Ancestors, please, don’t let her… “Fuuuuck!!! No…Please, no!” I threw my head back and screamed.
The pain was more than I could bear, but no matter how much I begged, it didn’t stop. My voice had grown hoarse from the screaming, and I knew I was seconds away from passing out.
I feel our bond jolt. For a breath, I saw one of them—stumbling, his knees hitting stone. Another clutched at his chest as if struck, rage curling bright in his eyes—a third doubled over, breath gone, knuckles white against his thighs. Then, a fourth gripped steel in his hand, snapping the hilt in two, his fury uncontrollable. And the last—I feel his roar, silent but raw, his throat ragged as he screams my name.
Then they vanish, leaving only the queen’s knife, slicing deeper. Fat glistens pale, fascia clings like a cobweb, and muscle shudders alive under her hand.
Selene leans close, her whisper hot against my ear. “Without this, you are nothing to them. No mark, no bond. Only ruin.”
Through blurry eyes, I see her holding up my Nexus mark, blood running down her arm in rivulets.
I tremble, choking on pain, unsure if the visions were truth or lies, fever-dreams conjured by agony. I can’t call out. I can’t know for sure. Perhaps I imagined them all.
But still, the thought clings to me like blood to steel: what if every cut she makes is branding them too? What if they bleed with me?
When I wake up, I’m lying on the bed in my room, bandages covering my chest and back. I feel like my entire torso is on fire. The pain is near unbearable.
I staggered to my feet. I had to know.
I made it to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My face was swollen and covered in red splotches; dried tear tracks were still discernible.
But that was the least of my concerns.
I hesitated to look down and took a few moments to build up my courage. When my eyes dropped, I saw a bandage soaked through with blood covering the place where my mark was located. I bowed my head as tears once again rolled down my face.
Randomly, I wondered if there was a quota on the amount of tears a person was allowed on any given day. I’m surprised at this point that mine hadn’t dried up completely.
I took a deep, painful breath, then raised my head and pulled the bandage loose. Only a corner peeled down, but that was enough to confirm my fears.
I braced my hands on the sink and sobbed. Where my mark used to be— where it meant something— it’s just… gone. What’s left is ugly. Torn skin, red and swollen, edges jagged where her knife dug too deep. Dried blood clings like cracks in old paint, and underneath, it looks raw, like meat left out in the sun.
My hand lifts on its own, shaking, hovering just over it. I can’t touch. I don’t want to. It feels wrong—like pressing on the hole where my heart used to be.
Tears blur everything, but the reflection doesn’t change. I’m not me anymore. I look like a stranger, like someone hollowed out.
A sound slips out of me, broken, ugly. I lean into the mirror, forehead pressed to the cold glass, and sob until my whole body shakes.
Selene took it.
She tried to take them.
Her voice echoes in my head, smug and cruel;Without this, you are nothing. No mark. No bond.
And yet… when I reach inward, past the pain, past the hollow place where the mark used to sit, I still feel them.
The well of power that is now a mix of all of us, amber, green, red, purple, yellow, and crimson, is stronger than ever. I let out a shuddering breath, pressing my palm flat to the mirror, over my reflection’s wound. Tears slide hot down my cheeks. Grief still burns sharp—but underneath it, something steadier grows.
Selene failed. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Chapter 7
Oren
“What the fuck, Oren? What did we just feel?” Nathan paced my office, pulling at his hair with both hands.
None of the others were in any better shape, including myself. Everyone had rushed here from wherever they were, in a panic.
“I wish I knew, brother.” I wiped my hand down my face. Ever since we’d felt the searing pain on our chests, exactly where Reverie’s Nexus mark was located, I’d been frantic, contacting everyone I could think of that might have contacts still in Bellona. I’d had no luck so far, and that was tearing us all apart.
