“I can't.” The agony would kill me. “I don'tdeserveto be in this world.”
“It’s trying to break you. Please don’t let it,” he said. “You’re stronger than it knows. Show it the Wildfire I see every day, the one I love. The one I'll follow into death and beyond.”
Looking up into his face shattered me all over again. The fear I saw in his eyes matched mine.
“What if it’s not breaking me?” I asked quietly. “What if it’s right?” Everyone I loved died.
No, Idestroyedeveryone I loved.
“It’s a memory, Reyla. Not prophecy. What you saw isn't the truth unless you give it permission to be.”
My throat burned. “What if loving only brings loss?”
“Then let me be the one to rewrite our future with you.”
I cracked wide open.
Before I could say anything else, Farris padded past us, his claws clicking on the stone.
I wiped my face, still shaking from the visions, and tried to center myself. The pool wasn't close to finished with us. Its surface rippled again, seeking its next target.
Farris stopped in front of the pool. When his reflection shimmered across the surface, I jerked backward, because this wasn't the nyxin I knew well and loved.
This nyxin's face had stretched into something monstrous, with a mouth packed with fangs, eyes burning like coals, and shadows creeping across his back like living smoke. Worse, those shadows seemed to writhe with captured faces, twisted in silent screams.
Every instinct in me sparked, and I reached for him. “Farris?—”
A soft whine lifted up his throat. He pressed against my thigh, trembling violently.
“It's not real,” Lore said. “Look at him. Look.”
I stroked Farris's chest and scratched behind his ears. I could feel the panic throbbing inside him, the way he pulled tight. He was trying to hide inside his bones.
It wasn't showing him what he was now. It was showing what he had almost become. This was what Prager had tried to turn him into—her shadow enforcer, stealing hope from others to feed her endless hunger. She'd nearly succeeded.
And he not only remembered every moment of agony she'd put him through, but he must also feel he'dallowedit to happen.
My throat tightened as understanding crashed over me. That moment back in the labyrinth, when his shadow begged for forgiveness. It hadn't begged because it had made a choice. It begged because Prager had tortured him, twisted his mind until he'd nearly broken, nearly agreed to become her hunter of shadows and stolen hope. He'd escaped with his soul intact, but barely.
The shame he carried wasn't for what he'd done—it was for how close he'd come to surrendering.
I tugged him onto my lap and held him while he trembled, while he stared into the pool, facing his own darkest moment.
“You didn't become what you see.” I stroked the silky fur. His tail thumped against my thigh, and he whined again. “I know you fought. Even when she hurt you, even when the pain was unbearable, you fought.”
Dorion had sent him to find someone who could help. What if Farris had sought me because he instinctually knew I could not only help Dorion, but heal the wounds Prager had left on his soul?
And now I would.
“You're not what she tried to force you to become,” I whispered in his ear. “You're not the monster she wanted to create. You're what you chose to be when you escaped her.”
The pool quieted.
“She tortured you, and you still shouted no,” I said, my voice fierce with pride. “You're what I hold onto when I'm afraid because you know what real strength looks like.”
He let out a slow, shaky breath and curled tighter in my arms.
“You're the brave nyxin who flung himself into a damaged Sentinel Veil to try to fix it. You're the one who chose love over fear, even after experiencing her cruelty.”
