Not from him.
Atlas
For a long moment I didn’t move, not because I meant to stay still, but because my body simply refused to remember how.
Caelira’s breath still ghosted against my lips, warm and uneven, her fingers tangled in the front of my shirt as if she hadn’t quite realized she was holding on. Her pulse raced beneath her skin, the frantic rhythm echoing through my own chest until it was impossible to tell where her heartbeat ended and mine began.
I drew in a slow breath, trying to steady the parts of me that would never truly be steady again, and when she blinked up at me her eyes were unfocused, dazed, her mouth still parted from our kiss as though some piece of her had not yet returned fully to the world around us.
The thought struck me with a strange, dangerous certainty that I did not want that part of her to return at all.
Her knees wobbled before I could say anything, the strength leaving her all at once. I caught her easily, instinct moving faster than thought, one arm bracing her before she could fall.
“Easy,” I murmured, though my voice came out rougher than I intended. “You’ve burned through too much.”
“That wasn’t…” She swallowed, her breath shivering as if the effort of speaking required more strength than she had left. “That wasn’t just the conduit.”
“No,” I said quietly, the word slipping out as my thumb brushed along her cheekbone in a gesture I hadn’t meant to make. The simple contact sent a quiet shock through me, but I didn’t pull away. I had already lost whatever restraint I once pretended to possess where she was concerned. “It wasn’t.”
Her eyes softened at that, only slightly, but the shift in her expression carried more weight than it should have. She was exhausted, barely able to stand, yet she still looked at me like I was something she wasn’t certain she should want, and something she could not quite turn away from even if she tried.
Her weight tipped forward again, this time with no warning. Instead of steadying her, I lifted her fully into my arms before she could protest. The movement was easier than it should have been, natural in a way that made something in my chest tighten. Her head settled against my shoulder, her breath warm through the thin fabric of my shirt as her body finally surrendered to the exhaustion she had been fighting.
“Atlas…” she whispered, the word barely more than a breath.
“I’ve got you.”
The promise left me before I could stop it, quiet and instinctive, as natural as breathing. Her hand curled weakly at my collar as I carried her through the doorway, the halls beyond dim and silent as the castle settled around us. Joren was nowhere in sight. The Storm Court had gone strangely still, the usual echoes of movement and voices muted beneath the quiet weight of the hour.
As I walked, her mark brushed lightly against my chest. The contact was warm, steady, alive in a way that made my breath catch for reasons I did not want to examine too closely. Thepulse of it beat against me like something newly awakened, something I had not felt in years.
She was asleep before we reached her rooms.
I laid her carefully on the bed I had given her—my bed, though she didn’t know it yet—and pulled the blanket over her shoulders, tucking it lightly around her as if the motion alone might keep the world from touching her for a little while longer. Her lashes fluttered once, her breathing slowing as sleep finally claimed her fully, the faint glow of silver still lingering beneath her skin like the dying edge of lightning after a storm.
I should have left then.
Instead, I remained where I was, watching the quiet rise and fall of her chest in the dim light. Something in my chest tightened as I stood there, but it was not fear and it was not doubt. It was something steadier than either of those things, something that felt dangerously close to resolve.
The storm had woken. The Courts would not ignore that for long. They would rise in anger, in fear, in calculation. War was already moving toward us whether we wished it or not.
But standing there in the quiet dark with her lying beneath my roof, warm and alive and impossibly bright in a way that had nothing to do with lightning or magic, I found that the thought no longer filled me with the same dread it once would have.
I brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, letting my hand linger just above her skin when the urge to touch her again threatened to overcome the last of my restraint.
“I won’t lose you,” I whispered softly.
My voice barely disturbed the still air of the room. Yet the mark along my ribs warmed in answer, the quiet pulse beneath my skin reminding me of something I had only just begun to understand.
Neither of us were alone anymore.
Part Three
When the sky splits, harvest is taken, and fire consumes the fields
Chapter 24
First Spark
