(Pov Sirius)

  By the time Bryn reached the Veiled Bastion, it had been just over three years since I had last seen him with my own eyes.

  Letters did strange things to the passing of time. Ink made it easy to pretend distance did not matter, that shared words were enough. But paper could not show the way someone carried themselves, or how their gaze had changed.

  I had thought of that often in the weeks since I sent the letter.

  It had been written in one sitting at my desk in the upper war room, the wax seal cooling under my thumb while I argued with myself about whether it was right to drag him any further into what Velmine was becoming. By the time the royal courier bird launched from the tower, the decision was out of my hands.

  By the time Asher’s last report reached me, saying Bryn had accepted, there was no use second-guessing at all.

  So I trained.

  The upper fortress was small by design, little more than a stone ring, three squat towers, and a central keep wrapped around a courtyard. From the outside, it looked like a forgotten outpost — a place to store grain and armaments and perhaps a few dozen soldiers. That was the point.

  The real Bastion lay below.

  Right now I was three levels down in one of the main caverns, spear in hand, sweat cooling along my spine as I caught my breath. Aether-lanterns burned in iron cages overhead, casting pale light across the circular arena. The air down here always smelled the same: hammered metal, stone dust, faint oil, and the sharp tang of aether discharge that clung to the back of the tongue.

  “Again,” Captain Rhael said.

  He stood on the edge of the ring, arms folded, expression as unimpressed as ever. Silver threaded his dark hair at the temples. His armor bore no ornament, only the etched mark of the royal guard at the collar. He had served my father since before I was born and had a gift for making me feel like a raw recruit even now.

  “Of course,” I said, rolling my shoulders.

  The stone in front of me shuddered. At Rhael’s gesture, four helms rose from the floor, followed by shoulders, torsos, and arms, each piece of armor knitting itself together in a smooth cascade. Aether golems. Training constructs bound to the Bastion’s central core. Their eyes lit with dull blue light as they took their stances.

  I shifted my grip on the spear. The haft fit my palms like something grown there.

  The first golem came in with a sweeping strike. I stepped inside the blow, letting the shards woven into my veins answer. The floor responded to my intent, hardening under my back foot. The stone pushed me forward in a short, precise surge. My spear tip carved up between the plates of the construct’s armor, cracking the binding rune at its throat. The golem dissolved back into dust before it hit the ground.

  The next two pressed together, one high, one low.

  Vine-light flickered out of my hand. Thin emerald strands burst from the joints in the floor, wrapping around one golem’s legs and jerking it off-balance. I pivoted and used its stumbling weight as cover, sliding behind it and driving the butt of my spear into the second golem’s helm. Its head spun. My next strike shattered its core.

  The last construct lunged faster, learning from the others, spear-like forearms stabbing toward my chest. I dropped low, let my weight fall backward, then twisted my wrist and brought the spear around in a tight circle.

  The point stopped an inch from the glowing gem at the center of its chest.

  Rhael lifted two fingers. The constructs froze and then crumbled, falling apart into harmless piles of stone and metal fittings. The only sound left was my breathing and the distant rhythm of other drills echoing from nearby caverns.

  “You are still leading too much with your shoulders on the second sequence,” Rhael said. “Anyone watching you for more than a minute will see it.”

  I exhaled and nodded. “I felt it.”

  “Good. Feeling it is the first step to stopping it.” He repeated the familiar words.

  A faint tremor rolled through the stone beneath my feet. Not from the training constructs. Something heavier. Slower. The pattern thrummed through the arena like a quiet knock.

  I straightened a little. “That is the surface gate.”

  Rhael’s gaze flicked upward as if he could see through the stone. “You are sure?”

  “I asked the engineers to bind a few extra crystals into the lift shafts,” I said. “I wanted to know when anyone came or left without waiting on a runner.”

  He grunted. “Paranoid for your age.”

  “Prepared,” I corrected. “I learned it from you.”

  That earned the faintest hint of approval at the corner of his mouth.

  A moment later, a runner appeared at the edge of the training ring, breathing hard. She saluted, fist over heart. “Your Highness. Captain. Asher the Razorwing has arrived from the north with three graduates from the Academy of Ascension and … and a bonded creature. They are waiting at the outer courtyard.”

  There it was.

  The words I had been waiting for since the day I pressed that letter into the courier’s hand.

  I wiped my palms on the edge of my tunic, suddenly aware of how damp they were. “Thank you. Tell the gate wardens to double-check their wards for any trace marks and then stand down to normal protocol. They are expected guests.”

  “Yes, Highness.” She hesitated for half a heartbeat, eyes flicking to my spear. “Shall I have the guard armory prepare a formal honor line?”

  Rhael shook his head before I could answer. “No ceremony. This is not a court procession. It is a fortress.”

  I nodded. “Let the gate watch remain as they are. I will meet them myself.”

  The runner bowed and disappeared back into the corridor at a jog.

  Rhael studied me for a moment. “You have been pacing holes in my training schedule over this boy,” he said.

  “He isn’t a child,” I corrected quietly. “Neither of us are, though the last time we were together we were.”

  Rhael’s brows rose a fraction. “Do you doubt your choice?”

  “No,” I said. The answer came quicker than I expected, and the truth of it settled something in my chest. “If anything, I worry I am not worthy of his.”

  Rhael snorted. “If he has sense, he will be more worried about the opposite.”

  I gave a wry smile and spun the spear once, letting the familiar motion clear the last of my nerves. “Will you join me?”

  “This is your party,” he said. “But I will watch.”

  Which meant he had already decided these new arrivals were important enough to measure for himself. That was good. I wanted his read on them.

  We left the arena together, the stone doorway sealing shut behind us as we stepped into the main tunnel. The walls here were smooth, reinforced with ribbed arches that disappeared into shadow. Aether lamps hummed softly overhead. We passed other halls as we climbed — one echoing with the clash of blades from sparring pairs, another filled with the steady thud of boots as a squad drilled in formation, a third lit by the pale glow of warding circles where the royal aetherists tested barrier patterns.

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  This place had been built generations ago as a contingency — a place to train and shelter those who would stand closest to the royal line when everything else failed. To most of the kingdom, the Veiled Bastion was a rumor, a specter threaded into stories about “the king’s hidden fist.” Even among the nobility, few knew its exact location.

  To me, it had become something else.

  A crucible.

  A reminder that my path would never be allowed to drift toward comfort.

  We reached the central lift shaft. The platform rose at my gesture, stone answering stone, guided by the subtle pull of the embedded cores. Cool air turned warmer as we ascended. The faint smell of earth gave way to wind carrying pine and distant smoke.

  When the lift settled into place at the surface level, the first thing I heard was Dusk.

  I did not know it was her at first. Only that the stone beneath my boots carried a presence unlike anything else I had felt in this fortress. A low, patient weight, coiled and alert, threaded through with a resonance that hummed along the fault lines and then went still.

  Like a question written into bedrock.

  My pulse climbed a notch.

  The courtyard outside the gatehouse opened under a pale sky. The outer wall rose in a clean ring, banners hanging still in the windless morning. Soldiers on the parapets watched with the disciplined stillness of people who had been drilled to boredom and then drilled past it.

  The gate stood open.

  Asher was the first figure I recognized. He leaned against the side of a travel wagon, arms folded, cloak dusty from the road, the scar along his jaw catching the light. He looked tired in the way people did when the road and its dangers were as much home as any bed. When his gaze found me, his mouth quirked in a small, knowing smile.

  “Your Highness,” he called. “I brought your troublemaker.”

  Three figures stood nearby.

  First was Milo, the halfling, messy-haired, and wearing a coat that had entirely too many pockets. A pipe was tucked behind his ear, unlit, and he walked with the distracted air of someone who was either very used to being in dangerous places… or entirely unaware he was in one now. Little metal devices gleamed at his belt in neat rows, each one wrapped in cloth as if to keep them from touching each other.

  The second was Malorn, the elf, long-limbed, lean, steps so quiet that he might as well have been a shadow. His hair was pale as winter sunlight, braided back from his face in simple plaits that didn’t get in the way of his vision. A bow rested over one shoulder, the wood well-worn but clearly cared for, and a fox-bonded beast padded at his heel with two tails sweeping lazily across the floor as it flickered in out of view. A fox with multiple tails faded in and out of view beside him.

  And then there was Bryn.

  I barely recognized him.

  He stood slightly apart from the others. His frame had filled out with the kind of strength that came from repetition while maintaining his unique lean build caused by his regeneration. His steps were light, balanced, as if every stone under his boots mattered. New scars traced pale lines across anywhere skin could be seen, each one a story I did not know.

  His left arm still bore that strange, almost luminous pallor I remembered from the last time I saw him. The Astral Raptor bracers I gifted him still hugged his wrists, faint patterns pulsing along the metal like heartbeat echoes.

  Dusk surfaced as I stepped closer, gliding up from the ground with a smoothness that made several of the wall guards swear under their breath.

  In my letters, Bryn had described her as an oreowl transformed by a bond event gone wrong and right all at once. Words had not prepared me for the sight of her.

  She rose from the earth like water turning solid — sleek, elongated form built for slipping through stone rather than air. Her onyx scales caught the morning light, streaked with white lines that glowed faintly along her spine and down her limbs. One foreleg was pale as carved bone, mirroring the color of Bryn’s regenerated arm. Her face held the sharp, predatory angle of a wyvern’s beak, but her eyes were bright with a depth that made it impossible to mistake her for a mere beast.

  Soldiers along the wall tightened their grips on their spears. Rhael’s presence at my shoulder became very still.

  Dusk’s gaze turned to me.

  The stone around my boots thrummed once, like the Bastion itself was acknowledging another creature of its element.

  I bowed my head a fraction. “Welcome,” I said softly. “You honor my house with your presence.”

  She blinked once, slow and thoughtful, then turned her head toward Bryn.

  He stepped forward.

  “Sirius,” he said with light expectation.

  My title never entered his mind. He did not know I was prince last time I saw him. I was still just a friend to him. The sound of my name, unadorned, struck me harder than I expected. A bit of relief filled my chest.

  “Bryn.” My voice came out a little rough. “You took your time.”

  His mouth curved into a familiar, quiet smile. “You only invited me after I graduated. I thought it best not to arrive early.”

  Milo coughed. “If you two are finished pretending you are not relieved out of your minds to see each other, could someone please introduce me to the person whose letters have been making Bryn stare at nothing and mutter about ‘unknown assessments’ for the last week?”

  I huffed a breath that might have been a laugh and straightened. “Prince Sirius Velmine,” I said, giving a shallow, proper bow for form’s sake. “Second son of House Velmine, current headache of my father and the Directorate both.”

  “Milo of House Ferryfoot,” he replied with a flourish that lacked the usual mocking. “Third son of a third branch, current disappointment to my tutors, future thorn in the side of anyone who underestimates me.”

  “Malorn of Elderbough,” the elf said, inclining his head. “Scout and ranger. This is Fern.”

  The many-tailed fox dipped his head once, solemn as any courtier.

  “And Bryn,” I said, letting the weight of the name sit between us for a heartbeat. “Graduate of the Academy of Ascension. Survivor of far too many things that should have killed him. My friend.”

  The last word felt both inadequate and too much. Bryn’s gaze flickered, some of the guarded set in his eyes easing.

  Asher pushed off the wagon and stepped forward. “They traveled well,” he said. “We kept to quieter roads and avoided any rift activity. Dusk handled the couple of beasts foolish enough to test us.” He ran a hand along one of the wagon’s side panels. “Your wardens will want to cleanse these before you send them anywhere else. We picked up a bit of residual miasma near the Red Hollow.”

  “I will see to it,” Rhael said. He stepped forward, saluting Asher with a warrior’s clasp. “Razorwing.”

  “Captain,” Asher returned, lips quirking. “Still terrifying.”

  “Still alive,” Rhael said. “Which suggests I am doing something correctly.”

  The brief exchange eased some of the tension in the courtyard. Soldiers on the walls turned back to their posts one by one. The gatehouse wardens stepped away from the control glyphs, satisfied the new arrivals were not going to spontaneously attack.

  I turned back to Bryn.

  For all the letters, for all the reports filtered through guild channels and Academy accounts, standing in front of him like this made it real in a way my mind had not fully accepted until now.

  I had asked him to step into the shadow of a throne someone might be trying to fracture.

  He had come anyway.

  “Thank you,” I said, keeping my voice low enough that few could here. “For trusting me enough to be here.”

  He studied my face for a moment, as if weighing something unsaid. “You trusted me with the truth,” he replied. “About the disappearances. About what you think is happening. After everything we have both seen, I think we owe the world at least that much. Plus it would take a lot more than that to keep me from my best friend,” finishing with another smile and he stepped forward to give me a hug.

  Everyone tensed until I embraced him.

  Milo coughed once.

  We separated smiling like two long lost brothers being reunited again.

  He coughed once more and said, “And let us be honest, if someone is trying to start a war for the throne, that is exactly the sort of trouble Bryn would wander into even without an invitation. You just made it convenient.”

  Malorn’s mouth twitched. “He is not wrong.”

  Dusk’s tail brushed against Bryn’s leg in a slow arc. The stone thrummed again, once, as if in agreement.

  I drew a steadier breath and gestured toward the inner gate of the keep. “Come,” I said. “You have seen the shell. It is time you see what is underneath.”

  We crossed the courtyard together.

  The inner keep’s doors were thick, iron-banded wood reinforced with carved ward-lines that pulsed faintly as we passed. Inside, the light dimmed, replaced by the steady glow of aether crystals mounted along the walls. The air cooled as we descended the central stair toward the main shaft. Our footsteps echoed, then began to overlap with the distant cadence of drills below.

  Milo whistled under his breath. “You were not exaggerating,” he murmured. “This is more than a hideaway barracks.”

  “This is where the royal guard, elite strike squads, and heir parties are forged,” I said.

  We stepped onto the lift platform. Dusk coiled herself along its edge, claws finding easy purchase in the stone. Fern hopped on and settled by Malorn’s boots, tails wrapped neatly around his paws.

  As the platform began to descend, I watched Bryn’s eyes trace the walls. He was not looking at the carvings or the banners or the obvious signs of power. He was feeling the stone. Measuring the depth. Learning the patterns of this place the way only someone with his gift could.

  “How far down does this go?” he asked.

  “Seven main levels,” I said. “More if you count the sealed tunnels.”

  “Why are they sealed?” Milo asked.

  “Old experiments,” I replied. “Old mistakes. Old tunnel collapses. Some combination of the three.”

  The lift slowed and came to a stop at the third level down. The doors slid aside to reveal one of the central training caverns — larger than the arena I had been in earlier, its floor marked with rings, lanes, and obstacle patterns. Squads moved through drills with precise timing.

  A line of spear-wielders practiced advancing under shield cover. A mage unit worked on synchronized ward-raising, light flaring in controlled bursts. Along one wall, a group of lightly armored fighters ran movement drills through a forest of stone pillars that shifted unpredictably according to the commands of their instructor.

  Conversations quieted as we stepped off the platform. Eyes turned. It was not often that an outsider walked these halls.

  Rhael’s presence at my side grew more formal. His voice carried clearly. “This is Bryn. Milo. Malorn. They have been invited by the crown to train and serve. Treat them as you would any other recruit until they prove themselves — or fail to.”

  That last word was a sharpened hook. In the Bastion, failure did not mean humiliation or a disappointed tutor. It meant being sent away. It meant being replaced. And sometimes — permanently.

  I felt Bryn’s attention shift at that, the same way I might feel a blade turn in someone’s hand. He did not bristle. He did not flinch. He simply accepted the condition as if it were as natural as needing to breathe.