I sprint toward the outpost?—
Boots slamming into hard-packed earth, lungs burning, Threads still sparking hot beneath my skin.
Then I stop dead in my tracks.
Talen stands alone in the clearing outside the building. One arm raised. Palm tilted to the sky, still as stone. No shouting. No strain, just complete, terrifying control.
Three men hang in front of him, suspended midair like insects caught in glass. Their eyes wide, white-ringed, and unblinking.
And he’s not even breaking a sweat.
One of them spots me.
“You traitorous bitch,” he spits. “Bet you spread your legs for the whole Citadel in exchange for learning your magic.”
Talen blinks. Just once. Then cocks his head, “Oh,” he taunts, voice level. “You really shouldn’t have said that.”
And then?—
The airshatters.
Not with sound. Withheat.
It doesn’t build. Doesn’t crackle. It justis. Fire, everywhere—blazing to life in an instant, no spark, no source. It bleeds from the space around Talen, threads of flame coiling from nowhere. No fuel. No trigger. Just rawpower.
The three men don’t even get a chance to scream.
Talen twists his hand—and the fire obeys. It licks forward in thin, blazing cords, alive with heat and hunger, twisting mid-air before snapping around their bodies like nooses. Then he clenches his fist, and the ropes squeeze. Bone cracks. Flesh sears. And in a blink, their whole bodies collapse in on themselves like paper pulled through a furnace.
One second there. The next—ash.
I stare.
My heart pounds hard, ribs too tight to contain it. I can’t move. Can’t breathe.
Because I’veneverseen that much power before.
Smoke rises around him—thin, curling streams that glow faint at the edges, like metal just starting to cool. His Threads are still visible, flickering around his arms, faint but steady, like the magic hasn’t finished working its way out.
Then he drops his hand and just like that, it’s gone. The heat. The smoke. The weight of what he did. Everything folds back into silence, like the world takes a breath and resets around him, like none of it ever happened.
He turns, eyes find mine. And god, he’s just standing there. Breathing. Calm.
And I realise something in that moment: He’s always had this in him. All of it. And not once has he used it on me. That shouldn’t make me feel safe, but it does.
He watches me for another second. Then?—
“You okay?” His voice is soft and in complete contrast to what he just did.
I hesitate but nod. I’m shaken. Strung tight, heart still hammering too fast to count. But yeah, I’m okay.
I let a slow exhale, then turn, and something shiny catches my eye. I glance down—Talen’s dropped one of his blades. I grab it, he gives a quick nod, telling me to toss it over.Mistake, my hands are still shaking, and the blade goes wide, clipping his side. Not deep. Paper cut at worst, but still enough to make him flinch.
“Fuck, Thorn,” he jokes. “You trying to kill me now? I thought we’re on the same side.”
“Sorry, I was?—”
He lets out a breath, half a laugh, shakes his head. “Come on. Long fucking day. Let’s get inside.”
