“If I am from Cerwiden, I remember no such thing,” I reply quietly.
“Cenviri could pass as your brother,” she says and I scoff a laugh. “Don’t tell me you can’t see it. Silver hair, light eyes, pale skin. He even has the same cold stare you do.”
I shake my head. “The resemblance is coincidental.”
She barks a sharp laugh. “We’ll see. And I’m not beyond gloating when I’m right.”
Eve’s eyes narrow as she studies me.
“You’re scared,” she says, her voice quiet and soft.
I purse my lips as I release a long, long exhale. “Yes,” I finally say.
There are too many points where things can go drastically wrong—the veil, the mending, who I’ll become after…
She straightens herself, surprise lifting her brows.
She expected me to lie… or deflect.
In most other cases, I would have.
But not today. Not in this.
It’s easier to be honest for once.
“Mortals are not meant to be in the veil,” I say. “Every trespass is a breach of Order and countless lives have been punished or lost for it.”
“If this is your attempt to talk me into staying behind, save your breath,” Eve counters with a flat glare. “Not going to happen.”
“The threats that await in the veil arepartof the problem,” I reply, my tone firm. “This other half of me, she’s been left to rot.Why?”
Eve blinks a few times. “Do you not want to mend your soul?”
What a wild question to hear.
I shake my head. “No, I have to. If I don’t, I risk burning out like an undead construct.”
A particularly gruesome end I’d rather avoid.
The fact I haven’t already is a blessing.
I heave a sigh, unsure how to say what I want without sounding foolish. “I’m scared who I’ll become won’t be who I want. The kind of creature consumed by stagnant rage. What if it’s not me who returns?”
I pull the bloodstone dagger from my thigh and set it upon the rail between us. The moonstone in the hilt and the black blade take on a gleam in the rain. A long pause stretches between us before Eve finally lifts her glare from the dagger, honing it against me.
“What about Ryc?” she demands, her tone sharp and cold yet kept low. She doesn’t want Cyran to overhear. “Have you talked to him? Told him you’re going to do thisagain—no, told him you wantmeto do this?”
“I don’t want you to,” I argue, yet her expression doesn’t soften. “But I cannot pretend this isn’t a possibility. Ryc knows how I feel, what my thoughts are.”
He knows all of it, even without me voicing them.
And it doesn’t matter to him. It doesn’t matter what kind of monster I become, he would protect me. Love me. Keep me beside him. No matter the cost.
I can’t do that.
Not to him.
Or Eve, or Cyran.
