My breath stalled, the dagger hovering over my heart.
The shadows were everywhere now, crawling across the stone, climbing the walls, swallowing the torchlight. They wrapped around me as though they were trying to shield me from the world.
Live.
I couldn’t breathe.
The song was toomuch. A thousand threads of music woven together, layered with fury and grief and something else—beautiful and broken andfamiliar.
The blade in my hand trembled.
The voices were inside me now. Beneath my ribs. In my blood.
Live.
And it was more than just a word. It wasmemory. Of Mireth’s laughter, Eryx’s hand in mine, Navaire’s warm laugh. Of Varyth standing like a wall between me and death, Linc’s steady calm, Brynelle’s quiet comfort. Of all the things I thought I’d lost, all the reasons Ishouldbe gone—and all the reasons I wasn’t.
Not yet.
My hand faltered.
I could feel the dagger’s kiss, cold against my chest. But it no longer offered relief. Only silence. And for the first time in what felt like forever…
I didn’t want silence.
The shadows didn’t retreat. Theyrose. Cradled me. Sank into me. Became the rhythm of my heartbeat, the air in my lungs.
And still, the song thrummed.
Live.
71
Ashterion stood, the blade still clutched in his hand, its weight deceptively light for a weapon so final. He walked to the centre of the garden—the true heart of the rooftop space—and stopped before the ancient tree that had taken root there centuries ago. A twisted thing of pale silver bark and midnight-black leaves, it had grown resilient in the face of the world’s cruelty.
Like everything in this realm, it had learned to survive.
He reached out and placed his hand against the bark. It was cool beneath his palm, solid. Real.
A breath left him.
And without meaning to, without reason or purpose… he thought ofher.
He’d never hear her voice again. Not the way it softened when she forgot who he was.
A bitter laugh escaped his throat.
Gods, of all the things to haunt him now. Her voice. Her fury. That ridiculous fire in her eyes even when she was beaten and bleeding. The way she had bitten back every insult with another sharper one.
The way her fingers had curled around his.
In another life, perhaps.
In another life, he might’ve gotten to know her. Might’ve sat beside her inthisgarden, not at the edge of death but a beginning.
Another dry laugh cracked from his chest. She would’ve fit here. Too well.
Hell, she still might.
