Just like everyone else.
He fooled me.
The blanket tightened.
Rhodes’s fingers traced a gentle line up my arm. “I know it’s absurd to even ask this, given what he did. I can’t believe…” His voice cracked. “I can’t believe what he did to you. But somehow, he saved you, too—he led me to you. I just hope I wasn’t too late. Please, Scarlet. Please wake up.”
I didn’twantto.
“I should have chased you on the roof. I should have refused to let you walk away without hearing me out. For months, I’d been watching my brother, and I finally found a lead to the trouble he was in. The note you found in my jacket—it wasn’t mine, it wasn’t meant for me.”
My mind went back to that moment: my hands wrapping around the note stuffed in his pocket.
I told you to get close to her. Not that close. You fucked everything up. Have Scarlet on the mountain by this evening, or Kalluri will know that you’re a mage -Grim.
I had noticed that the top half of the note was missing. If only I had stayed. If only I had let him explain the meaning of what was happening.
“You were shivering in my arms when I woke before the sunrise, so I quickly dressed and went to our dorm to get more blankets. I found the torn parchment on the floor of our room.Maybe I should have gone looking for Shayde right then… but I couldn’t leave you alone on the roof after the night we had.”
He paused. “I couldn’t let you wake up before I returned and think I’d abandoned you. I chose you over the hunt I’d been on. I’ll never regret that choice—but I’ll always regret letting you slip through my fingers.”
The memory of that morning hit like a blade to the chest, stealing my breath. When I found that note in his jacket, a part of me already knew the truth. Rhodes was never part of the darkness festering in Mageia’s halls. But I looked into the safety of those gray-blue eyes—and I ran the other way.
He was my beacon while I was his storm.
“There’s a wound on my side where a thorn used to be,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “And Lakota’s a nightmare in the Golden Crest without you. He’s practically terrorizing them. Stress-eating the livestock, too. He told Noemi about his past—what he remembers of it. More memories clicked into place once he saw Fallon. But that’s not my story to tell. That’s between you two.”
Lakota.
The memory of his voice—steady, fierce—rushed back to me.
“Tonight is not the night you lose. Tonight is the night you take it back.”
“Take what back?”
“Your life.”
It turned out Lakota’s life hadn’t been his own. He had been my birth mother’s bonded dragon—until Tyria stole his memories, erasing everything he had ever known. Somehow, her bond with him had transferred to me. Lakota had soared the skies for years searching for me, yet always returned to the mountains each night. If I didn’t have the will to find answers for myself, I certainly had the will of the elements to find them for him.
My next inhale came a little easier, filling my chest with quiet warmth.
I felt Rhodes press a soft kiss to the top of my hand as he whispered, “I’m so sorry about Delaney.”
Laney.
Icy rain drenched my skin as I held her close, feeling her light fade as she rasped, “Keep. Writing.”
My eyes shot open, and the invisible blanket tightened around my face, squeezing the air straight from my lungs. I coughed, choking on every breath. Rhodes quickly lifted me, rubbing slow circles across my back. My hands clawed at my throat, helplessly trying to draw in air. As my breathing finally steadied, the choking gave way to sobs, and warm tears streamed down my face. I squeezed my eyes shut.
I can’t do this.
Laney isgone.
Rhodes pulled me into his arms, holding me as my cries broke against him, his familiar scent of vanilla cashmere and sandalwood wrapping around me. I couldn’t manage words. I couldn’t even lift my arms. He was the only thing keeping me upright.
For a split second, I truly believed I had conquered the darkness within me. That I had clawed my way out of Rock Bottom for the last time, leaving it shattered in my wake.
But not everything that shatters has to stay broken.
