“Stay with me.” The words ghost against my hair. “Just breathe with me. Please, Aria.” That last part comes out raw and desperate, as if he’s the one drowning.
Astrafel stirs. Not gently. Not with patience. He answers my fear with fury, his rage fusing with mine. Magic bursts through me unchecked. There’s no ruby. Power simply erupts from my skin like a storm breaking, and the room reacts. Papers scatter. Bundles of herbs cascade from their drying racks.
Rowe’s breath hitches, but he doesn’t let go.
“I’m broken,” I choke out, fisting his shirt. “But Dom . . . he was different. He understood the darkness inside me, and never tried to fix me or change me. He just . . .” My voice breaks. “He loved me for who I was.”
But Astrafel’s presence coils tighter, suffused with heat, and a wretched undercurrent of outrage at my denial. Through our bond he drags up memories I’d buried, reframing every moment I mistook as proof I belonged in darkness. The thrill I once felt when I hurt something too far gone to save was never mine—it washisgrief,hisjudgment,hissorrow for the world, and what had been done to it. And in that clarity, I see how badly I misread it, wearing his pain as though it were my own identity.
“No.” The word burns as it escapes. “You had no right.”
“Aria?” Rowe’s voice cuts through the haze, but I’m trembling so hard my limbs won’t respond as another wave rises, and Astrafel floods my senses with truths I never wanted: Dom’s hands on mine after violence, his praise for the hunger he swore we shared, when the magic beneath my skin had never cried out in hunger, but in agony. My pain had been romanticized, my trauma recast as strength, and I believed him. I built a life on that belief.
“I thought I was broken,” I rasp. “Thought he loved the damage. That what we had was real because we survived it together.”
But I see it now. What we shared was built on ruin.
“Stop it,” I sob. “You can’t just make me stop loving him.” My voice cracks on the last word. “You can’t take this from me. I don’t care if it was arranged or cursed or cruel. I can’t erase what I feel.”
“Hey. Focus.” Rowe’s arms tighten, voice steadier than mine. “Stay with me. You’re safe here.”
Astrafel’s presence pulses with something beyond rage now—grief, perhaps, or bitter understanding. He offers one final echo: Dom praising my “darkness” after a particularly brutal training session, while beneath my skin, my magic had been screaming in anguish.
It was a mirror maze; a bond built of shared wounds. And Dom loved the sharpest edges of me. The parts that bledwhen pressed. He mistook my damage for devotion and I let him. I believed that surviving side by side meant we belonged together.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please, I can’t—I don’t know who I am without him.”
But it was never safety, softness or choice. It was need. It was fear mistaken for gravity.
It was love, but it asked me to shrink and sharpen. To bleed for him, even when I didn’t want to.
Rowe rocks me slowly. His words are quiet, barely more than breath. His heartbeat is the only thing steady in the wreckage.
“I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“You’re Aria,” Rowe says without hesitation. “And we’ll figure out the rest.”
Tears soak into his shirt as my body shakes apart, but his arms only tighten, anchoring me as my world crumbles. His fingers tremble as they smooth through my hair, betraying the calm he tries to project.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my temple.
Where Dom would have asked for explanations, would have needed answers I couldn’t give, Rowe just holds me. He doesn’t push or demand.
I cling to him like he’s the last real thing left. Because maybe he is.
Maybe he always was.
The tears crust onmy cheeks as Astrafel’s presence withdraws, leaving a hollow ache in its wake. I’m left scraped clean, stripped of everything but the bitter certainty that I’ll never be truly alone again. This thing inside me, he’s part of me now. And I loathe it.
I pull back from Rowe’s chest, warmth flooding my cheeks as I hastily wipe them dry. Gods, I just completely fell apart in his arms like some fragile little girl. I square my shoulders, clawing for some semblance of control and dignity. He’s seen me cry before, but not like this. Not shattered beyond recognition.
But there’s no room for self-pity. Every moment wasted is another step closer to being found. I inhale through my nose, forcing my thoughts to reorganize and focus.
“Kian probably knows I’m here already,” I say. “Alexander has surveillance in more places than anyone admits. It’s only a matter of time before they come.”
Rowe’s exhale is laced with a weight heavier than frustration as I pull away from him, something flickering across his features too quickly to name. He doesn’t reach for me again, just lets his handsfall to his sides.
“Let them,” he says quietly. “The sanctuary is outside their jurisdiction. You’re safe here.”
