“Calista should have been the last of the Shadow Vaelora. The ending I gave her should have made it impossible for her magic to be reborn.” He rolled his shoulders, as though shifting the weight of all those centuries upon them. “Then, twenty-five years ago, you were born, somehow. I knew it the moment it happened, because I felt it through the bond the two Vaelora always share—your first breath was like a knife twisting in my chest. And your magic…” His gaze trailed over me, a slow probing that made my skin crawl. “It was something to behold, even while we were in separate worlds.”
