Her name was a soft place and a sharp one.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her.He’d made rules.Promises.Teased her with them.I won’t kiss you until you beg me to.
He’d meant to keep that line.Then she’d sat there in her little apartment, stubborn chin lifted, eyes blazing as she told him she believed him, even when he talked about dreams that would have sent a saner woman quietly backing away.He’d leaned in to make a point.He’d stayed because the moment his mouth touched hers, the noise in his head had gone quiet.Not gone.Never gone.Just ...muffled.For one breath.It had been a long time since anything made the darkness feel less.
Rezer set the card down carefully and sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled against his lips.He shouldn’t go back.Shouldn’t bring whatever was threading itself through him to her door.
And yet?—
He already knew he wouldn’t stay away.Not after what he’d told her.He could still hear his own voice, low and certain.
I realize you already had a Chosen.But he’s gone.That claim died with him.You said I’m not alone.With those words, you laid claim to me.I’ll be back—not to visit.I’ll be back to claim you as mine.
The decision had felt inevitable then.It still did.You’re brooding.The thought wasn’t his.It slid through his mind like cold water, clear and amused.
Rezer went still.
“Fantastic,” he said aloud.“The hallucinations have opinions now.”
Silence.
Then, faint as breath against the back of his neck:Not hallucinations.
The meaning unfurled without language, older than dark-elf tongue, older than forest speech, deciding to translate itself anyway.
Rezer closed his eyes.“Who are you?”
The air pressed closer.No answer.
When he reached inward, his magic no longer felt neat.Darkness had always been simple, cool, precise, and lethal when he asked it to be.A weapon.A shield.Now it felt layered.
Threads of something else ran through it.Not light, not like the clean brilliance of Syndra’s power, but warmth braided through cool, sharpness woven into smooth.Two currents tangled so tightly he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
He pushed deeper.Pain detonated behind his eyes.The door.Stone.The split sigil burning with light and shadow and cracks spreading like veins.And beyond it, two figures.
Small in the distance, moving through a forest that felt uncomfortably like his.One shimmered at the edges, wrapped in sunlight.The other carried a darker glow, lightning caught in storm clouds.They were walking toward the door, confidently.Not as if they were lost, or simply wandering.Their heads tilted, as if listening.
Come,the not-voice whispered, pleased.
Rezer tore himself free with a snarl, stumbling back until his shoulders hit the wall.His heart hammered.His stomach roiled.
“No,” he breathed.“We’re not doing that again.”
The house creaked around him, wood and stone shifting with the temperature.It sounded a little too much like laughter.He crossed to the tall mirror near the door, oak-framed, its surface faintly silvered with magic.Lately, it had been his easiest escape.
“Looks like my timetable with Sunshine just moved up,” he muttered.
He thought of her shop.The cramped back room.Herbs and crystals and one dangerously honest human.
The mirror rippled—then stilled.
He frowned.“Let’s try that again.”
He laid his palm flat against the glass.It was like pushing against stone.The power recoiled up his arm, leaving his fingers tingling.Rezer narrowed his eyes.“You’re kidding.”
He tried again, opening a thinner path, slipping sideways instead of straight through.The mirror shivered.For a heartbeat, he saw the alley behind Enigma, the crooked door, the flickering security light.Then the image shattered, fracturing into a thousand warped reflections of his own face.
Stay.
