For a moment it seems the argument might remain confined to words. Then someone in the crowd spits. The warm splash strikes the ground near my feet. A man near the back of the gathering glares openly at me, his expression twisted with anger and disgust.
“Witch,” he mutters.
The word lands harder than the spit. For an instant the old helplessness threatens to rise in my chest. But I feel the bond waiting there as well, coiled and ready to answer that fear with fire. So again I do exactly what Threxian taught me.
I breathe.
Slow inhale.
Hold.
Release.
The feeling loosens its grip before it can fully take hold, and the warmth of the bond settles into a quiet pulse rather than a rising blaze. Nothing burns. The villagers watch me carefully, waiting for flames that never come.
I realize suddenly that I do not have to remain here while they speak about me as though I am something dangerousstanding in the center of their square. I have done nothing wrong, and yet they stare at me as if waiting for proof of their fears. I refuse to stand quietly while suspicion turns into judgment. Without waiting for the matron to continue her accusations, I lower my head briefly in respectful acknowledgment toward Sister Amelithe, grateful for her defense even if it has not changed the crowd’s mood. Then I turn away from the circle of watching faces before anyone can demand that I stay.
After a moment I simply walk toward the square. My hands tremble slightly by the time I reach the road leading back to my cottage, but the quiet pride that rises alongside the shaking is impossible to ignore.
I had been pushed. Humiliated. Threatened. But the village still stands.
My hands are still trembling as I walk the narrow path back toward my cottage, but the tremor no longer feels like weakness. It feels like the aftershock of something I managed to hold back. Now I had been surrounded by anger and accusation, but the bond had not answered it with destruction. I take a deep breath and allow the warmth to settle into a comfortable rhythm.
You see?I think quietly, not entirely certain whether the thought will travel through the strange connection between us.I did it.
The bond answers with a faint ripple of calm that does not feel like my own emotion at all. It is steadier than that, deeper, like the quiet approval of someone watching from nearby. The sensation makes the corner of my mouth lift despite the difficult morning. Whether he meant to or not, Threxian taught me something valuable.
Night falls heavilyover the marsh. I am just beginning to drift toward sleep when the window explodes inward.
Glass shatters across the floor as a stone crashes through the frame and lands against the far wall with a dull thud. I bolt upright in bed, my heart slamming against my ribs as the link flares in sudden alarm.
For several seconds I cannot move. The room feels suddenly too small, the darkness outside the broken window stretching wide and endless across the marsh. My heart races despite everything I practiced earlier that day, the careful breathing unraveling under the sharp edge of shock. Someone had stood outside my home and thrown that stone with enough force to shatter the glass. Someone had decided that accusation in the square was no longer enough.
I force myself to move, sliding carefully from the bed as shards of glass crunch softly beneath my bare feet. The cold night air slips through the shattered window, carrying the damp scent of the marsh into the room. I step closer, my pulse still racing as I peer into the darkness beyond the cottage. The reeds sway gently under the moonlight, their pale silhouettes bending in the wind, but there is no sign of whoever stood here moments ago. Only silence answers me, which worries me more. The bond pulses sharply beneath my ribs, full of fire this time, and with something far more unsettling. Awareness. As though somewhere beyond the marsh, someone else has noticed what just happened.
10
THREXIAN
The bond tears through my awareness like a blade dragged across raw nerves. Sleep. Fear. Shock. The emotions arrive tangled together, violent and uncontrolled, surging through the tether between us with such intensity that the infernal plane itself seems to recoil from the sudden spike of power.
Elowen is awake. And she is terrified. I do not hesitate.
The world folds around me as I move, shadow splitting open beneath my will as I cross the thin boundary between realms. The marsh night rushes up to meet me, cold air and damp reeds whipping against my senses as I emerge near the small cottage at the edge of Briarthorn.
The broken window is visible immediately. Glass glitters across the ground beneath the frame, pale shards catching the moonlight like frost scattered across the earth.
The bond roars with fury. Someone frightened her. My attention sharpens instantly. Infernal instinct does not require investigation to identify a threat, but I force myself to pause long enough to follow the lingering trace of mortal scent drifting through the marsh path beyond the cottage – ale, sweat, and cowardice. The trail is not difficult to follow.
A man stumbles down the narrow road leading back toward the village square, his steps uneven with drunken arrogance as he mutters something under his breath about witches and curses and justice. He does not realize he has already died. I step from the shadows behind him. He senses the shift in the air a moment too late.
The man turns, confusion already forming on his face as his eyes attempt to adjust to the sudden distortion of darkness gathering around him.
“What the?—”
The hell-born flame answers my anger before the sentence can finish forming. Flame erupts around him in a bloom of white-gold heat that consumes flesh and bone with merciless efficiency. His scream lasts only a heartbeat before the fire devours the sound along with everything else that made him human.
When the flames vanish, nothing remains but drifting ash that scatters across the empty road. The destruction satisfies nothing.
