes darted sideways. Her name was on their tongues.

  “Your choices make tremors Princess,” Ruwan said, walking beside her now, his tone honeyed. “But tremors become earthquakes when made too near the court.” She stopped at the edge of the fountain, hands curling slightly at her sides. “Then let the court tremble.” Ruwan grinned, half impressed and half unsettled. “You’re not afraid of what they’ll do.”

  “No.” She turned to face him fully. “But you are.” That struck something true. His smile dimmed just a touch, but he masked it with grace. “I fear losing something I value,” he said smoothly. Vael tilted her head, her voice soft but cold. “You fear losing control.” A beat of silence passed between them, thick as storm air. Then, from across the square, a horn sounded low and distant; a signal from the temple heights.

  Vael’s eyes flicked toward it. Ruwan took a careful step back, smoothing his expression into something placid. “As always, Lady Vael... you leave the city breathless.”

  She turned from him without another word, moving toward the temple path that coiled like a spine through the city. And still, the air felt heavier in her lungs. As if her fire had drawn too many eyes.

  The horn faded into the hush that followed, its echoes swallowed by the marble towers above.

  Vael left Ruwan behind in the plaza’s murmuring heart. Each step away from him felt like brushing off thorns that had tangled in her cloak. She did not turn back. Rinan, dutiful as shadow, fell into step a few paces behind her.

  The temple path wound upward through terraced gardens and whispering cypress. Wind stirred the low-hanging leaves, and the scent of incense drifted faintly down from the higher sanctums. The city’s hum dulled with each step; traders’ cries fading, gossip swallowed by the rise of sacred stillness.

  Here, at last, was quiet. She walked slower, now.

  Her thoughts pressed in again, like roots through old stone. The Oracle’s voice still lingered in her mind; serene, insistent, terrifying.

  You have chosen chaos over order. Desire over duty. A single flame, when fed, can burn down a forest.

  Vael stopped at a small overlook carved into the path. The city lay below, soft and golden in the dying light. Bells rang in the distance, high and thin. Children’s laughter echoed faintly from somewhere unseen.

  Was she so wrong to want more than peace built on control? Was it truly her desire that threatened everything, or was it the fear of those who clung to stillness, to stagnation?

  She touched the mark on her wrist; still hidden beneath her sleeve, but thrumming faintly with warmth. The Outsider. The act of claiming him, and the binding with her royal blood. No. She was not wrong. She was fully aware of her actions.

  By the time she reached the temple gates, dusk had begun to seep through the clouds like bruises. The great doors loomed, etched in sacred sigils and vinework that shimmered faintly in the gloom.

  For a moment, she hesitated.

  Then, with a hand steady as silence, she reached out and pushed one door open. Its groan echoed down the corridor within; ancient wood parting like the throat of the earth. And Vael stepped into the hush beyond.