“What in the elements was that!?” I shouted.
Fallon’s expression hardened. “Is whatever’s in your head more important than your life? Distractions—no matter how small—can kill you.”
The irony sparked at my fingertips.
“And what do you care?” I yelled, hurling fire at her. She deflected with a splash of water, eyes narrowing. “I’m just part of the fucking mission to you!”
We clashed—fire and water, emotion and fury colliding. Her strikes grew sharper, heavier, as if she were fighting an enemy for her life.
“What happened in that war room, Fallon?” I wiped blood from my busted lip. “Why do you hate Elias Wylder so much?”
Vines snaked around my boots, trying to pin me. I burned them to ash. She countered with a wave of water, and instinct took over—I channeled it back at her.
Fallon staggered, drenched. I stared at my hands, bewildered by the foreign instinct that had driven me to wield her element. When I looked back up at my twin sister, her eyes blazed into mine, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.
Her knuckles whitened around the pommel of her daggers as she stood before me—a natural disaster waiting to destroy everything in its path.
But instead of causing chaos, she turned and walked away.
I threw up my hands in frustration as she strode off. Since the day I met my twin sister, she’d been the most impenetrable brick wall. She carried so much anger in her heart, and now that I knew how to access ourmarekem, I could feel it radiating off her.
Kind of like… me.
When I first enrolled in Mageia, I told myself not to get attached to anyone. I was there for one sole purpose: survival. But as time passed, and I came into my magic, I found myself wanting to burn everything around me down. Every time fate dealt me a card, the game damned me further. I didn’t see the point inconfiding in anyone. Spilling my heart and soul to someone in hopes of what? A companion? What good would that have done?
Until Laney approached me on that rooftop and proved me wrong in every way.
“It’s okay to not be okay,”I spoke through themarekemfor the first time.
Fallon froze, her back still to me.
“Whatever you’re holding in, whatever the reason—it’s okay to not be okay.”
A rush of emotion washed through our bond.
“Why do you hate Elias so much? Maybe we can share the burden,” I pushed.
She turned to face me then, her hazel eyes glossy. For the first time, vulnerability was written across her face.“He’s the reason our mother is dead.”
I wandered the merchant streets of the Glade for hours. The sun had long since retired, allowing its sister to shine down in full glory. Even the moon here glowed with a purple hue, just like the ethereal forest surrounding this place. I’d never seen anything like it.
The Shadow Glade was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.
But it was also home to a true villain.
Fallon gave me no further details after she dropped the bomb—that Elias was the reason our mother, my birth mother, was dead. She walked off without another word, and I was toostunned to stop her. I took out my frustration on a wooden practice dummy until my lungs couldn’t take it anymore.
Part of me clung to what Rhodes had said when they were in a heated argument:You are speaking of a rumor.If this was the rumor he meant, it would make sense why there was so much contempt between them.
Now, I wandered, hoping to exhaust my mind enough that I’d collapse into sleep the moment my head hit a pillow. If I even had a pillow to collapse onto.
That thought stopped me cold in the middle of the cobblestone street. I had no elemental idea where I was supposed to sleep that night. I stood there, unsure of what to do next, when a warm hand tapped my elbow.
I turned to see Ailis looking up at me with a soft smile.
“Hi,” I said, surprised. “Thank you again for the dough ring earlier. It was delicious.”
She nodded, then turned and gestured for me to follow. I trailed behind her through a narrow building tucked beside a floral shop. Inside, it looked like an office—two desks lined the walls, and shelves were stacked with materials. Ailis pulled back a curtain and led me down a set of stairs into what must have been her quarters.
