Page 83 of Iron Beneath the Snow

She shook her head, the motion unsteady.

“No… it isn’t just that.”

Speaking took more effort than it should have, her breath refusing to even out.

“It’s reacting.”

The word came out uneven, but she held onto it.

The mark throbbed again, sharper this time, and her knees gave slightly.

His hand shifted to her waist immediately, holding her upright.

The effect was immediate.

The fire surged again, sharper now, more focused, no longer contained within her but moving between them, back and forth, as if it had found a path and refused to release it.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

The noise of the courtyard returned in fragments—orders, movement, the wounded being carried away—but it felt distant, secondary to the tension coiling between them.

Soren’s gaze flicked briefly to the cut along her arm.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, though her voice lacked its usual steadiness.

The wound itself barely mattered. The reaction did.

She drew a deeper breath this time, forcing it to anchor her.

“This wasn’t meant to kill,” she said more quietly now, more carefully. “It was meant to see what would happen.”

His attention returned fully to her.

“Yes.”

“They aimed at me because of it.”

A brief pause followed, deliberate rather than uncertain.

“Yes.”

“To see if you would react.”

He didn’t look away.

“They saw enough.”

There was no satisfaction in it—only acknowledgement.

Gradually, the fire began to recede—not disappearing, but drawing inward into something deeper and less volatile, leaving behind a tremor that had not been there before.

Neither of them moved immediately.

The space between them remained altered, even as the courtyard returned to order around it.

The mark no longer felt foreign.