The words twist my stomach into knots. My hand inches toward my wand, not thinking, only reacting to the man on his knees, the blood dripping down his spine, the villagers shrinking back in terror. Liam notices and moves instinctively, lowering my hand with a subtle shake of his head.
Not yet.
Not until we know what they want.
But the urge to fight, to stop this, burns so fiercely beneath my skin it feels like it might crack me open.
The whip cracks again, this time only inches from the man’s face. A cruel warning.
“You’re a Vireldan supporter,” the scout sneers. “Your protections are conditional. Privileges, not rights. You’ve squandered them. And now you pay the price.”
A woman near the edge of the group sobs into her hands, her entire body trembling. A man attempts to pull her back, but the scouts catch the movement and jerk their attention toward him, sending a shock of terror through the crowd.
My pulse spikes. The world narrows.
Before I even think, before I can stop myself, my body shifts forward, only a step, but enough to draw Sebastian’s immediate reaction.
His arm sweeps in front of me, stopping me hard at the ribs. His breath is sharp, uneven. “Harper,” he warns under his breath, “don’t.”
He doesn’t say it out of fear for himself.
He says it because he knows exactly how this could end. For all of us.
But the scout pauses mid-strike. His hood lifts slow, turning toward the sound of my name leaving Sebastian’s lips. Though his face is shadowed, the air changes, thickens, like recognition is blooming where it shouldn’t. The sigil on his chest pulses.
The scout who turns at the sound of my name is built likea fortress, broad shoulders, thick arms, posture stiff with military precision. His hood hides most of his face, but the moment those blue eyes meet mine, something in my chest jolts. Not with fear. Not even recognition. Something stranger, deeper, like a thread pulled taut between us without consent.
He seems just as startled. His stance shifts, not back, not forward, but inward, like he’s recalibrating something he doesn’t fully understand.
The moment fractures the instant one of the scouts raises his wand. There’s no shouted warning, no command to stand down, just the sudden crack of air splitting open as a streak of sickly green launches toward us. It moves so fast the world seems to shrink around its path, light bending off its edges like heat off metal.
Behind me, villagers scream, their panic rising in a desperate tangle of voices. Liam’s entire body locks beside mine, ready to throw himself forward. Theo shifts with that almost eerie accuracy of his, aligning himself like he’s already calculated every possible outcome. Sebastian’s curse slips out in a low hiss, sharp enough to cut through the noise.
But none of it has time to root. I don’t think, there isn’t room for thought. My mind barely registers the danger before instinct claws its way up my spine and takes control. Something cracks inside my chest, a sudden bloom of pressure that feels too fierce to contain. Heat rushes through me in a violent surge, familiar and terrifying all at once.
My magic answers before my wand even rises.
It tears out of me like it’s been waiting for the moment, wild and unrestrained, far stronger than anything I’ve ever willingly summoned. It collides with the incoming spell midair, and the green light splinters on impact, breaking apart in a shower of shattered sparks. They rain down overthe wet ground, sizzling as they fade, leaving the air humming around me.
The recoil of that power slams through me, flooding every scar along my back with blistering heat. It crawls beneath my skin, too intense to be anything but pain and yet too familiar to make me stop. Before I can catch my breath, another scout lunges toward us, wand leveled at Liam. But the magic has already taken hold, spiraling through my bloodstream, sharper than instinct, faster than thought. I pivot toward him, lifting my hand without even realizing I’ve done it, and what erupts out of me isn’t anything controlled or practiced. It’s a violent rush of violet-black energy, raw and jagged, tearing through the air before slamming straight into his chest.
He drops instantly.
The first scout is still crumpled against a shattered fence. The second lies sprawled at Liam’s feet, his wand rolling uselessly across the dirt. I stand in the center of the square, lungs seizing around a tangled breath, the scent of scorched earth curling upward like smoke from a dying fire. My heart hammers hard enough to bruise my ribs, each beat pushing more of that volatile magic outward until my entire body feels like it’s humming.
Theo murmurs something under his breath, fingers wrapping tightly around his wand, his posture taut as though he can feel the energy vibrating through the space just as clearly as I can. Liam isn’t looking at the fallen scouts anymore, he’s looking at me. Wide-eyed. Startled. Trying to understand what he just witnessed, and maybe what it means.
Two scouts remain.
One turns and bolts, panic overtaking duty.
But the last, the one with the blue eyes, doesn’t move. He stands completely still, chest rising and fallingbeneath his dark leathers. The Shadeborne sigil stitched across his breastplate glows faintly, pulsing like a second heartbeat. His gaze stays locked on mine, unwavering in the chaos, and something in it shifts again. A flicker of emotion I can’t name, sharp enough to twist in my stomach.
It isn’t hatred. It isn’t fear.
It’s something far more unsettling.
Recognition.
