Obsidian ribs arched overhead like a cathedral's spine. Wrought-iron lanterns—ribbed and thorned—hung in rows, each caging a violet flame that threw slow halos over boneglass panes and the long, dark table below.
Chairs scraped. Boots settled. Breath misted in the cool.
Komus flicked a glance at Rnarah's gauze veil. "Before Gemma feeds us to death… what are you, exactly? That thing earlier—my knees nearly wrote you a sonnet."
Daviyi didn't smile. "He's asking about your power."
Rnarah folded her hands on the table. "Empathy," she said. "In the Ascendant sense."
Niraí lifted a brow. "That word usually means soft."
"It isn't," Rnarah answered. "Not in me."
Zcain's gaze lowered, protective but not possessive. "You can tell them."
Rnarah nodded. "An empath, as I carry it, doesn't only feel what others feel. I conduct it. My presence listens, mirrors, and magnifies. It turns attention into… orbit."
Komus blinked. "Orbit is not reassuring."
"My father's blood made it that way," Rnarah went on, voice clear behind the veil. "Tysesh, the Ascendant of the Veiled Mind. His line weaves subtle compulsions—thoughts that loop, desires that harden into fixation." She touched the edge of her veil. "My mother—Xriana, the Ascendant of Fate—binds. Her power makes connections stick. Together, they turned empathy into gravity."
Cree's flame lifted, wary. "So it isn't charm."
"No," Rnarah said. "Glamour flatters. Orbit alters gravity—you don't fall for me; you fall toward me. To look at me unmasked is to feel seen and then ache to be worthy of that gaze. For the kind, it becomes devotion. For the wounded, obsession. For the violent…" She let the sentence end.
Qaritas felt the truth of it—an ache behind his ribs that wasn't desire, but something dangerously close. He looked away, unsure if it was respect or surrender.
Hydeius's jaw flexed. "You've been attacked."
"Yes." No drama, only fact. "Not from hatred. From wanting sharpened beyond reason. They believed it was love. But it was obsession—compulsion dressed in reverence."
Silence pulled tight.
Daviyi's voice softened, and that was worse. "Can you switch it off?"
"With rules," Rnarah said. "I cover my face. I keep my voice low. I don't hold eyes in crowds. And I take two doses of suppressant a day—dawn and dusk. If I laugh too much, Gemma benches me: veil down, quiet room, wait it out."
A sharp hah from the doorway. Gemma thumped her cane and hobbled in. "Because your laughter travels, child. I've seen a street riot start with less."
Komus rubbed his temples. "So the veil isn't for vanity."
"It's a kindness," Rnarah said. "Without it, the field blooms on its own—eye contact snags, touch anchors, and a room becomes a shrine. I don't like catching people with my face."
Qaritas studied the wirework of the nearest lantern. "Is that why you call it a curse?"
Rnarah turned her hands palm up. "Because it steals choice. Theirs—and thus mine. I can still and sway, turn armies or quiet monsters, but every use risks breaking someone in ways that do not heal. Power isn't permission."
Zcain's mouth softened. "I anchor. I don't cage."
Rnarah tilted her head, a private thanks.
Niraí exhaled through her nose. "Show me the difference between you asking and the field choosing."
Rnarah thought, then reached into her sash and withdrew a slim vial, opal-sheened, stopper sealed in rose wax. "I won't unmask fully. But—" She loosened the veil just a finger's width and said, barely above a whisper, "Look at me."
Qaritas didn't move—but his grip on the table had tightened. The power was gentle, but it scraped something raw. It was beautiful. It was dangerous.
The room tilted—so gently it could be mistaken for remembering. Niraí's eyes shone, then shimmered with heat. Komus's chair creaked forward. Even the lantern flames leaned.
Rnarah touched the vial to her mouth and drank. The pressure loosened—like tide stepping back from the shore. She pinned the veil higher again, hands steady.
Gemma sniffed. "Dawn dose early. Good girl."
For a moment, no one moved. The table held its breath around her.
Cree let out a breath, shaky. "It felt like truth."
Hydeius's hands had stilled. "If you were born to it, who taught you the rules?"
Rnarah's eyes warmed. "My mother tied the first threads. Gemma wrote the household laws. Zcain keeps the anchors gentle."
"Speaking of household laws," Gemma said, planting her cane at the table's head, "no one faints in my dining room. Food."
She rapped the cane twice. Boneglass glyphs lit along the tabletop's edge—thin, pearly lines that woke and ran like quicksilver. The lantern flames inverted to cool blue; a hum rose in the ribs of the ceiling. Steam ghosted into being over empty plates, then the smell hit first—smokevine and dusk citrus, black-butter and warm iron.
With a soft thrum, platters phased onto the wood:
Ashcrown Bramwing, skin lacquer snapping as it settled, obsidian honey drippings sliding to the platter's lip.
Lumenstrand Nest, the hand-pulled strands glowing softly as if cradling captive starlight, dotted with cracked stoneflower seed.
Gloamfold Rolls, black-butter glossed, dusted with cinder pollen, a curl of shadow-scent sighing out when one tore.
Coral flutes of Veilquell Tisane, rims glittering with mica sugar, the steam carrying lavender root and veilflower resin.
Komus leaned back, impressed despite himself. "If my grandmother had teleported dinner, I might have behaved."
"You would not," Gemma said. "Eat."
"Before we do," Qaritas said, eyes on Rnarah.
"If someone worships you by accident… how do we keep the room a room?"
Rnarah touched the veil with two fingers. "We set the rule together. Anchor. If I say it, you echo it. We choose the ground under us."
Zcain reached across and turned her palm, pressing his thumb to the center. A touch, not a claim. "And I keep the ground steady."
Gemma rolled her eyes, satisfied. "Now you may be dramatic with full plates." She lifted her cane like a toast. "To quiet hearts and sharp appetites."
They lifted flutes. Violet flames winked along the lanterns like patient stars.
"Anchor," Niraí murmured.
A few echoed it softly.
Cree hesitated. The word caught in their throat, too full of weight to lift on the first try. Hydeius said nothing at all.
Rnarah met their silence without flinching. She nodded once. No pressure. Just space.
Then Hydeius said it. Quiet. Like trying on an old name.
Cree followed, this time with breath behind it.
The table breathed again.