Page 30 of Blood Marked

Not loud. Not soft.

Kael.

She straightened slightly, wincing at the pull in her side.

The door opened without waiting for permission.

Of course it did.

Kael stepped inside, and for the first time since the attack, she saw him properly.

His cloak was damp from snow, ash-blond hair tousled like he’d raked his hands through it too many times. His eyes—those freezing blue eyes—were rimmed with sleepless red. There was tension wound through every inch of him, like a wire pulled too tight for too long.

“You’re late,” she said softly.

“I was dealing with the prisoner,” he replied. His voice was low. Guttural.

Her heart thudded once. “And?”

He shook his head.

Selene’s stomach twisted.

“He’s dead,” Kael said. “Found him in his cell. No weapon. No poison. He was stripped, locked behind iron and spellwoven stone. No one entered. No one saw anything.”

She swallowed hard. “So someone killed him without a trace?”

“It might have been a spell already on him. It’s hard to say. Except that they made sure we wouldn’t get answers.”

Silence stretched between them.

Kael crossed the room slowly, like she might break again if he moved too fast. He didn’t sit. Just stood a few feet away, hands clenched at his sides.

Selene forced her voice steady. “Do you think it was someone in the court?”

“I know it was,” he said. “But proving it will be a war of whispers.”

Her fingers curled in the blanket. “And I’m the first casualty.”

Kael flinched.

She didn’t mean it as an accusation. But it landed like one anyway.

He exhaled, running a hand down his face. “I failed you.”

She blinked.

“What?”

“I promised you’d be safe,” he said, barely above a whisper. “And I couldn’t even keep a blade from finding you in my own damn court.”

Selene stared at him, heart stuttering.

“You didn’t fail me,” she said.

The words hung between them, fragile as frost.

Kael looked at her then—reallylooked. Not as the court’s pawn or the girl who’d stepped through the Veil uninvited, but as something far more dangerous. Something he couldn’t shove into the neat corners of duty or prophecy.

---