Ways that were slowly killing me.
Each time she’d used her power, it had pulled something from me. Not consciously. She had no idea what was happening.But her magic recognized mine as a compatible source, drawing on my life force to fuel her wild displays of Veil-touched power. My hands, which wouldn’t stop shaking, were a reminder of the curse’s acceleration, fed by magical demands it was never meant to handle.
I should have been furious. I should have seen her as a threat to be eliminated rather than a person to protect. Instead, I found myself checking her pulse for the third time in an hour, my fingers gentle against her throat.
Pathetic.
Rain began to fall outside, droplets striking the broken windows with sounds like distant drums. The temperature was dropping. I could see my breath in the air, could feel the cold seeping through stone that had once held warmth but no longer remembered how. We needed fire. Heat. Food, if I could manage it.
I left her side long enough to explore the tower’s upper levels, shadows scouting ahead to ensure we were alone. Most of the rooms were empty, picked clean by scavengers or time, but I found a stash of dry wood in what had once been a storage chamber. Old, brittle, but it would burn.
The hearth downstairs was cracked but functional. I built the fire carefully, methodically, the way I’d been taught in those early years when survival depended on not attracting attention. Small flames that gave heat without much light, positioned so the smoke would disperse before reaching the windows. Assassin habits die hard.
Seris stirred as warmth began to fill the chamber, her dark eyes fluttering open to find mine across the growing flames.
“You’re bleeding,” she said, her voice hoarse from magical exhaustion.
“It’s nothing.”
“Liar.” She tried to sit up and immediately winced, one hand going to her ribs where the targeting sigils had been carved. “What happened to the wolves?”
“You killed them. All of them.” I fed another stick to the fire, not meeting her eyes. “Your magic disintegrated them on a molecular level. Quite impressive, actually.”
“And nearly killed you in the process.”
It wasn’t a question. Somehow, despite being unconscious for most of it, she knew what her power had done to me. The connection between us worked both ways, she could feel my life force the same way I could feel hers.
“The risks were acceptable,” I said.
“To who?”
“To me. You’re worth more alive than dead.”
She was quiet for a moment, studying my face in the firelight. Looking for tells, probably. Signs of deception or hidden agenda.
“You’re in pain,” she observed.
“Everyone’s in pain. The trick is not letting it show.”
“Is that what they taught you? The assassins who raised you?”
I looked up sharply. I hadn’t told her about my training, hadn’t mentioned the years spent learning to kill with hands and blades and shadows. But she was watching me with those dark eyes that missed nothing, cataloging details I thought I’d hidden.
“What makes you think I was raised by assassins?”
“The way you move. Like every step is calculated, every gesture planned three moves in advance. The way you built that fire, exactly hot enough to warm us, not bright enough to be seen from outside. The scars on your arms.” She nodded toward my sleeves, torn during the fight. “Those aren’t battle wounds. They’re training marks. Self-inflicted, probably during lessons on pain tolerance.”
Observant. Too observant for comfort.
“My father had little use for bastard sons,” I said finally. “Especially ones born to Fae concubines. The assassins were his way of ensuring I’d be useful rather than simply inconvenient.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven when the training started. Twelve when I made my first kill.”
Her expression didn’t change, but I caught the slight tightening around her eyes. Disgust, maybe. Or pity. Both were preferable to fear.
“What was it like?” she asked softly. “Being that young and having to take a life?”
