Page 93 of Unveiled

Adrian said nothing now. His breaths were shallow, evenly spaced, almost too controlled.

When they reached Connor’s room—the only one fortified enough to keep whatever still lingered at bay—Connor shouldered open the door. Adrian tried to step away from him, but Connor didn’t let him.

“Sit.”

“That is not a very polite—”

“Sit, Adrian.”

Adrian sat.

Connor knelt in front of him. “Let me see.”

Adrian flinched. “It’s the mark.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

Adrian hesitated, then lifted shaking fingers to unbutton his shirt. He stopped halfway, his breath hitching, and Connor brushed his hands away gently to finish the task himself.

When he peeled the fabric aside, a cold rage curled up Connor’s spine. The mark had spread. What had been a single sigil now spiralled in faint, branching veins of light that threaded across Adrian’s chest like a network of celestial scars.

The glow was dimmer than before, thank God, but it pulsed faintly, like the aftershock of something vast.

Adrian swallowed. “It looks worse than it feels.”

Connor’s jaw flexed. “How does it feel?”

Adrian hesitated. “Like something is waiting.”

The words chilled Connor more than the night wind ever could. Before he could respond, Adrian’s face tightened. His fingers curled. He inhaled sharply through his teeth.

Connor moved instantly. “Talk to me, Adrian.”

“It’s nothing. Just noise. Echoes.”

Connor leaned closer. “From the Council?”

“From everything,” Adrian said. “They’re whispering under the skin. Like the mark is a door they do not know how to open. Yet.”

Connor’s stomach twisted. “If they touch you again—” he began, his voice low.

“They will,” Adrian murmured. “You felt it. The vow did something. It slowed them. Angered them. But it didn’t stop them.”

Connor inhaled sharply. “Then we figure out how to do that.”

Adrian looked up at him. “And if stopping them means losing something else?”

Connor didn’t answer, because he already knew the cost. He’d felt it when the vow locked in place. Every instinct in him recognised the weight of it.

A Valour’s vow was binding. Old as the clans, older perhaps. A magic of protection and sacrifice intertwined.

Xiathen had warned them without saying the words: One Marked. One Bound. Two threads braided into a single path. And something always breaks under strain.

Adrian’s lashes flickered. “You shouldn’t have said it three times.”

“I did,” Connor said gruffly. “And I’d do it again.”

Adrian made a soft, pained sound, a cross between a laugh and a curse. “You’re impossible.”