Chapter 737: I Do Not Want To Defy Them Again

"Aeron, I need to speak with you and I need it to stay between you and I." Her voice was steady. The steady was manufactured and they both knew it. "Can I have your word?"

He studied her. The studying was long, thorough, the clinical assessment of a Master Mage whose observations arrived pre-processed and whose processing was telling him that whatever she was about to say had been carried alone for longer than it should have been.

"You have my word. What is wrong?"

She took a breath. The breath moved her shoulders.

"I think the dark tether is affecting my dreams. It is deepening. I have been limiting my magic use, but the influence is still progressing and I believe it is connected to Gavriel. His magic, his connection to me, I think the tether is using it as a channel."

Aeron’s expression did not change, but something behind his eyes reorganized. He was quiet for a moment, turning the information the way a mage turns a problem, examining the edges before committing to a response.

"We will have Maelor re-cloak you. That is the immediate step." His gaze held hers. "But you would not come to me with just this, Serena. You would have gone to Maelor directly if this were only about the cloak. There is something else." His voice dropped half a register. "What am I not seeing?"

The question landed on her chest and stayed there. Her composure, which had been holding through the door and the request and the explanation, fractured along a line she had been pretending did not exist.

Honest tears spilled down her face before she could stop them.

"I cannot hear my wolf anymore," she managed after a moment. "And I am afraid the dark tether will eventually drive me mad."

She wiped the tears with the heel of her hand, the wiping fast, efficient, carrying the embarrassment of a woman who understood how the sentence sounded out loud and was hearing it the way Aeron was hearing it and finding it pathetic and irrational and exactly the kind of thing that would make a Master Mage question whether the woman in front of him was stable enough to be standing in a war council. She thought it would. She was not there yet. But the thinking was enough.

Aeron did not flinch. His expression remained level, clinical, giving her nothing that resembled pity because pity was not what she had come for and Aeron Lancaster did not trade in currencies that were not requested.

"How long has the wolf been silent?"

"A few days. Since marking Fin." She swallowed. "I heard her during the council. Briefly. And then nothing since."

Aeron was quiet for a moment. The quiet was the quiet of a man assembling a diagnosis from fragments and not liking the shape it was taking.

"That fear is the correct instinct," he said. His voice was direct, carrying zero softening, because Aeron understood that softening this information would be an insult to the woman who had brought it to him. "Shadow Tethers do that. The suppression of the wolf is consistent with what I have studied of deep tether influence. We will get Maelor to examine you, and we will mention the wolf."

He paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully.

"I will not mention the fear of going mad. I imagine you do not want that relayed to Hyran, who would relay it to Tiberon and Dexmon. Is that fair?"

Serena gave a single nod. Her worst fear had just been validated and contained in the same breath by a man who understood the politics of her survival as well as the medicine of it.

"They have enough on their plates. I do not want to add to it. And I do not want to have to defy either of them again if they command me to bedrest or to a tunnel."

Aeron held her gaze for a long moment.

"Then we move quickly and we move quietly. Maelor examines you today. The cloak is reinforced. The wolf is addressed. And this conversation stays in this room."

???

DRAKENFELL - ONE HOUR LATER

Gavriel moved through the eastern corridor with the efficient stride of a Gamma whose morning had started before the sun and whose schedule had no intention of acknowledging the sun’s pace.

"Perimeter reports go directly to me on the Alpha’s order," he said without stopping. "Not to the board, not to the duty officer, not to the stack on someone’s desk. To me. Every hour on the hour until I say otherwise."

"Yes, Gamma Sterling." Lieutenant Calder kept pace beside him, scrawling notes on a field ledger with the focused urgency of a man whose commanding officer spoke faster than most people thought.

The Gamma was in full operational mode, which meant every sentence contained an order and every order contained a deadline and every deadline was yesterday.

He entered his study.

Before he sat, there was a knock at the door.

"Enter."

Lunaris Stark, Gavriel’s spotter, entered the study.

"Gamma Sterling."

Gavriel gave him a nod. The two of them had respect for one another, and anytime Stark entered his office, Gavriel listened.

"What is it, Stark?"

Stark rolled out a map on Sterling’s desk. "The updated patrol. Before I bring it to Captain Halvek for final approval. Would you—"

"Yup." Gavriel was studying it. He grabbed a pen and redrew two of the intersections, rerouting the northern loop to cover a blind spot.

"This gap here." He tapped the map. "This is an invitation. Close it."

"Thank you, Gamma."

That was when the pain hit.

"Sterling?" Stark was at his side, voice controlled. "Gamma Sterling, are you alright?"

"I’m fine." The words came through Gavriel’s teeth, which was not how fine sounded, and Stark’s face said he was aware of the discrepancy. "Halvek leaves for the border in an hour. Get that approved before he does."

Stark hesitated. The hesitation was brief, the calculation of a spotter deciding whether to push back on his partner who also happened to be his Gamma because he was white-knuckling his desk and hunched over.

"Should I send for a healer, Gamma?"

Gavriel forced himself upright. The forcing was visible and the visible undermined the word ’fine.’

"Gods no. Healers hate me. Now go get that approved so you can get a damn promotion, Stark."

"Yes, Gamma."