He nodded once.
I blinked, swallowing down something tangled in my throat. “And also,” I discarded my pride because this was the only thing I actually felt sorry for, “I didn’t mean to look at…it. The scar. I crossed a line. I’m sorry.” I had a scar of my own, and I understood because I might have felt the same way if he pulled down my shirt to look at it without permission.
He tilted his head again, eyes heating up. “I wish that apology was for seeing my dick. I’d have preferred you seeing that. But things don’t really go our way, do they?”
My mouth dropped open, my cheeks warming at the sudden way he said it. “You’re insane.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up in a smirk. “And you’re flustered, yeah? That’s new.”
I could feel the heat crawl up my neck, paint my cheeks, mortification and second-hand embarrassment fighting for first place in my chest.
Why did I even bother talking to him?
I scoffed under my breath, shook my head, and practically ran up the stairs because if I didn’t disappear right then, I was going to evaporate into a puddle of shame and punch that smirk off his weirdly good face.
Flashlights.
I closed the book in my hand and slid off the bed, padding barefoot to the window.
There was no moon tonight. Just a starless sky and a devouring black of Nimorran's hills, their familiar outlines smothered by the town’s constant fog.
But I’d seen a flicker of light near the mountains.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it was just a trick of the dark, or the headache blooming behind my eyes from reading too long.
Still, I stayed there, shoulders pressed against the windowpane, breath misting the cold glass, eyes locked on the vague outline of the hills, refusing to blink.
Because I wanted to be wrong. I really, really did. Nobody in their right mind would go near The Crater this late.
Not unless they wanted to die.
Flash.
It came again, cutting through the fog like a blade. It wavered in the sky, then vanished behind the hills. The beam moved up, circled, dropped, then went dark again.
I didn’t move. My spine had gone rigid.
Someone was out there.
Fucking insane.
Even I, who was gusty at odd times, wouldn’t go near a wrath at almost two a.m.
I shook my head as I returned to my bed, pulling the covers up around my legs and reopened the book that had failed to distract mefor hours now. It was a legend, one I’d read before. A tragic tale about two lovers who were executed for thecrimeof loving each other. Classic. They were dragged to the town square, the woman heavy with child, and executed under the ruler’s orders. While their blood soaked the ground, their souls didn’t cross over. The rage held them here. All three. They twisted into spirits of vengeance—ghosts too furious to rest. They haunted the town, their sorrow bleeding into the air, turning it sour.
Their town turned cursed. At first, numerous magicians and all sorts of priests tried to cure the land but they all paid with their lives. Death followed, then disappearances. Ten years later, ninety percent of the townspeople were gone—most by suicide. Some disappeared, including the ruler, and the land was left barren.
That wasn’t even the only story.
I’d read nineteen other accounts of towns wiped off the map by things people couldn’t explain. Always after some great injustice.
Very few towns lasted more than a few centuries.
Except Nimorran.
Nimorran had existed since the beginning of time—or so the stories said. Of course, it used to be bigger. It stretched endlessly once, flourishing in magic and wonder. Then The Crater happened, a wound that split the land wide open. The magic vanished, people vanished, the land shrank, and Nimorran was reduced to this. A town growing smaller and quieter each year.
