Rowan x
Tears hitthe page in slow, heavy drops, bleeding through his handwriting, warping the lines, turning his final words into smudged ghosts.
I blink hard, try to pull myself together, but it’s no use. My chest heaves, the ache just claws deeper, until it'stoo muchand the letter suddenly feels too heavy to hold. I fold it without looking at it and set it down beside me.
He knew.
All this time... heknew.
Not just that something bad might happen.
Certainty.
The certainty that he would die. And he carried it, like a weight no one else could see. Alone.
I stare at the floor, throat tight, heart beating like it wants to tear out of my chest. All those strange comments. The way nothing ever seemed to catch him off guard. It wasn’t instinct. He saw it. All of it because he was aLoomreader...Just like Serrane, except no one knew. God, why didn’t he tell anyone?
Tears slip faster now, my chest catching hard as I wipe them across my arm, soaking the fabric of my top.
He touched me, and he saw my Threads, two paths. My survival. His death.
He could’ve saved himself. He could’ve killed me. But he didn’t, he chose me—because he believed there was something better waiting. For Ezzy. For all of us.
I drag in a breath, shaky and uneven, then look around the dorm. This can’t be it, this can’t be what he died for? This mess of silence, secrets and waiting for answers.
A fast, uneasy surge builds beneath my ribs; the thought won’t settle, scraping hard at the inside of my chest. The bed groans as I stand, arm flaring in protest, but I grit through it and start pacing up and down.I want to scream. I want to burn something. I want the world to hurt the way I do.
But none of it will bring him back. That won’t undo any of it. It won't make his death mean anything.
So what do I do?
I could keep waiting—keep hoping Talen will explain everything, that the answers will come if I just hold on a little longer. But that just gives him more time to lie to me, to trick me, betray me. More time for more people I care about to die. He killed Brian, and now Rowan's dead because of Lucien,his friend.
And I didn’t leave Ashvale towait. I didn’t survive Beth. I didn't lose Rowan. I didn’t walk away from Bren and every single thread of safety I ever knew just to stand here shaking in a Citadel dorm room waiting for answers.
So maybe I stop. Stop letting this place decide who, what, I become. I find my own answers, even if it means walking straight into whatever fire’s waiting for me.
My pack’s on the desk beside me—scuffed, half-open, seams straining from a dozen bad repairs. But it’s the same as the day I arrived here, the only part of me that is.
I grab the pack, shove in Rowan’s letters and the last of mum’s journals, and sling it over my shoulder. It drags across the worst part of my injuries; hissing through the pain, I rub my arm but pause when I spot the duck. Stupid thing—don’t even need it anymore, but for some reason I grab it and toss it in anyway.
Then I turn and look around the room; the same itchy wool blanket, the same two desks. The same smell of wet stone, mildew and a hint of damp paper.
I’d said before it felt different. Like something had shifted. It hadn’t been the room. It was me. And I feel it now, bone-deep. That something inside meisn’t coming back.
It’s not grief. Not power. Not even the rage still simmering in my chest like a storm I haven’t named.
It’s certainty.
I know who I am. I’m done being lied to. Done waiting. This is my path now.Mine.
I know what I want. Answers, revenge. Andgodhelp anyone who gets in my way.
A low hum shivers through my chest. My Threads, sluggish before, are now wild and hot, building beneath my skin. The air thickens, charged. My hair lifts with the static, curls tugging at the air like even they’re ready to move.I square my shoulders, facing the door, the weight of the pack familiar against my spine.
My voice comes low. Steady.
“I can do this.”
