Stellan woke to smoke and bitter herb.
His hut ceiling sat low above him. Familiar rafters. A crack where wind liked to complain. A beam that always creaked when the rain got heavy.
Safe.
He tried to sit up.
His ribs said no.
Pain flared sharp, not new—just angry. He hissed through his teeth and rolled onto his side, one forearm braced against the mattress.
"Mave," he rasped.
His sister stood by the hearth, sleeves rolled up, braid thrown over one shoulder, stirring a pot like it owed her money. She didn't turn.
"You're alive," she said. "Try to stay that way."
Stellan blinked hard, clearing the grit from his eyes. The room swam once, then steadied.
"How long?" he asked.
"Long enough for me to drag you off the road and threaten you," Mave said. The spoon clinked against the pot—clink, clink—steady like a metronome. "The city bells went wild. People are saying the throne wing—"
Stellan started to answer.
Then sound hit him.
Not from the hut.
From somewhere else.
Clatter. Laughter. Cutlery scraping plates. A violin string whining under a heavy hand. Voices layered so thick they made a ceiling.
A banquet.
Stellan jerked upright so fast his ribs screamed.
Mave's mouth moved—he saw the question forming—but her voice drowned under a hundred strangers.
His ears weren't here.
His ears were in the palace.
The banquet noise poured through him like he'd been dropped into the middle of it—too close, too bright, too sharp.
Crystal chinks. Silk rustles. A servant murmuring, "My lord," like a prayer. A woman's laugh that tried too hard. A chair scraping back.
Stellan grabbed the bedframe until his knuckles went white.
"No," he muttered.
The hut stayed quiet in front of him, but the palace kept roaring in his skull anyway.
Mave stepped closer, frowning. Her voice finally punched through the noise in his head because it existed in his eyes—her lips, her expression, her impatience.
"Stellan?" she said louder.
He shook his head, once, sharp. Not now.
He tried something stupid first: he pressed his palms over his ears.
It did nothing.
Because the sound wasn't coming in through his ears.
It was already inside.
The banquet swelled, then dipped as if the speaker had moved away from the table. Stellan could tell direction. Distance. Space. Like he was sitting there.
Except he wasn't.
His stomach turned.
Then taste hit.
Wine first—sweet, expensive, the kind that sat heavy on the tongue. Then roasted meat, pepper, something buttery.
And under it—
Bitter almond.
Not pastry. Not roasted nuts.
Poison.
Stellan gagged.
Mave lunged and caught a cup off the table before it could tip. "What's wrong with you?"
Stellan's eyes watered. His mouth tasted like death.
He shook his head again, breath coming short. "Not me."
Mave stared. "That's not an answer."
He swallowed hard, trying to clear the taste. It didn't leave. It sharpened, as if someone somewhere had just touched it fresh.
Like poison had just met air.
Midnight Tear.
Every Warden knew it.
A polite killer. Weakness first. Dizziness. Sleep that didn't end. A death that looked like exhaustion if no one bothered to smell the body.
That poison wasn't in his cup.
It was on someone else's weapon.
Close enough for him to taste it.
Stellan's stomach rolled.
His vision flashed—brief, unwanted.
Not the hut.
Stone overhead. Torchlight. A ceiling with damp stains.
A dungeon ceiling.
He blinked, and it was gone.
His ribs throbbed. His forearm prickled. The memory of that flicker made his skin feel too tight.
He'd seen that ceiling once already. In the chaos of the palace, right after the blast. A heartbeat of someone else's view.
He'd told himself it was shock.
He didn't believe himself anymore.
Mave grabbed his jaw, forcing his face toward her. "Stellan. Look at me."
He did. Because her grip hurt and because Mave never asked nicely twice.
"What did you do?" she demanded.
Stellan pried her hand off. "I didn't do anything."
Mave's eyes narrowed. "You sound like you're lying."
He didn't have time to argue about tone.
The banquet surged again—someone dropped a fork, someone laughed too loud, someone shushed.
Then a different taste slid in.
Cold metal.
Like a blade had been drawn across a tongue.
Stellan's hands curled.
That wasn't wine.
That was poison on steel.
A dagger.
Close to a mouth. Close to breath. Close to the kind of person who used blades like punctuation.
Stellan's throat tightened.
The spy.
The woman from the dungeon ceiling.
Her.
Mave watched him go rigid. "Stellan," she said, quieter now. "Explain. Right now."
He dragged in a breath and forced his voice to stay level.
"I'm hearing something that isn't here," he said.
Mave blinked. "That's called concussion."
He shook his head once. "No. This is… specific."
Mave's expression didn't soften. "Specific how."
Stellan stared past her shoulder, into the corner where his hunting gear hung. Familiar shapes. Familiar weight. The only things in his life that didn't surprise him.
"I hear a palace banquet," he said.
Mave barked a laugh, but it died when she saw his face. "You're joking."
"I don't joke," Stellan said.
That, at least, made her pause.
Mave swallowed. "Okay. Fine. Say you're hearing the palace. How."
Stellan's jaw clenched. He hated that he didn't have a clean answer.
He had a feeling instead—like a hook between his ribs, tugging him toward someone he'd never met.
"A link," he said finally. "From the blast."
Mave stared. "A link to who."
Stellan's mouth went dry. He didn't want to say it out loud because it made it real.
"The woman," he said. "The one I… saw."
Mave's brows knit. "You saw a woman."
"I saw a dungeon ceiling," Stellan corrected. "Through eyes that weren't mine."
Mave's face tightened. She didn't laugh again. That was a bad sign. Mave laughed at fear when she could.
Stellan spoke fast before the banquet swallowed him again.
"I'm hearing through her," he said. "And tasting."
Mave's gaze flicked to his mouth, then back to his eyes. "Tasting."
Stellan swallowed. "Poison. Midnight Tear."
Mave's anger sharpened into something else. "If you're tasting poison, she's—"
"In danger," Stellan said.
He didn't mean it like concern.
He meant it like a fact.
The banquet noise changed. A hush, sudden and practiced, rolled across the room—like a table turning toward a speaker who mattered.
A man's voice rose. Warm. Certain. The kind of voice that didn't need to shout to be obeyed.
"My friends," the voice said.
The room obeyed just enough for Stellan to hear authority in the shape of the words.
Soft murmurs followed. Agreement. Relief performed for an audience.
Stellan's jaw clenched.
The voice continued, smooth as polished wood. "Tonight we were tested."
A pause. Long enough to let people feel brave for listening.
"But our prince—our bright hope—still stands."
Glasses lifted. Wine sloshed in crystal.
Then the toast, spoken like a line rehearsed:
"To the Prince's narrow escape."
Clink.
Clink.
Clink.
Stellan froze.
The timing was wrong.
A narrow escape came after a scramble. After real fear. After someone almost dying and everyone admitting they were frightened.
This sounded like they'd known the ending before the story finished.
Like the speech had been written before the attempt.
Stellan swung his legs off the bed, ignoring the rib pain.
Mave grabbed his arm. "No. Absolutely not."
"I have to move," he said.
"Move where?" Her eyes flashed. "Back to the palace?"
Stellan's throat worked. "Not back."
"Then where."
He didn't have a map yet. Only a direction in his bones.
"Toward her," he said quietly.
Mave's grip tightened. "You don't even know her."
Stellan's mouth went hard. "I know she's being hunted."
Mave's voice dropped. "You're being hunted too, then."
Stellan didn't answer because the palace sound shifted again—boots moving with purpose under the banquet noise. Not serving. Not dancing. Not stumbling drunk.
Hunting.
He could hear it in the rhythm. The controlled pace, the spacing, the way voices dipped when those boots passed.
And over it all, faint and close, he tasted fear.
Not his.
Hers.
It wasn't a dramatic, sobbing fear. It was thin and sharp like metal held between teeth.
Contained.
Familiar to someone trained to survive rooms like this.
Stellan's hands curled, not from anger. From the need to do something.
He grabbed for his belt knife where it should've been—
Mave slapped his wrist. "No."
Stellan looked up. "Mave."
"You can't even stand without swearing," she said. "You're not running into the city."
Stellan stared at her.
She stared back, jaw set.
Mave was practical before she was kind. It was the reason she was still alive in a world that ate soft things.
Stellan forced his voice calm. "I'm not going into the city blind."
Mave's nostrils flared. "Then what are you doing."
Stellan's gaze dropped to the floor.
Dirt packed hard. Ash scattered near the hearth. A flat plank of wood used for kneading dough, sitting under the table.
A thought clicked into place—ugly, desperate, but workable.
If he could hear through her ears…
Maybe she could see through his eyes.
He remembered the dungeon ceiling he'd seen. That wasn't hearing. That was sight.
A swap. A collision.
Stellan's mouth tightened. "I need to talk to her."
Mave scoffed. "With what. Your thoughts."
"Maybe," Stellan said, and hated how helpless it sounded.
Mave's eyes narrowed. "Stellan."
He looked at her. "Help me."
That stopped her.
Mave's anger wavered. Not gone. Just forced to share space with fear.
She released his arm slowly.
"What do you need," she asked, voice tight.
Stellan pointed at the plank. "Ash."
Mave blinked. "Ash."
He nodded once. "Fine ash. Smooth."
Mave stared like he'd lost his mind.
Then, because she was Mave, she moved.
She grabbed a bowl, scraped ash from the hearth, and dumped it onto the plank. Her hands were quick, efficient. She spread it flat with the back of the spoon until it was a dark, even surface.
"There," she snapped. "Now what."
Stellan sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over the plank like it was a trap he meant to disarm.
His fingers hovered above the ash.
If she could see through his eyes, she'd see what he wrote.
If she couldn't, he'd be talking to dirt.
Stellan swallowed, then scratched one word into the ash with his fingertip:
WHO
He paused.
The bond tugged.
His ears filled with banquet noise again—laughter, a chair scrape, the faint clink of a spoon.
Then, under it—
A new sound.
Not from the banquet.
Not from the hut.
A rhythm.
Tap.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Stellan went still.
Because that tapping wasn't on his door.
It was inside his skull.
Mave's eyes widened. "What—"
Stellan lifted a hand—stop.
He listened.
Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap.
Deliberate. Measured.
A signal.
Stellan's breath caught.
And for the first time since the blast, he wasn't hearing the palace's noise.
He was hearing her trying to speak.