That night, they never climbed to the circular chamber.
Aria had thought she would feel drawn toward it. She’d imagined the seal would tug at her, urging her upward toward the chair the way hunger pulls someone toward a meal. It didn’t happen. The four-pointed symbol in her chest remained warm, calm, and steady. The seal rested inside her now. She carried it. There was no need to sit in the chair to possess it. She simply held it, as naturally as breathing, as naturally as the bond’s constant hum inside her chest. It required no effort and no conscious attention, like any instinctive thing a body was created to do.
Instead, they remained in the room below with a fire crackling nearby.
Kael had built it large. The logs came from the pile of damp salt-wood stacked beneath the tower. Flame
