Alaric eased the blade away—not back to its owner. He turned it in his grip until the hilt faced me. “Here.”
I blinked, the market noise fading to a dull hum. “What?”
A flicker of a smile touched his mouth. “Consider it… payment for the disrespect.”
The grip was warm from his hand when I took it. The blade was plain but perfectly balanced.
Not a trinket. A weapon.
Alaric stepped back, the vendor still staring after us, pale as fish-belly.
“If anyone in this city looks at you like that again,” he said—loud enough for the man to hear—“use it.”
I could end him. One move and I could fill his lungs with salt and drag him beneath the surface of his own shadow.
But I couldn’t. Not here.
Not with so many eyes.
I didn’t know what would happen if I lost control. And I couldn’t let anyone see what I truly was.
So I swallowed it down—burning like seawater boiling in my chest—knowing if I let it out…
I wouldn’t stop until this whole place drowned.
My mark flared beneath the cloth, heat pulsing like a warning. I pulled the scarf tighter around my face and shoulders, fingers trembling.
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.
Rage and disgust twisted inside me like a storm.
This was what the world saw us as—commodities. Trinkets for their pleasure. Pretty monsters to be packaged and sold.
I wanted to scream, to tear down the blood-red door, to rip the rot from the bones of this place. I clenched my fists until my nails bit skin, biting down the fury that threatened to consume me.
Theycould’ve taken me.
If Alaric hadn’t found me first… I might’ve ended up here.
And then—my mark betrayed me.
A soft glow pulsed beneath my cloak, faint but unmistakable, like the rhythm of my heartbeat.
I yanked the fabric tighter, but it was too late. A quiet gasp came from somewhere behind the stall. Someone had seen.
A figure moved in the shadows, posture changing like they’d just found something far more valuable than anything sold in this wretched place.
Alaric tensed beside me, his grip on my wrist tightening. He didn’t look at me, but I saw the way his awareness shifted the way his hand drifted—just slightly—toward the hilt of his blade.
"Stay calm," he murmured, voice lower now, urgent. "We need to leave—now."
My pulse quickened.
"We can't just leave," I said, my voice tight with emotion. "Those creatures—those people—someone has to help them."
Alaric didn’t look at me. “There’s nothing we can do,” he said, quiet but unyielding. “I told you what to expect here. I told you there are worse things they can do than kill you. We can’t save them.”
"So we just leave them?" I demanded. "After everything we’ve seen—after everything we’ve survived—you’re telling me we letthathappen?"
