He pressed his thumb to her forehead.
She screamed, and it tore through me.
“Stop,” I choked. “Don’t touch her.”
He leaned closer and whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Her eyes widened, and her lips parted, but no sound came. Her eyes went glassy, and her limbs sagged.
The vines did not loosen.
Her magic poured from her into his waiting hand. He drank it like wine meant for kings, his lips parted, a peaceful expression on his face. Entitled, as if this was his right.
And my wildfire wilted. She was left to wander a desert ether alone while he drained the only thing that was truly hers.
The shard tore away from my hand.
I stumbled back, breathing hard, a bitter taste in my mouth.
Rage thundered through me, but there was nothing to strike, nothing to save.
I snarled, my hands shaking with the need to wrap them around that man's throat. “She wasn't yours to take from.” I paced through the shattered glass. “It washermagic, her voice, her very essence, and you drank it like it belonged solely to you.”
My chest heaved with helpless fury. “She fought for her mind while you stole pieces of her soul.” I slammed my fist against a broken pillar, welcoming the bite of pain. “Do you know what you took? Not just power. You took the part of her that makes her laugh, that makes her burn bright, that makes her who she is today.”
Dropping my head, my voice broke. “No wonder you guard yourself so carefully, love. No wonder you hold your magic close. Someone taught you that letting go means being devoured.”
This wasn’t only a memory of violation, it was a warning. She didn’t fear death but the emptiness that came after, the slow undoing of who she was until nothing remained.
The wind carried away my anger, leaving only hollow understanding behind. “That's why you’ve been so careful when you learn about power. You'd rather fight alone than risk someone else taking what's yours.”
She’d spent her whole life holding herself tight, sharp, and composed, though not to survive, but to stay herself. Because power, for her, wasn’t pride.
It was protection.
Let go, and someone would take everything.
She knew that. And now, so did I.
Another shard rotated in jerking circles in the air beside me, whispering in fractured sounds. I latched onto it.
Now she stood between Lorant and Merrick, between the two men we used to be. Her head turned one way, then the other. The fists at her sides trembled, her knuckles white with strain. Her chest rose in shallow bursts.
“I don’t… I can’t choose,” she rasped. “They’re both you. You’re both real. Vital. What do I have to give up to keep all the parts of you? Because I love them all.”
She wasn’t afraid of making a decision. She was afraid of what that decision might destroy. Choosing one part might mean killing another. She didn’t want to lose any of it, not after what she’d been through.
She’d lived a life where survival meant sacrifice. And now, even love felt like a test she had to pass by holding everything close, even when it tore through her.
“No one’s asking you to give anything up.” My voice was only an echo in this twisted world. “You fused us into one. You made us whole. You were never supposed to be forced to choose.”
The shard stretched and dissolved, and the image shifted.
A sharp scent of blood hit first, followed by acrid smoke and smolderingwood.
Evergorne's marketplace. The borgons. The attack.
I battled in the center of town, defeating one enemy after the next, until claws slipped past my defenses. Pain erupted in my side. Blood flowed too freely. My body collapsed to the cobblestones, warmth gushing down my side.
