POV: Soraya
The fortress sounds different when your heart has been broken inside it.
The same bells ring at dawn. The same drills echo from the training grounds. The same kitchen clatter spills into the corridors. Yet everything feels off, like someone shifted the world half a step to the left and forgot to warn me.
I move through the halls on numb legs. People still stare, still whisper—Zehrael, bounty, stormborn—but today their voices blur into white noise. The only word that burns is bond.
Mated. He is mated. Not to me. To her.
A foolish part of me had clung to hope, even after all the warnings. Hope that instinct meant something. That the mark on my skin meant something. That the way his gaze found mine in every crowded room meant something.
Now that hope feels like another scar.
My thoughts spiral, tight and fast. Anger, shame, grief, guilt. They knot together until breathing hurts.
Stop, I tell myself. Something inside me obeys too literally. A voice cuts into my mind—sharp, unfamiliar. You’re loud, it says.
I jerk to a halt in the corridor, heart racing. “What?”
No one is around. Too loud, the voice mutters. Emotions scraping the walls. Some of us are trying to sleep.
Panic spikes. “Who’s there?”
Silence.
Then another voice—this one vaguely familiar, like a distant echo of Kaide’s—murmurs, Easy, girl. You’re slipping.
The world tilts. The corridor wavers. My knees buckle, and I catch myself against the stone, panting.
“Soraya?”
The real Vienne’s voice snaps me back.
She jogs toward me, braid swinging, eyes sharp. “You look like you got run over by a caravan.”
I swallow hard. “I heard… voices.”
“In your head?” she asks carefully.
“Yes.”
She exhales. “Good.”
“Good?” I demand.
She steers me into a small side room—empty, cool, with a narrow window facing the dunes. “Sit,” she orders. “You’re not going to like this explanation, but you need it.”
I sink onto a crate, hands shaking. “Start talking.”
Vienne leans against the opposite wall. “Zehrael telepathy,” she says. “It usually shows up when emotions break your usual defenses. You’re upset. Your magic’s cracking through.”
I shake my head. “I’ve never heard voices before.”
“You’ve been busy not dying,” she points out. “Now you’re busy having your heart shattered. Same level of stress.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
My eyes burn. “I saw them, Vienne,” I whisper. “Raevan and Azhara. I walked around the corner and—” The words choke. “He didn’t even know I was there. He thought she was me.”
Vienne’s expression twists. “I figured something like that happened. You’ve been walking like your bones hurt.”
“It felt like watching someone else die,” I murmur.
She crosses the room, softer now, and sits beside me. “Tell me.”
I do.
I tell her about the banquet, the corridor, the way Raevan’s voice carved through the air, the way his hands moved over someone who wasn’t me while my heart tried to climb out of my chest. I tell her about the bond mark on Azhara’s wrist, the celebration in the elders’ hall, the way Raevan looked when he tried to explain.
By the time I finish, my cheeks are wet.
“I’m such an idiot,” I say hoarsely. “I knew he was betrothed. I knew politics ruled his life. And still I let myself… want.”
She hands me a cloth. “Wanting is not a crime.”
“It feels like it,” I say. “Every time I reach for something, the world cuts my hands open.”
Vienne is quiet for a moment. “When you walked in on them,” she asks gently, “what did you do?”
“I froze,” I whisper. “Then I ran.”
“Good.”
I stare at her. “How is that good?”
“Because you didn’t walk in and offer to break more of yourself to make things easier,” she says. “That’s progress.”
A shaky laugh escapes me, half-sob.
My hands tremble again, and with them, the air. A blue shimmer flickers at the edges of my vision. Vienne’s eyes widen slightly.
“There,” she says. “Feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“Your power,” she answers. “It’s leaking.”
I close my eyes, focusing. Something thrums under my skin—wild, restless, bigger than it was before. The same force that healed Kaide hums with anger, hurt, longing. Thoughts brush thoughts. For a second, I can feel other minds nearby—faint impressions of guards, servants, wolves.
Then I slam the door instinctively.
The sensation cuts off.
“I don’t want it,” I whisper. “Any of it.”
“Too late,” Vienne says gently. “You’re Zehrael. You don’t get to choose whether you’re powerful. Only how you use it.”
I breathe slowly, in and out.
“Use it for what?” I ask.
“Survival,” she says. “Maybe more, one day. But for now—living is enough.”
Her gaze softens. “You know, you’re not the only one hiding feelings around here.”
I frown. “What?”
She fiddles with a loose thread on her sleeve. “Since we’re spilling secrets… there’s someone I shouldn’t want, either.”
Curiosity dulls the ache in my chest for a moment. “Who?”
“Tazir,” she mutters.
I blink. “You and Tazir?”
She glares lightly. “Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not—”
“You are,” she says. “He’s ridiculous. Loud. Reckless. Flirts with everyone. And yet…” Her shoulders slump slightly. “Every time he walks into a room, my stupid heart does stupid things.”
“Does he know?”
“Absolutely not,” she says quickly. “The pack would never let it go. They see me as the knife behind Raevan’s throne, not someone who… feels things.”
I exhale, something like a small smile tugging at my mouth. “Maybe we’re both idiots, then.”
“Probably,” she agrees. “But at least we’re not alone.”
I lean my head back against the wall, eyes closing. The magic inside me stirs—gentler now, responding to her steady presence. Not burning. Just… there.
“I don’t know how to live here,” I admit. “Not after this.”
“One breath at a time,” Vienne says. “One task. One joke. One secret shared. Eventually, it stops feeling like drowning.”
“Does it stop hurting?”
She is quiet for a long moment.
“No,” she answers honestly. “But you learn to carry it without letting it crush your ribs.”
I nod slowly.
Vienne bumps her shoulder against mine. “Cracks are where light gets in, storm girl,” she says. “And where power leaks out. Maybe that’s not always a curse.”
For the first time since the ramparts, I let myself believe that my breaking might build something new.
Not today. But someday.