The dawn was a cold, grey smear through the skeletal trees. Isolde stood beside the remnants of their campfire, her gloved hands methodically checking the straps of her pack. The air between them had been a taut wire since they’d left the roadhouse, since Kaelen had felt Isolde’s quiet listening through the bond after her mother’s visit. It couldn’t go unaddressed. Not with what lay ahead.

“My mother visited you.” Isolde’s voice was flat, a statement of fact stripped of all inflection. She did not look up from her task.

Kaelen, leaning against a mossy boulder and sharpening a dagger with a whisper of stone on steel, stilled her hands. “She did.”

“Her warning was explicit.”

“Threatening, you mean.”

Finally, Isolde turned. Her winter-storm eyes were placid, unnervingly calm. “It was a command from the High Arcanist. It supersedes personal… complications. You will not fight for me, Kaelen. You will not stand up to her. Especially not to someone of her power and position.”

Kaelen shoved the dagger into its sheath, the movement sharp with frustration. “So what? I’m just supposed to nod and obey? Let her dictate what this is?” She gestured between them, the space humming with the unspoken memory of the forest floor, of Isolde coming apart under her hands.

“There is no ‘this’ to dictate.” Isolde’s tone was final, the words leaving her lips like chips of ice. “There is a mission. A blood-oath. A tactical alliance. Personal feelings are a vulnerability we cannot afford. They must be pushed aside. We must obey.”

“Bullshit.” Kaelen pushed off the boulder, closing the distance between them. She could smell the frost on Isolde’s skin, see the faint, tired lavender smudges under her eyes. “That’s not what you said in the woods. That’s not what you felt.”

“What I felt was a lapse in control.” Isolde held her ground, her gaze unwavering. “One I have since rectified. My mother understands the stakes better than anyone. Defying her isn’t bravery, Kaelen. It’s suicide. For you, and for this mission. I will not have your reckless defiance jeopardize everything.”

Kaelen laughed, a short, harsh sound. “Reckless defiance. Right. Because following orders blindly worked so well for our covens. Look where it got us. Look what it cost mine.” Her amber tattoos flickered, a low heat radiating from her skin. “She’s afraid. She saw what happened between us and she’s terrified of it. Of me.”

“She is protecting our world,” Isolde countered, but her voice had lost a fraction of its steel. “And she is protecting me. From distractions. From… corruption.”

The word hung in the cold air, ugly and deliberate.

Kaelen’s face went still. The heat from her tattoos dimmed. “Is that what you think I am? A corruption?”

Isolde’s breath misted before her. She said nothing. The silence was answer enough.

Before Kaelen could retort, the world changed. The weak morning light didn’t dim so much as it was drained, leached of color and warmth in the span of a heartbeat. The birdsong ceased mid-note. A profound, hollow silence descended, pressing against their eardrums. The very air grew thin, tasteless.

Isolde’s head snapped up, all argument forgotten, her body shifting instantly into a combat stance. “It’s here.”