The blockade at the bridge is nearly set, torches flickering as guards bark orders and position themselves. We’ve arrived at the perfect time—any later, and we’d be trapped. The faint clink of armor and low murmurs drift from the guards stationed at both ends. My muscles coil with the instinct to run, but I force myself to stay silent, each step deliberate as we weave through unseen.
When my boots finally meet the familiar dirt of the slums, I exhale a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. The tension in my chest doesn’t fully leave, though. Not until we follow Kael’s lead to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of The Black Stream markets.
Inside, the moment his magic lifts, it’s like something slithers off my skin. Like stepping out of an oppressive cloak I didn’t ask to wear.
“Did you just remove the cloak?” I ask, my voice sharper than intended.
“Yes. Now you’ll have to go back to moving through the shadows like before,” he replies, amusement coating his tone.
I narrow my eyes. “How do you know how I moved before?”
Kael turns, the muscles in his jaw tight. He closes the space between us in a few strides, “I was born in the shadows, darling,” his voice comes out a low rumble. “I’ve made a home in them, and they’ve welcomed me.” His voice is heavy with unspoken meaning, as if daring me to dig deeper.
“Were you following me? Why?” The accusation in my tone is impossible to miss.
“When I saw you moving through The Underbelly, setting voidroot wagons ablaze, I was...intrigued,” he says with a note of sincerity.
My jaw tightens, and I ball my hands into fists. “Intrigued? I’m not some puzzle for you to solve, Shadow Boy.”
“Shadow Boy?” He chuckles, low and unhurried. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to wound me, Lightborne.”
The way the name rolls off his tongue—Lightborne—sends a prickle down my spine. I grip the hilt of my dagger, though I know it would do little against a man who can bend shadows to his will.
“Whatever your game is, I’m not playing.”
Kael steps closer, his gaze fixed on mine. “That’s where you’re wrong, Iskara—if that really is your name. You’re already playing. You just don’t know the rules yet.”
“Enlighten me then,” an invitation I’m not entirely sure I’d like him to fulfill.
“Look at your chest, Lightborne.”
I look down to see a faint imprint poking out above my threadbare tunic. A shimmering imprint of a constellation that spans my entire chest, the Stars reaching out to the tips of my collarbones.
It’s the Eye of Lireal.
I’d know it anywhere.
The constellation of the Lightborne.My constellation.
The threads shimmer like starlight beneath my skin—threads of silver fire etched across bone. Not ink. Not scars.Light.
It pulses under my gaze—like it knows I’m looking.
“What in the Stars...” Ronyn gasps, eyes wide. “And can we come back to the voidroot?—”
“You are the Lightborne from the prophecy, whether you’re ready to admit that or not. ‘Her skin shall glow with threads of light’—I know you’ve heard that before,” Kael looks at me with an intensity that unsettles me.
I have heard it. Of course I’ve heard it. It’s been my mantra for twenty summers.
“Isk... is what he’s saying true? Are you...her?” He steps forward, softer. “Hey. Breathe. It’s still you in there, yeah?”
Still me.But everything feels too tight. Like my skin doesn’t fit anymore. Like I’m standing in someone else’s reality. Like I’m watching my own nightmares take form.
The weight of it slams into me. Prophecy. Destiny. Skin that glows like the fucking Stars. My breath comes too fast, too sharp. This isn’t happening. Thiscan’tbe happening.
“I can’t do this right now! I need to go home. I need to see my little sister.Leave me alone!”Isnarlthe last words, thick with venom, the kind that leaves your throat raw. My chest flares with light, and I clutch at my skin, beating my fist across my chest, urging it to go away. To beat it into submission.
I must look crazed, because both men remain silent. Ronyn watches me with trepidation, but Kael takes a step closer, as if moving to touch me. I recoil, before regaining my composure and turning on my heel.
