TEN
IVALYS
“How do you live with it?”
The question comes out quieter than I intended. More vulnerable.
He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand.
“I don’t.” His hold on my wrist adjusts. Not releasing. Shifting. “I exist. I work. I try not to think about the souls I’ve taken, the lives I’ve ended, the families I’ve destroyed because a piece of paper said I had to.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I have.” His thumb traces a slow circle over my pulse point. The touch sparks warmth spiraling through my veins. “I stopped believing I deserved better a long time ago. Stopped believing I was capable of anything except what the Ledger Master made me.”
“And now?”
The candlelight flickers. Shadows dance across the planes of his face, catching in the scars, pooling in the hollows beneath his cheekbones.
“Now, I’m not sure.” His gaze holds mine. “You look at me and you see something besides a monster. I don’t understand why. I don’t understand how.” His voice roughens.
The air between us thickens. Heavy with heat and unspoken things.
I step closer.
The movement brings me between his spread knees, so close I feel heat bleeding off his bare chest, his breath stirring the hair at my temple.
“Is that why you agreed to help me?” The question emerges rough. Challenging. “Because you’re a weapon who doesn’t care about the people he’s aimed at?”
His control cracks.
I see it happen—the careful distance he maintains shattering. His free hand shoots up, fingers closing around my other wrist. He pulls, and I stumble against him, my palms bracing on his shoulders, my face inches from his.
“You made me feel again.” The words are a snarl, torn from somewhere deep. “I hate you for it.”
My pulse slams against his grip. His fingers are hot around my wrists, his body a furnace beneath my hands. The sigil on my palm burns where it presses against his shoulder—not pain, but fire. Recognition. Something the magic knows that my mind hasn’t caught up to yet.
“Then hate me.” I don’t pull away. Can’t. Don’t want to. “But don’t pretend you’re nothing but what he made you. I’ve seen you fight to protect someone instead of collecting them. I’ve watched you break rules you’ve followed for centuries. That’s not a weapon. That’s a choice.”
His hand releases my wrist. Rises. Hovers beside my face—close enough that I feel the warmth of his palm without touching.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I’m not asking for anything.”
“You’re asking for everything.” His fingers tremble. “And I can’t—I won’t?—”
He stops. Pulls back. The distance opens between us like a wound torn fresh.
Cold rushes in where his heat had been. I feel the absence in my bones, in the suddenly-dim pulse of the sigil on my palm, in the hollow ache that has no name.
“Rathok—”
“Rest.” He stands. Moves to the far side of the room—as far as the cramped space allows. His back hits the wall, and he slides down to sit on the floor, knees drawn up, arms resting on them. Deliberately distant. “The passage won’t be easy. You’ll need your strength.”
I want to argue. Want to push. Want to close the distance he’s created and demand he finish what he started.
Instead, I sink onto the narrow bed. The mattress is thin, the blanket worn, but after everything—the crypts, the wraiths, the impossible revelations piling one atop another—exhaustion crashes over me in a wave.
