I shrugged. I didn’t know myself.
—
I treasured our evenings whenNelly and Thyme curled up nearby. Sometimes Calla or Quinn came, too. Being with them was the only time I felt sure of myself anymore, the only place I knew I was needed.
But that night, I couldn’t sleep.
You are nothing but a danger to the Silvers, the Azures—and to the tygress queen.
His voice rang perpetually in my head.
I didn’t want to stew in my misery alone in my rooms. The frustration that I couldn’t access what little magic I had was taking a toll, and I could hardly wield any weapon more than passably well. My memories, everything I’d lost, were my dream, not to mention our common need to fight the looming threat of the demon invasion, but I felt hopeless.
Was it worth it to forfeit my life for this?
I slipped out to the empty training fields. The stars stretched cold and sharp overhead, the sprouting grass cool and damp under my bare feet. I shivered, then activated Blake’s heat glyph. I stoodstill beneath the stars and breathed in the cold night air, the scent of things beginning to grow, and centered myself. Unrolling the long ribbons from my wands, I let them fall loose between my fingers.
Then I began to move.
It wasn’t the polished dance I had once performed. This was something raw. Fierce. Filled with fire and stubborn, aching passion. Every movement burned through me, my body carving sharp arcs and sweeping turns through the dark. The ribbons snapped and rippled in the air, alive with the rhythm of my anger, my longing, my refusal to break.
The despair still rose up, heavy and choking.
I would never be good enough. Not for Flame, who deserved a rider of her own strength. Not for the Azures, with their effortless power. Not for the Silvers, cold and perfect in their deadly precision. I wasn’t enough for anyone. Not even myself.
And beneath it all, the deeper hurt: a life stolen from me, a past I couldn’t touch, a future that felt like a lie.
My dancing grew faster, fiercer, stronger. My body moved like a flame in the wind, wild and furious and barely under control. I poured everything into the ribbons: the rage, the sorrow, the loneliness.
Then I caught the faintest shift in the air behind me.
I turned sharply, the ribbons whipping through the dark, and saw him.
Blake stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the field, silent and steady, as if he had been there the whole time. His blue eyes locked onto mine, unreadable.
The ribbons fell limp in my hands.
Blake stood unmoving, the moonlight limning his hair. His arms were loose at his sides, but there was a tension in him, a quietstillness I hadn’t seen before. His eyes traced the fallen ribbons, then me, as if trying to fit what he had just seen into the version of me he had already decided on.
“Why don’t you fight the way you dance?” he asked finally, his voice low, rougher than usual.
I shrugged. “The weapons are a lot heavier.”
His laugh surprised me so much that I jumped. That dimple appeared in his left cheek, making him look infuriatingly handsome.
“Where were you today?” I asked, swallowing tightly. I didn’t expect an answer, if anything just a quickNone of your business.
Instead, he sighed. “In the villages.” His mouth opened again like he wanted to add more, but he stopped. He looked like something heavy on his shoulders was weighing him down, more than the scuffed armor he still wore now.
“You look tired,” I said. When he gazed at me thoughtfully instead of biting my head off, I raised an eyebrow. “Tired of being the big, terrifying Twin Blade? Or tired of pretending you like it?”
He went still for half a breath. “Both,” he admitted quietly. “Some days more than others.”
The honesty caught me off guard. For a moment, it was just him and me, two people trying and failing to hide how much weight we carried.
“Did something bad happen?” I asked quietly.
He didn’t answer right away, staring down at his boots and across at my bare feet on the grass. The moonlight caught the angles of his face, throwing deep shadows beneath his eyes.
