Ravelle chuckles from where she sits beside him, sharpening a dagger, her manicured hands a sharp contrast. “You should know better than to take a lady’s sweets, Prince.”
Alira rolls her eyes from her spot beside Serenya. “Children. The both of you.” She tosses a pinecone at Dimitri. He catches it lazily and lobs it at me.
“Control your princess, golden boy,” he says, laughing when Serenya sends another shadow toward him.
I catch the pinecone, chuckling. “No onecontrolsRenya.”
“Try not to start an actual fight before the mission tomorrow,” Torin says, fighting a grin.
I let the banter wash over me, the warmth of it sinking deep in my chest. This is my favorite kind of night—one with no politics, no bloodshed, just the people I care about most. I almost tell all of them how much they mean to me. But I know I’ll never live it down if I do.
Serenya’s shadow-bird flits back to her, perching in her palm before dissolving into nothing. She glances up, catching my gaze with eyes full of love. Her lips curve, soft and knowing, as if she could hear the thoughts in my head.
I pull her close, and the world narrows to the glow of the fire, her warmth against me, and the sound of our friends’ laughter.
If peace had a heartbeat, it would sound like this.
Chapter 25
?---- Koen ? ----?
The ruins are quiet now, save for the rhythmic crackle of the small fire Dimitri had built before shifting into his bat form to sleep.
I haven’t moved from my spot beside Serenya. Her breathing is steady—shallow, but steady. That is something. It’s the only thing keeping me from breaking.
My legs are still numb. I had barely managed to walk here, but I don’t feel the cold seeping into my bones or the way my limbs tremble with exhaustion. All I can feel is her hand, limp and bandaged, resting in myown.
I know I should sleep. But every time I blink for too long, I see it again. The moment the nemorak’s bony fingers gripped her, the way her body arched in agony, and the way my magic had exploded out of me like a dying star, wild and unrelenting.
I thought she was going to die, and in that moment, something in me shattered at the thought of losing her forever.
I rest an arm on my knees, watching her face lit byflickers of firelight. She looks peaceful now, but her skin is still mottled with healing burns, and her pulse, when I checked it—not once, but three times—was still too faint for my liking.
I don’t understand what happened to me. Even though I never learned how to control my magic, it has never taken over like that. It felt like it wasn’t just me, like something had awoken inside my chest and was furious. Something that answered when she screamed. What is it about her that causes my magic to respond like that?
I clench my jaw, dropping my forehead to rest against my knees. What is it about her that calls to me like this? She’s fae, and I’m human. I had thought she hated me since the moment we met.
But she came for me. She saved me from a mawless. She had walked throughburninglight for me. She touched my magic, even as it burned. She came for me when the world had gone white and searing and uncontrollable, whispered my name and pulled me back from the brink.
I don’t understand it. I don’t understandher.How someone who keeps everyone at arm’s length and carries that much fury and grief would still reach for me when I was breaking. How her shadow magic had wrapped around my wild light like it recognized it. Welcomedit, even.
I don’t know how I can feel this strongly for someone after knowing them for so little time. What I do know is that I have never felt like this before. Not for anyone. With her—it’s like my soul is reaching for her, like my bones know hers, like I have spent my entire life searching for something and have only now found it...in her.
I slowly turn and wipe a bit of soot off her cheek with a trembling hand.
What would she say when she woke? Would she be afraid? Would she see me as a monster? A threat? Would she regret saving me? A lump forms in my throat.
What if I lose control again? What if next time, it actually kills her?
Still, even as my thoughts spiral, I know with absolute certainty that I would do anything to protect her. Always.
Even if it kills me. Even if it means handing her over to Dimitri so he can take her to a healer. Even if it means standing aside, useless and hollow, watching her leave while someone else carries her home.
I look up again, unable to stop watching her. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to her. “I’m so sorry.”
I go back to waiting, silent, still, and sleepless, guarding her as if I could keep the gods themselves from coming near. Hours pass in the quiet, the cave filled only with the occasional crackle of dying flames and the steady rhythm of her breathing. The fire has long since burned down to soft, glowing embers by the time the sky outside begins to pale with the coming dawn.
Dimitri stirs and shifts back to his vampire form with a slow groan, stretching his limbs. His eyes land on her, and I watch as the vampire’s expression tightens.
