How could he not see thateverythingwas harmed. Maybe innocent bodies hadn’t burned, but memories had. Entire lives had been reduced to dirt.
I pretended not to stare as he stepped away, retreating to the desk beneath the window.
He lifted a slip of parchment, thrusting it toward me like an offering.“We have the funds to help them rebuild.” I shoved it back at him. “They will be okay,”he insisted, as if gold and paper could stitch over fire and grief.
It did nothing for me.
My fingers drummed against the table, its surface worn smooth by time. By choices both new and old. Choices we had made together. Until recently.
So, I asked, “Am I a liability?”
The usual glow in his eyes was gone when his head snapped up. “What?”The paper crumpled in his grip as it slipped against his thigh.“No. How could you even ask me that?”
He’s lying.The voice wound inside me.
Wood trembled when my palms slammed against the table, the crack reverberating in warning.
A sting shuddered through my fingers as a surge of dark energy ripped outward, rattling the portraits on the wall, stirring dust that hadn’t moved in years.
With it came a charred scent, stale spice mixed with vanity.
Frames crashed to the floor. Glass splintered. Callum didn’t duck as shards scattered, only lit himself ablaze, the flames scorching the pieces before they could land at his boots.
The power was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving only the tremor in my hands. I could feel it now, waiting for me to slip, to surrender. The curse was getting stronger, curling tighter around my soul.
The pale of his skin returned as he crouched among the wreckage, carefully lifting one frame.
I didn’t need to see it. I already knew which one it was just by the way he cradled it.
“Tell me what’s different,” he insisted. “What are you feeling right now?”
What was I doing?Callum was not my enemy,I reminded the curse. Myself.
Glass crunched beneath my boots as I crossed the room. “That gift didn’t control the curse, Callum. It controlled what I fed it.” My voice felt too tight.
His eyes moved to my wrist, brows pinching as he took a step close enough that I could see the question behind his eyes. “So, now what?”
Something else lingered there, as if some part of him had always wanted to know what would happen if I lost that leash.
A bright heat flared behind my eyes, my throat burning with the effort to keep it down. “Now,” I said, “I feel everything at full volume.”
He nodded, exhaling slow and measured. “Okay. Then we adjust, as we always do.”
“What am I, then?” I asked. “Because your face says even you don’t believe I’m not a liability. And you, of all people, don’t look at weapons with pity. So, tell me what I am.”
The faintest lift traced his lips, not quite a smile, his eyes drawn back low as he held the frame out to me.“I remember when you brought that home. You were so excited to show Gemma. She cried after you gave it to her.”His head tilted, a slow shake.“I don’t think I ever drew her a picture like that.”
My thumb swept through the dust shielding the glass. It must have lain untouched for years, the weight of time layered thick across it. Beneath the smear of nostalgia were three very badly drawn figures.
A girl, tiny and fierce, her brown hair trailing in a long braid. Eyes wild and teal, a smile devouring half her lopsided face. I used to practice that smilein the mirror. Next to her was a tall boy, hair in flames, eyes made of molten gold. The mouth was cut into a single, stubborn line. In his hands were purple and blue flowers, the same that had once littered the grass surrounding our cabin.
My own smile faded.“What am I?”The question slipped out a second time, quieter now. The demand of someone who no longer knows what’s left to lose.
“Verena…”Callum’s sigh hung between us.
Behind the girl in the picture stood an angel. Gemma. Silver hair flowing, arms outstretched.
My fingers traced the ragged crack that split her neck where the frame had fractured.
