She shakes her head. “I’m shaking too hard and I feel like I might pass out. It’s probably best to go on foot.”
“Our magic,”she says. “When we fought Lakhu together. It shouldn’t have worked like that.”
“No. It shouldn’t have.”
“Why did it?”
I hold her gaze—those mismatched eyes that have haunted me for centuries. “They share an origin. Both twisted by the same night. The same dark magic.”
“What night?”
The question hangs between us. I could tell her everything—the altar, her brother, the truth that’s been buried beneath Lakhu’s lies.
But she has to remember on her own. If I tell her, she’ll think it’s another manipulation.
“The night you died,” I say finally. “The night everything changed.”
She stares at me. I see the questions building—the fragments she can’t piece together, the truths hovering just beyond reach.
“You’ll remember,” I tell her. “When you’re ready. You’ll remember everything.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll still protect you. Still give you the choice Lakhu never did.”
Something flickers in her expression. Not trust—not yet—but something adjacent to it. The first crack in her certainty that hasn’t been filled with new hatred.
“I still don’t trust you,” she says.
“I know.”
“I might still kill you.”
“I know that too.”
She studies me for a long moment. Then, grudgingly: “Your brother—the loud one. Is he always that...”
“Annoying? Reckless? Determined to set things on fire?”
“I was going to say enthusiastic.”
“That’s a polite word for it.” I almost smile. “Yes. He’s always like that. You’ll get used to it.”
“Bold of you to assume I’ll be around long enough to get used to anything.”
“Bold is all I have left.”
She snorts—an actual snort, surprised out of her despite everything. The sound catches us both off guard. For a moment, neither of us knows what to do with it.
“We should keep moving,” she says finally. “Before Lakhu regroups.”
“Agreed.”
We set out through the forest together—not allies, not enemies. Something in between. Something that might become either, depending on what she remembers.
But for the first time since she tried to kill me, I feel something that might be hope.
SEVEN
