“I’m okay,” I whisper, though we both know it’s a lie. “Or I will be. Once I explain everything.”
“Everything,” he repeats, the word heavy with promise and threat. “Starting with why you’re running from checkpoint guards withKane Richards, and ending with why you look like you’ve seen hell itself.”
I close my eyes, letting my head rest against the cool window. “That’s the thing about hell, Rowe,” I murmur. “Sometimes it wears a familiar face. Sometimes it lives in your blood.”
The car accelerates slightly, as if Rowe can outrun the weight of my words. But we both know better. Some truths follow, regardless of how fast you run. Regardless of how far you flee. And the truth I carry? It’s about to change everything.
The sanctuary’s wards openaround the car with the grace of ancient breathwork, their presence subtle but perceptible. There’s no pressure behind them, none of the city’s bruising enchantments or imposed surveillance fields. These barriers hum in quiet cadence, interwoven threads of security so refined they register as touch instead of force. My mind itches with the need to dissect the spellcraft, to decode how Rowe designed something so complex yet fluid. This magic is distinctly him—steady, unintrusive, and protective in a way that doesn’t demand submission.
Rowe’s knuckles, drained of color since the checkpoint, begin to warm again as we pass through. A breath escapes him, not quite relief, but something adjacent to it. Still, tension carves valleys between his shoulders, echoing in the rigid line of his jaw.
Silence thickens inside the car, where Kane remains a weight in the backseat, his presence restrained. His usual sardonic commentary is absent, replaced by something quieter, more calculated.
My body picks now to remind me it has limits. The adrenaline that dragged me through hours of survival finally burns out, leaving behind tremors and hollowed muscles. My limbs shake beneath their own weight, each heartbeat reverberating through my bones. When I press my palms to my thighs, they’re slick with cold sweat.
The sanctuary reveals itself in layers, reality peeling back to make space for wonder. It bears little resemblance to the filtered images splashed across press channels. They promise clean laboratories, and carefully staged creature habitats curated for highborn donors. Here, the living world refuses to be packaged.
Ancient trees loom from the deepening shadows, their trunks thicker than district gate columns, branches laced with light so soft it borders on language. Their canopy pulses faintly, resonating through bone and bloodstream in a rhythm too old to name.
One encloses a jungle perpetually suspended in twilight, where Starwings flit between shadow and light, silver dust trailing from their wings as they orbit floating motes of bioluminescence. In another, Emberfoxes dart through patches of blue-flamed flora, their fur incandescent with sunrise tones as they weave playfully between the roots. Every inch of this place hums with the pulse of life refusing to be harnessed.
The road beneath us shifts in response to the car’s passage, recalibrating to preserve the wild terrain. Moss glows at the edges of the path, soft light bleeding upward from the forest floor as if the stars had chosen to root themselves here.
The car slows beside a structure that blends seamlessly into the land, its stone walls veined with phosphorescent vines that pulse in rhythmic intervals, casting a soft glow that becomes heartbeat rather than light. Rowe steps out and circles to my door, the precision of his movements marred only by the exhaustion he can no longer mask.
His hand finds mine, grip careful but inexorable as he helps me from the car. The warmth of his skin against my own sends echoes of memory skittering through my mind.
“Follow us,” he calls over his shoulder to Kane, not looking back. There’s no space for negotiation in his tone. A hesitation ripples behind me, resistance flaring for a breath, but Kane obeys. His boots crunch against gravel, each step sounding far too loud for a place like this.
Life breathes between these trees in ways that crack my composure. Workers drift between enclosures, their spines unbowed and their eyes free of the wariness I’ve grown accustomed to in Eclipsera. Here, people walk without performance, speaking in low, unhurried voices. Laughter rises from a group sharing steaming mugs, near an aviary strung with softwire hammocks and heat lamps.
The rage coiled beneath my skin begins to fade enough to let breath enter more fully, and the presence inside me withdraws its claws, the forest seeming to soothe even that.
“Quite the setup you’ve got here,” Kane remarks, gaze scanning the horizon. “I can see why someone would trade politics for this.”
Rowe’s grunt might be acknowledgment or a warning, and his attention remains fixed on the terrain, one hand still at my elbow, guiding but never gripping.
I reach out toward a cluster of flora blooming beside the path. Petals fold in recursive fractals, their hues shifting between impossible spectrums, like they’re tuned to emotion rather than light. My fingers stretch closer, but Rowe catches my wrist before I touch it.
“Those secrete a toxin potent enough to strip your skin to the bone,” he says, voice gentler than his words. “Beautiful, but lethal. Like most things here.”
A researcher passes us, nodding toward Rowe while carefully balancing what appears to be a nest of newly hatched somethings that keep shifting color. She doesn’t pause or question our presence, or my obvious disorientation. Her expression holds no suspicion, only quiet acknowledgment before she moves on.
“Where are we going?” I mutter, nearly tripping as a root coils beneath my boot.
“My place.” The words rasp from his throat. When my footing falters again, his hand steadies me.
Overhead, a shriek breaks the stillness. A juvenile griffin arcs through the sky, wings still dusted with gold-down, trailing behind a self-guided training orb that dodges and dives on erratic propulsion.There’s no chain, no muzzle, no blood staining its feathers. It flies not because it must, but because it can.
Something in my chest pulls taut, and I know this is what magic was meant to be—not weaponized or harnessed in pain, but wild and alive, unashamed of its freedom.
Behind me, Kane lets out a low whistle. “Now that’s a sight you don’t get without admission fees and betting slips.”
Rowe’s jaw tightens, but before he can respond, a young woman approaches. She cradles what I first mistake for living flames against her chest. Ember flares with each chirp, but it’s no fire, only a phoenix chick, barely hatched, glowing with heat and wonder. She waves at Rowe with her free hand, completely unfazed by the obvious tension rolling off him.
I blink hard against the sudden moisture in my eyes. This place is memory made manifest. Something I lost long before I realized I wanted it. A dream unburied. A world where wonder still exists without price tags attached.
“Well, well,” a voice booms from the path ahead, loud enough to startle a flock of dusk-winged finches into the trees. “If it isn’t my favorite emotionally repressed beast handler!”
