Chapter 36. The Gate of Teeth

The fire wouldn’t let her sleep.

Even unconscious, Seraya’s body radiated heat in pulses, as if the mountain still whispered through her blood. Bandages clung to her ribs in scorched layers, and every time someone tried to approach, her mark would flare, too wild to predict. The throne room had been cleared, the wounded relocated—but she remained, suspended somewhere between waking and gone, tethered only by a thread that refused to break.

That thread was Alaric.

He sat by her side, unmoving, for three days.

He refused rest. Refused the healers’ wine. When Veyra offered him relief, he shook his head. When Mairead ordered him to sleep, he ignored her. And when Letha asked him gently, “What are you waiting for?”—he simply said, “Her voice.”

No one else could get near. Veyra had tried, her ashmark burning white when she reached for Seray