She was not only a thief but a liar, too.
Yet I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help that silly hope that tore my chest open.
“Branwyn…”
The name spilled from my lips, raw as a wound. Mortals couldn’t return from the dead. All the Five knew that. Hollowborn were brought back by the Renegade’s foul spells, but they were only husks, walking carcasses stained by their starved magic, the memories of who they once were just shadows on the wall. All of us from the Pentarchy had lost loved ones. Falling in love with a mortal is something we learned the hard way to avoid, yet how could I have resisted Branwyn?
“You brought me home.” Branwyn’s last words still burned inside me. Her blood, as red as her hair, trickled into the soil of her village. I wiped off the entire legion sent after her and the rebels, but the Romans were tricky, and their spears—merciless. I watched the Eternal Night claim her, claim me, and darkness fell over me for centuries.
The final note of the old song hung in the air, the wards resonating with it, and I forced myself to look at the woman at the piano. Brown hair shorn to the chin, lips curled in a defiant half-smile, eyes the color of lavender—so different from the raw beauty of the warrior princess I buried in these lands millennia ago. And yet… something stirred.
Her shadow. A thread of her fire. But not Branwyn. No—something else.
“Do you feel it, Emrys?” she asked. My heart lurched.
I cleared my throat. “Feel what?”
“There’s a hum in the air. Like… glass, vibrating.”
I downed the rest of the brandy. “The wards respond to the undyne inside you,” I said. Even I didn’t believe it. There was something more. Something I couldn’t name.
She studied me, suspicion sharpening her gaze. “Are the wards in that ritual chamber below?”
I chuckled.
Ah, my clever little thief. This woman had fire, but she was no reincarnation of my Branwyn. This one was fierce, calculating, and equally dangerous.
“Planning to take them down, Miss Daphne? Free me and slip away into the chaos?” I grinned. She shook her head, her short locks spilling over her face. I watched her, mesmerized. There was something from my lost love, after all. Brave. Stubborn. Tempting.
She tried to mask her horror. Delight unfurled in me like smoke. So, the little thief was plotting something.
Then her fingers brushed the keys again, and the first notes of Branwyn’s song echoed through the room.
It was too much.
The weight of time, of everything I had lost, swept over me like a tide. I sensed it in my spine. My shoulders. My soul.
I felt ancient.
Did she notice the effect this song had on me? Was this a game she was playing?
“Good night, Miss Daphne,” I said, turning toward the door. “And thank you for the company. Don’t go outside. Don’t wander to the lake.” My voice sounded different. Strained. Too many had ghosts already stirred.
The music stopped, and I heard her take a sharp breath. Was she surprised that I left? Disappointed?
When I closed the door behind me, the melody resumed. Different this time, more cheerful. Hungry for life.
I walked into Liang in the entry hall. “How did it go?” he asked. He had his coat on and was loading his favorite gun.
“Are you heading out?” I dodged his question, but that made him pause and look at me with a half-smile.
“It went well, then,” he said and headed to the door. “Will check for any of the Renegade’s scum.”
“Can you…keep an eye on her too? She’s reckless. Might head out into the night again.”
Liang froze with his hand on the doorknob and smiled. “Of course.”
He vanished into the night.
