Chapter 2 Chapter Two

Aldric

The second Maren wakes, the connection changes hard enough that I feel the loss before I open my eyes. Her body remains in the human realm and mine remains in Caerhold, but her heartbeat still reaches me through the lawful current, quick when she finds the mark on her neck, slower while she tries to convince herself none of it happened, then quick again when her fingers press the place Alaric kissed her. I lie still with one hand closed around the sheet and count every beat because the connection should have gone quiet the moment she woke.

It does not let me hear her thoughts or see her room. Dreamwalking has never worked that way outside active sleep, no matter how many frightened courtiers imagine Winter princes can wander through their minds whenever we please. I feel only the physical response traveling along the current, and even that should be impossible after an untrained invitation. Last night went further than the sanctioned search allowed, and pretending otherwise will not protect her from the consequences.

I sit up and rub the mark above my collarbone, finding the skin tender beneath my fingers. The door opens without a knock, and Alaric walks in with his white hair loose around his shoulders, the top of his shirt still unfastened, and a red mark visible on his throat in the same place as mine. He looks at my hand, then at the twisted sheet around my hips, and gives me the irritated expression he has worn every morning since Maren first appeared in the dreamspace.

"You still feel her," he says, although he already knows the answer and hates that I know he can feel her too.

"Yes," I answer, dragging my hand from the mark before the lingering warmth becomes another thing he can study instead of admit. "Her heartbeat, her fear, and enough confusion to make me wish we had explained this before putting our cocks inside her. Why are you standing in my room half dressed instead of denying all of it from the safety of your own?"

His jaw tightens at the deliberate vulgarity, but he does not bother correcting me. "Mother opened the sanctioned record. Father wants us in the lower chamber before Chancellor Varyn arrives, and I suggest you put on trousers before he decides your bare ass proves magical instability."

"Varyn can examine it if he thinks it will improve his understanding," I mutter, throwing the sheet aside and getting out of bed. Alaric turns his back with a long-suffering breath even though we have shared training chambers, medical examinations, and more women than either of us would admit in front of Mother. "You have seen my ass before. Try not to become delicate now."

"I am not delicate. I am attempting to begin one morning without regretting that we share blood."

"You regretted sharing blood with me before you were old enough to speak. At least be honest about the duration."

He almost smiles, which irritates him enough that the expression disappears before I finish fastening my shirt. The fabric drags over the mark and makes the connection pulse again. Maren's heartbeat jumps at the same moment, water beginning to run somewhere near her, and I picture her standing in a human shower while she examines every place our hands and mouths touched. The thought should amuse me. Instead, the muscles behind my ribs tighten because she has no explanation for any of it and no reason to believe the men who caused it will return.

"She is awake and frightened," I tell Alaric as we leave my room and enter the royal corridor. "If the chamber confirms physical bleed, we contact her before Varyn turns this into a containment order."

"We contact her under controlled conditions," he replies, matching my pace as we descend the narrow stairs cut through the center of Blackstone Spire. "Last night was neither controlled nor informed. She wanted us, but she did not know what the connection was, what our titles mean, or what could remain after waking."

"And if you speak to her with that expression, she will think you regret touching her."

"I regret that she lacked information. Those are not the same thing."

"They will feel the same to her if you keep every human emotion buried under legal language."

Alaric stops on the landing, forcing me to stop with him. "You believe wanting her loudly makes your judgment better than mine. It does not."

"No," I say, stepping closer until the cold light set into the wall cuts across both our faces. "I believe acting ashamed of the bond will hurt her, and I believe you know that."

He looks away first. It is not victory. Maren's current remains between us, and anything either of us does to her will travel through the other whether we enjoy that fact or not.

The silver channels set into the floor of the lower chamber are already lit when we enter, which means the record is active and every magical change, spoken statement, and physical response will be preserved. Father stands behind the stone table in plain black court clothes, his crown absent because this is still a private royal examination. Mother faces the largest memory panel with both hands raised beneath moving white lines, but her attention shifts to our throats the moment we approach.

"She has the same mark," I tell her before she asks, stopping at the right side of the table. "I did not see her waking body, but she touched the place where Alaric kissed her, and her heart rate changed immediately. She also reacted when the mark on my wrist current warmed."

Father nods once, acknowledging the distinction between what I know and what I inferred, then points toward the metal readers built into the table. Alaric places his palms on the left set while I take the right. Mother speaks our names, titles, and authorization number into the record before pressing her fingers to the panel.

Cold travels from the metal into my hands until three signatures appear in the glass. Alaric's pale blue current holds one side, mine runs darker along the other, and Maren's green current moves between them with uneven sections where her untrained magic cannot keep the same strength. The sight of it creates an immediate possessive response I do not trust enough to name. A current is not ownership. Desire is not law. The fact that I want her close does not give me the right to decide where she belongs.

Mother studies each point where the colors meet, checking the same sections twice before she says, "Maren reached for both of you. The invitations were separate, but they occurred less than one second apart, and she repeated them through the encounter. The record confirms active desire and reciprocal participation. It does not confirm that she understood the magical consequences."

Alaric's shoulders tighten beside me. "She did not understand what she was opening."

"She understood who she wanted touching her," I answer, keeping my palms flat even when he turns toward me. "Not knowing the legal name for the magic does not make her response false. It means we owed her an explanation before the connection became physical enough to mark her."

Mother looks between us, then returns to the panel. "Both statements are true. Do not turn her consent into an argument between you. Physical marks appearing on all three bodies mean the connection has moved beyond ordinary dream contact, but I will not name the bond until I have enough evidence to know what formed and whether an outside current influenced it."

"Then we do not call it permanent," Alaric says. He chooses the word carefully, and I hear everything he refuses to say beneath it. He has spent his life preparing for a future arranged around Winter law, court alliances, and a politically useful marriage. Maren disrupted that future without knowing Caerhold exists, and part of him is already calculating what the court will demand from her if this becomes public.

"We do not call it temporary either," I tell him. "We call it what the record proves and stop pretending uncertainty means nothing happened."

The chamber doors open before he can answer. Chancellor Varyn Holt enters with two record officers following close behind, dressed for full court despite the hour, his gray hair secured at the back of his neck and the silver chain of office fastened across his coat. His gaze moves from the active record to the marks on our throats, and displeasure settles across his face with such speed that he has clearly decided what the evidence means before reading it.

"You opened a restricted dreamwalking record without my office present," he says to Mother, stopping across the table and studying the signatures without waiting for permission.

Father does not raise his voice. He never needs to. "Your office was notified when the record was sealed. You are present now. We will not waste time discussing whether you prefer to enter before or after the evidence appears."

Varyn's mouth tightens, but he directs his next question toward Alaric. "The unknown subject created reciprocal physical effects during unauthorized sexual contact. Is that accurate?"

"Her name is Maren," I say before my brother can answer, removing one hand from the reader long enough to point at the green current while he discusses it as a specimen instead of a person. "Use it."

"We have not verified her legal identity, location, bloodline, or species. A name spoken during dream contact establishes none of those facts."

"It establishes what she wants to be called," I answer, feeling my temper climb when he looks through me instead of at me. "That is enough for you to stop calling her a subject."

Father says my name in warning, but I remain where I am. Varyn has already classified Maren as a problem to control before anyone has given her the truth. He turns back to the panel and says, "All contact must be suspended until she is identified, located, and placed under Winter authority."

Alaric removes his hands from the readers before I do, his expression controlled but no longer neutral. "Maren is not under Winter authority. The search order permitted contact because the dormant royal signature could not be located through ordinary means. Suspending the only stable connection would leave her with physical effects she does not understand and no defense against another intrusion."

Varyn looks at him for several seconds. "Your personal involvement has compromised your judgment. The same is true of your brother, although he makes no effort to hide it."

"I am standing here," I tell him, stepping around the table when he continues addressing Alaric. "If you intend to insult my judgment, you can manage the courage required to look at me."

Varyn finally does. "Then hear me clearly. An unidentified woman reached two members of the Winter royal family, created physical marks on all three bodies, and generated a connection strong enough to remain active after waking. Until she is contained, she is a security risk."

"If you send anyone to contain her, I will stop them." The words leave me calmly, but my hands have already curled into fists. "She is alone in another realm, she does not know magic exists, and your first answer is imprisonment."

"My first answer is lawful supervision."

"You called her a subject four times and a risk twice. You have not called her a person once."

The chamber goes quiet except for the silver channels humming beneath the floor. Mother orders me back to the reader before the argument becomes the only useful thing preserved, and I obey because I want every result documented. The moment my palms touch the metal, Maren's green signature brightens between mine and Alaric's.

A fourth line appears at the outer edge of the panel.

It is black, narrow, and moving directly toward the weakest section of Maren's current. Mother tells everyone not to move as she presses her full palm to the glass, but the line continues beneath the truth-light. Maren's fear strikes the connection at the same moment, tightening the muscles across my chest while water continues running near her in the waking world.

"That is not hers," I say, leaning toward the panel as the black line reaches the first break. It attaches to Maren's signature with a dark point that remains visible even after metal shutters close over every reflective surface in the chamber.

One of Varyn's officers whispers, "Foreign observation attempt," but Mother shakes her head without looking away. "No. Corrupted reflection magic. Someone outside this chamber found the dreamwalking record and used it to search for Maren."

Varyn studies the dark point and says, "This confirms the need to suspend contact."

"It confirms someone else has already noticed her," I snap, keeping one hand on the reader so I do not lose the connection. "Stopping now leaves her alone with whoever did this."

Father seals the lower level, orders Varyn's office to produce every access record from the previous thirty days, and places the original trace under royal evidence protection. He authorizes one controlled contact for explanation and defense, with no physical contact unless Maren requests it. Varyn objects. Father records the objection and dismisses everyone except Mother, Alaric, and me.

The black point remains attached to Maren's signature after the doors close. Mother strengthens the reader around it while I follow the foreign line into the outer boundary of Maren's sleeping current. A person on the other side is maintaining it. When I push Winter current through the route, the line contracts but does not disappear, proving the intrusion is controlled rather than a natural failure in the bond.

Maren's current opens without the sexual invitation that brought us together earlier. She appears at the boundary in the same thin dress, her arms folded over her chest, anger and fear both visible. I remain several feet away and hold my hands where she can see them.

"Don't touch me," she says immediately, her gaze moving from my face to the black residue behind me.

"I won't," I answer, forcing myself to stay still even though every part of me wants to reach for her. "Tell me what you need first."

"I need to know what just happened, and I need the truth without some royal version that makes me sound too stupid to understand it."

I give her the facts, keeping my voice direct because she deserves better than another court explanation. "A foreign mirrorcraft signal entered the lawful connection after you woke. It used copied Winter access to search for your current. I followed it far enough to prove a person is controlling the route. I blocked it at the boundary, but I haven't identified the person or the waking device they used."

"Can they hear us now?" she asks, glancing toward the dark line while her fingers tighten against her arms.

"No. My mother and Alaric are holding the block outside this space. The residue remains because we need evidence, but the observation route is closed."

She looks down at the green light around her feet, then back at me. "Did the sex let them in?"

The question costs her more than her expression admits. I keep enough distance that she does not have to wonder whether I will use her fear as an excuse to touch her. "The connection gave them a route to attack. Your invitation to us did not invite them. Those are separate facts, and I will not let anyone combine them to blame you for what somebody else chose to do."

"Can you enter whenever you want?"

"No. Your sleeping current opened this boundary, and I followed the foreign signal after it entered. I won't use that access for anything else."

She does not relax, and I do not ask her to trust me. Instead, I show her where the black line touched the boundary and teach her how to separate its cold pressure from the warmth of either lawful current. She tests the difference twice, curses when the black route presses back, then pushes only that section away without collapsing the entire boundary.

"What happens next?" she asks once her breathing slows, keeping her eyes on the place where the pressure disappeared.

"Alaric traces the restricted pattern. I preserve the route. You decide whether to open this connection again."

"I will," she says, and then her eyes narrow on mine. "But next time, I set the distance, I ask the questions, and neither of you touches me until I say so. I don't care what the magic says I want. You wait for my mouth to say it."

"Agreed," I answer, without adding a condition she didn't ask for.

"And I want both of you there. No separate stories, no deciding which version I can handle."

"Agreed," I repeat, holding her gaze so she knows I understand the second instruction matters as much as the first.

Maren closes the boundary herself. I remain in place until the final green line disappears, then return to the record chamber carrying proof that someone observed her without permission and a clear instruction for the next time she lets us in.

Alaric meets my eyes before I speak. "She is returning."

"On her terms," I tell him, placing the preserved trace beside the active record. "We would both be wise enough to remember that."