LIRA POV
Lira couldn't read the books.
She tried. Kael had left her in a room on the third floor of the tower with a stack of texts about the council's history. Real history, he'd said. The truth they don't teach in the libraries. She sat at a desk with morning light streaming through an impossible window and stared at the pages without seeing them.
Everything she knew was a lie.
That was the problem. Every word on these pages was screaming at her that she'd wasted nine years of her life serving people who were planning to turn the entire kingdom into slaves. Verin. The man who'd taken her in when her parents died. The man she'd thought loved her like a daughter. He'd been lying the whole time.
She turned another page without reading it.
The book was written in old handwriting, careful and precise. It described council meetings from nearly a thousand years ago. Meetings about the Binding ritual. Meetings about how to gather components. Meetings about which families they would use as test subjects.
Lira closed the book.
Her hands were shaking. Not from fear anymore. From anger. From hurt. From the feeling of being used. She'd spent nine years copying spells, staying invisible, being grateful for scraps of attention from people who were already planning to enslave her.
She left the books on the desk and walked out of the room.
The tower was quiet. Impossibly quiet. She could hear her own breathing echoing off the stone walls. There were no servants here. No guards. No other people at all. Just her and him and the vast emptiness of a place that existed outside the real world.
She wandered for hours.
Down staircases that seemed to go on forever. Through hallways that opened onto rooms she didn't remember seeing before. Past mirrors that showed her own face looking back at her with hollow eyes. Past windows that showed the kingdom far below, peaceful and unaware that its leaders were planning their destruction.
By the time afternoon arrived, she was exhausted.
Not from walking. From thinking. From processing. From trying to understand how she was supposed to trust anything anymore when the people she'd trusted most had been lying to her face.
She found him in the library.
It was a different library than the one in the tower's main hall. This one was smaller, more intimate. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling, and in the center of the room, beside a window made of actual starlight, Kael sat in a leather chair reading by candlelight.
He looked up when she entered but didn't move toward her.
He just watched her walk across the library toward him. His storm-gray eyes were careful. Patient. Like he understood what she was going through without her having to explain.
Can't sleep? he asked quietly.
Can't focus, she said. Can't read. Can't stop thinking about Verin. About all the lies. About how I was just a tool to him the whole time.
She sat in the chair across from him without asking permission.
He was using me. Planning to use me. And I thought he cared about me.
Kael closed his book slowly.
He did care about you, he said. That's what makes it worse, isn't it? It wasn't all lies. Some of it was real. He did take you in. He did give you shelter. He did teach you things. But he was also preparing you to be sacrificed. Both things are true at the same time. And that's the hardest thing to accept.
Lira felt tears building in her eyes and tried not to let them fall.
How can you live for two hundred years and not become completely broken? she asked.
Who says I'm not?
She looked at him then. Really looked at him. At the scar on his face. At the weight in his eyes that came from carrying centuries of pain. At the loneliness carved into every line of his body.
You seem okay, she said quietly.
I'm very good at pretending, Kael replied.
Lira looked away. She didn't want him to see her cry. Didn't want to be vulnerable in front of the man who'd been watching her for three years without telling her. Who'd rescued her but also brought her here for his own reasons.
But the words came out anyway.
How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you're not just using me the same way Verin was?
Kael didn't answer immediately. He just let her question hang in the air between them. It was strange. Most people would rush to defend themselves. Would promise things and make guarantees. But he just sat there, reading by candlelight like he had all the time in the world to prove himself.
Finally, he spoke.
You don't, he said. Not yet. You don't know if you can trust me. And I won't insult you by pretending you should just because I saved your life. Trust isn't something you give because someone rescues you. Trust has to be earned. Over time. Through actions. Through honesty.
He set his book down and leaned forward slightly.
Everything I've told you is true. The Binding ritual. The council's plan. My watching you. All of it. But I understand why that's not enough for you right now.
Lira wiped her eyes roughly.
So what happens now? Do I just sit in this tower and hope you're being honest? Do I learn magic that might destroy me? Do I prepare to fight the council based on the word of a man everyone calls a monster?
Ask me anything, Kael said, and something shifted in his voice. Something that made the air itself feel different. I'll show you proof. Not just words. Actual proof that what I'm telling you is real.
Lira's heart started beating faster.
What kind of proof?
Memories, he said quietly. I can show them to you directly. You can see what happened two hundred years ago. You can see the council betray me. You can see the truth about the Binding ritual. You can see it all with your own eyes. No words. No interpretations. Just the raw truth from my mind to yours.
She should be terrified. This was dangerous. Letting someone into your mind was one of the most forbidden things a mage could do. It was intimate in ways that made physical contact seem insignificant.
But it was also the only way to know if he was lying.
When? she asked.
Whenever you're ready. Tonight. Tomorrow. Next week. I won't rush you. I won't pressure you. But whenever you want the truth, I can show it to you.
Lira stood up and walked to the window made of starlight. Outside, the kingdom was preparing for evening. Lights were turning on in the distant city. People were eating dinner. People were living lives that might not exist anymore if what Kael was saying was true.
If the Binding ritual is real, she said, if it's as close as you say it is, then we don't have time for me to figure out if I trust you. We don't have time for slow trust or earned proof. We have time for a choice.
She turned back to look at him.
Show me now. Show me everything. I need to know if you're telling the truth before I make any other decisions about my life.
Kael stood up slowly.
He walked toward her and Lira's entire body went tense. This was the moment. This was when he would either prove himself or prove that she'd made a terrible mistake trusting him.
He reached out and took her hand.
His grip was warm. Solid. Real.
Are you sure? he asked. Once I show you, you can't un-see it. You can't go back to not knowing.
I'm already not going back, Lira said. The council will hunt me forever. Verin will try to capture me. Everyone I knew thinks I'm corrupted. There's no going back no matter what. At least this way, I'll know the truth.
Kael's fingers tightened around hers.
Then let's begin, he said.
His eyes changed.
They went from storm-gray to something deeper. Something older. His grip on her hand started to burn, not with fire but with power. The world around them started to dissolve. The library faded. The books disappeared. The starlight window shattered into fragments that hung in the air like suspended snow.
And Lira felt something impossible happen.
Memories that weren't hers started flooding into her mind. Ancient memories. Two-hundred-year-old memories. Images of a young man with an unmarred face standing in the council chambers. Images of discovery. Of betrayal. Of fire and shadow and pain.
She was living his life.
Seeing what he'd seen. Feeling what he'd felt. And the weight of two centuries of suffering crashed down on her like a tidal wave.
Lira screamed.
But Kael held her hand steady.
And the truth began.