The library still smelled of smoke.
Caelin adjusted the silk ribbon binding her sleeve and stared at the soot-smudged shelves. Sunlight pierced through fractured stained-glass windows, painting bleeding rainbows on the marble floor. What hadn't burned was sealed off. What hadn't been sealed off was being watched—by him.
Aren Talren stood just out of reach, arms folded, eyes fixed not on her but on the surrounding shadows. Always scanning. Always silent. Like a statue trained to breathe.
"You're hovering," she muttered.
"I'm protecting," he corrected.
"From whom? The ghosts of old scribes?"
Aren's lips curved. Barely. "You'd be surprised. Scholars are dangerous. All that thinking."
She turned back to the tome before her, fingers brushing faded ink. A pre-Oath record, miraculously untouched by fire, or perhaps shielded. The page described something called the Veilmark Binding, an early form of the Shatterbound Oath. In the margins, a name was scrawled in a rushed, almost desperate hand:
Talren.
Her heart jolted.
"You said your name was Talren," she said casually, eyes still on the page.
"I did."
"No relation to the royal archivist Talren, the one who vanished after the first Oath reforms?"
His gaze didn't flinch. But his stance shifted—barely enough to notice if you didn't know soldiers. Caelin knew soldiers.
"He was my uncle."
"You never mention that in polite conversation?"
"I never have polite conversations."
She hummed. "Pity. This one was just becoming tolerable."
A beat of silence passed before he said, "He died."
"I thought he vanished."
Aren looked at her then, and for the first time, something flickered behind his eyes—not suspicion. Not amusement. Grief.
"Sometimes," he said, "those are the same thing."
They walked the upper gallery together, though "together" was generous. Caelin moved with purpose, clutching the salvaged book against her side; Aren flanked her like a shadow, his boots silent even on the cracked mosaic tiles.
"Why assign you to me?" she asked. "Surely the crown has better uses for a war hero."
"I disobeyed an order," he said.
She blinked. "What kind?"
"The kind that saves lives."
Caelin glanced over. "You're not exactly a textbook bodyguard, are you?"
"I'm not exactly trying to be."
She paused at the balcony rail, overlooking the scorched central atrium. The circular floor below bore the sigil of the crown—a star entwined with a circle. Or maybe not just a crown. Maybe a cage.
"Aren," she said, voice lower now, "what do you know of the Oath?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stepped beside her, resting his gloved hands on the stone.
"I know it was forged in blood. I know it holds this kingdom together. I know it was built on a lie."
She stared at him.
"Whose lie?"
Aren's eyes met hers. In that moment, the air changed. Ash floated past the railing like snow. Light fractured across his armor. And something ancient stirred between them.
"Maybe ours," he said.