Koen doesn’t breathe, or even blink. His jaw is set, his eyes fixed on the collapsing skeleton, and even as the last fragments crumble, his hand remains raised—a faint aura of light still shining over his skin.
I watch with wide eyes as silence falls, punctuated only by the faint hiss of dissipating energy. The pungent scent of burned shadow and bone fills the air. I almost don’t recognize Koen. It’s like he’s not the man I’ve come to know, but something older. Something terrifying that protects at any cost.
His magic spreads across the water and pools in the clearing before it lashes upward again without warning—tall, terrible, and wild. Koen stands in the center of it. His shoulders hunched, his breathing heavy, and his eyes glassy. Distant.Empty.His mind has gonesomewhere far away from us, even while his body remains here.
The light around him surges again, brighter and hotterthan before.
Dimitri steps forward, shielding his eyes. “He’s going to burn himself out!”
“I know,” I say, my voice barely carrying over the roar of magic.
I stumble toward Koen on weak legs. My skin is still blistering from the poison in the nemorak’s magic that is continuing to spread through my veins. But I don’tstop.
“Koen!” I shout. “You have to stop!”
Nothing. He doesn’t even blink.
I try to reach out, but the magic flares near my hand, nearly scorching my fingertips, and I recoil instinctively.
Too close. Too wild.He isn’t in control. His magic has consumed him, swallowed him whole. He looks less like a man and more like a vessel for the sun, pulsing with light and heat and some divine rhythm I cannot understand.
My shadows stir, curling and writhing—understanding the danger. I try to pull them back, to shield them from his fire, but they refuse. They surge outward, straining toward him, tugging at my very fingers, desperate to touch, to reach, to bind.
No, stay back!I will them, trying to command them into myself, but they rebel, splintering and stretching like liquid ink toward him. My chest tightens in panic, fear clawing at me. I cannot let them get burned, but I cannot let him fall either.
I close my eyes, teeth gritted, hands trembling. My shadows fight and twist, desperate and unrelenting, and I let them.Go. Touch him. Protect him.
“This is my fault,” I whisper. Dimitri comes up behind me. He doesn’t speak, but I feel his attention on me.
“If I had been faster, if I had been better,the nemorakwouldn’t have grabbed me. Koen wouldn’t have had to burn himself out trying to save me.”
My fingers curl into fists. “I won’t let someone else die.”
Not because of me.Not again.
I still don’t understand what I feel for him, this stubborn, reckless human who is always getting under my skin in ways I never expected. But I know I feelsomething.And that’s enough. More than enough.
I take a step forward, and the light crackles toward me, making Dimitri lunge to stop me. “Serenya,don’t!”
I don't listen. Instead, I take another step. Then another.
The heat strikes me like open flames, searing my clothes and biting my skin.
I clench my jaw and keep going, pushing through the pain.
“He was protectingme,” I say, louder now, over the roar of magic. “I won’t let him die for it.”
My shoes become scorched, and my sleeves begin to smoke. My skin continues to blister beneath my clothes as the shirt he gave me burns until it’s nothing but ash.
Still, I don’t stop.
I reach out—hand trembling but determined—toward him. My shadows lash and curl around the flames, wrapping around my head, forming a helmet of sorts to provide even the smallest amount of protection, while their tips strain toward him, tangling with his light. The fire screams, searing and brilliant, but I keep stepping forward anyway, letting myself, myshadows, and my will collide with Koen’s storm.
Chapter 23
?---- Koen ? ----?
I am drowning in light.
