Chapter 45

Raeve jolts awake on the seater, agony razoring down her spine as Sereme’s blood bind reasserts control. She registers Pyrok passed out and Kaan’s absence, then curses the renewed leash and wonders how Sereme realized she lived.

Finding a parchment lark, Raeve reads Kaan’s note: he flew to help rebuild a collapsed village bunker and escorted Korie to Siharna, who delivered a healthy son. Relieved, Raeve dresses, steps into the snow-dulled village, and seeks to walk off the lingering pain.

Sensing a tail near the river under Líri’s pillar, Raeve sets an ambush and pins a large, black-robed stranger with a dagger at his groin. He answers the Ath password—“From the ashes”/“The Elding will rise”—and identifies himself as an Elding Squire.

The Squire claims he is hand-delivering a time-sensitive “job” because the northern Mists are swallowing larks. He insists a miskunn saw Raeve there that very day, implying Sereme’s knowledge of her survival. Raeve challenges the claim, warning that secrets bury allies.

When the Squire invokes orders from the Elding, Raeve rejects the Ath’s sanctioning of Sereme’s remote torture. She turns to leave, but he calls after her that the fate of The Flourish depends on her, sharpening the stakes of the summons.