The veneer of court was a mask Elara wore with new, painful consciousness. Every rustle of silk, every murmured compliment from a noble with a sneer hidden behind their smile, every glance from Lady Sylvyre's moon-pale eyes felt like a probe. She was a secret wrapped in a secret, sitting beside the King, and the weight of last night's failure and new oath made the air in the grand hall taste of metal and smoke.
Kaelen, to his credit, played his part flawlessly. He was the detached king, occasionally offering her a tidbit of information about a petitioner or a point of law, his tone bored and proprietary. He didn't look at her with new warmth or suspicion. He treated her exactly as he had before—a slightly interesting, politically necessary accessory. It was a masterclass in deception, and it chilled her more than any overt threat.
The business of the Shadow Court was a slow, intricate dance of power. Land disputes between ancient Fae houses that stretched back millennia. Reports from the border patrols—not just the one near her village, but dozens of points along the shimmering, unstable Veil that separated their world from others. A delegation from the Court of Autumn Leaves, their ambassadors clad in russet and gold, discussing trade in dream-sap and shadow-silk. Through it all, Elara listened, her Siphon senses now deliberately, cautiously extended.
Be the empty cup. Observe. Discern.
She felt the magic in the room not as a tormenting buffet, but as a map of allegiances and health. Lord Theron, presiding over the Wild Hunt contingent, blazed with a sharp, predatory energy that made her teeth ache. Lady Sylvyre was a pool of still, deep power, cold and fanatically devoted—her magic, when Elara dared to brush against it, felt like a perfectly tuned instrument playing only one note: Kaelen.
Others were different. An elderly Fae lord, his power dim and sweet like old honey. A sharp-faced woman who was Master of Whispers, her aura a shifting, muffled thing that felt like eavesdropping on silence itself.
And then there was the petitioner who set everything on edge.
He was a minor lord from the blight-affected western marches. His name was Vorian, and his magic, once likely robust, felt… frayed. Tainted. Not with the active poison of the blight, but with a lingering sickness, a hollowness. As he spoke, detailing how the corruption was seeping into the very bedrock of his lands, killing not just plants but the ancient, minor spirits of stream and stone, Elara felt a strange echo.
Not in his words. In the absence within his magic.
She glanced at Kaelen. His posture hadn't changed, but she saw the minute tightening of his fingers on the arm of his throne. He felt it too.
"The land withers, Your Majesty," Vorian said, his voice strained. "My people cannot harvest shadow-moss. The crystal caves are growing dull. We have contained the visible spread, but the… the soul of the place is sickening. It feels like a wound that will not scar."
"And your own strength, Lord Vorian?" Kaelen asked, his voice deceptively mild.
The lord hesitated. "It is… diminished. Sustaining the containment wards is a constant drain. It is as if the land itself resists healing."
It's not resisting, Elara thought, a cold certainty crystallizing in her gut. It's being drained.
The blight didn't just corrupt magic. In its advanced stages, it acted like a crude, inefficient Siphon. It consumed the ambient magic of a place, leaving behind the toxic residue. Vorian wasn't just fighting an infection; he was trying to heal a patient suffering from magical starvation.
As the lord finished and was dismissed with vague promises of aid, Kaelen rose, signaling an end to the morning audience. He offered Elara his arm. As she took it, he leaned in, his lips barely moving.
"The gardens. A turn. Now."
It was not a request.
The royal gardens were not a place of cheerful sunlight and roses. They were a forest of captured twilight, where flowers glowed with their own bioluminescence, trees wept silver sap, and paths of crushed luminous pearl wound between pools that reflected not the sky, but starfields from other realms. It was breathtaking and utterly alien.
Kaelen led her to a secluded bower shrouded in hanging vines of indigo flowers that chimed softly in a non-existent breeze. The moment they were obscured, the mask of the indifferent king fell away.
"You felt it," he stated, releasing her arm and turning to face her. The controlled energy she'd felt in the hall was now a visible, restless tension in his frame.
"His magic is… thin. Hollowed out," Elara confirmed, keeping her voice low. "It's not just corruption. It's consumption. The blight is feeding."
Kaelen's eyes flashed with grim satisfaction. "Exactly. Vorian's lands are not the point of origin. They are a feeding ground. The blight is maturing there, gathering strength." He paced a short, tight circle. "This changes the vector. We have been looking for a point of introduction. But the enemy may be cultivating multiple sites, creating a network of… of batteries."
The implication hung in the chiming air. The traitor wasn't just trying to create a border crisis. They were farming power. For what?
"We need to see it," Elara said, the words out before she could consider them. "Not a contained sample. The living sickness in the land. I might be able to… trace it. Feel the direction of the pull, where the consumed energy is flowing to."
Kaelen stopped pacing and looked at her, his gaze calculating. "It is a risk. Vorian's lands are days away, even by shadow-steed. You would be outside the relative safety of these walls, in a blight-zone."
"I am a blight-zone," she countered, a brittle humor in her voice. "And I am useless here, jumping at shadows in your court. This… this is what I am for. To read the sickness."
He studied her for a long moment, the twilight of the garden painting his face in shades of deep blue and violet. She saw the strategist weighing the asset against the risk, the king considering the political ramifications of his human queen traveling to a disaster zone, the ally recognizing the value of her proposed action.
"We would need a pretext," he said finally. "A royal inspection to bolster morale. A show of strength and concern. You would be part of that display."
"And you would be teaching me to trace magical currents in the field," she added, seeing the plan form. "A continuation of my education."
A faint, approving smile touched his lips. It was the first genuine expression she'd seen from him all day. "Indeed. We leave in three days. I will make the arrangements. Vorian will be told to expect us." The smile faded. "You will continue your lessons until then, but we focus on shielding. Not just holding the void, but wrapping it around you like armor. The ambient magic in a blight-zone will be chaotic, starving, and aggressive. It will be attracted to your emptiness like a moth to a cold flame. You must learn to present a smooth, closed surface."
The next three days were a blur of exhausting focus. Kaelen was a relentless tutor. Shielding was a thousand times harder than drawing. It required her to maintain the state of the "empty cup" while simultaneously shaping that emptiness into a perfect, impermeable sphere around her being. It was a paradox that gave her a constant, throbbing headache.
She failed, repeatedly. Magical energy, particularly the weak, stray tendrils in her chamber, would stick to her, be absorbed. Kaelen would point it out with infuriating calm. "A pinhole. Your shield is a sieve. Try again."
Lysandra, ever observant, brought her meals laced with mild, soothing herbs and left draughts for headache on her nightstand without comment. The handmaiden's silent acknowledgment of her strain was another reminder that nothing in this place went unseen.
The night before their departure, Elara stood on her balcony, looking out at the artificial stars. The shield, for the first time, held for a full hour without a breach. She felt like a bubble of perfect nothingness in a sea of sparkling power. It was an isolating, lonely feeling.
A soft knock preceded Kaelen's entrance. He carried a bundle of dark, practical cloth and leather.
"For tomorrow," he said, placing it on her bed. "Travel clothes. They are woven with a subtle glamour to appear as fine court garb to casual observation, but they will not hinder movement." He hesitated, then added, "They also contain threads of null-silk. It will help stabilize your shield."
He was equipping her. Not as a queen, but as a fellow hunter.
"Thank you," she said, turning from the balcony.
He nodded, his gaze lingering on her face, noting the shadows under her eyes, the new set of her jaw. "You are progressing. Faster than I anticipated."
"I have a good teacher," she said, and meant it.
His storm-silver eyes held hers for a moment longer than necessary. "Rest. Dawn comes early, and the road to the western march is long. The shadows there… are of a different nature."
He left, and Elara was alone with the hum of her own hard-won silence and the bundle of clothes that felt less like a gift and more like a soldier's kit.
She was no longer playing a part in the court's drama.
Tomorrow, she would walk into the heart of the disease.
And she would have to be sharp enough to find the hand that held the knife.