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Cutting out the Red Sermon was supposed to break them. Instead, it sharpened them. And now their eyes are on her, because of me.

For the first time since the Reckoning, what scared me most wasn’t what they’d do to her.

It was what they might recognize.

The truth settles slow and lethal, like a blade turned inward. I’ve watched people suffer. I’ve made people suffer. But the thought of them putting their hands on her—reshaping her into something obedient and holy⁠—

That’s not a wound I’ll survive.

She was right.

I’ve been treating her like something breakable. Like standing close would keep the world’s teeth off her skin.

But the world doesn’t care what you’re guarding.

And she’s with me.

Which means danger comes twice—once from what hunts us, once from what carries my name.

She doesn’t just need to survive Hollowborn or hunger or the Gospel’s rot.

She needs to survive me.

If I teach her, I might lose her.

If I don’t, I will.

So, I’ll do it my way.

I’ll teach her how to stand where I stand—not as my shadow, not as my sin, but as herself.

And when the world finally looks at her and decides to test her, it won’t be testing something breakable.

It will be testing what survived me.

XVI

You’ll Learn That Today

“Get up.”

His voice cuts—clean and surgical—straight through whatever thin dream I was clinging to. Sleep shatters before my body catches up, and then a hand locks around my ankle and rips.

The world tilts violently.

I hit the floor hard enough to jar the breath clean out of my lungs, pain cracking up my spine in a bright, furious line, and somewhere in the chaos Shadow yelps because of course he was tangled in my legs, because of course he goes skidding across the boards in a frantic blur of fur and claws and betrayal.

“What the hell, Malek⁠—”

Clothes smack me in the face. Cotton. Denim. Finality disguised as fabric.

I shove them off, sucking in air like it might run out, and look up.

He’s standing by the dresser like the room assembled itself around him on purpose. Barefoot. Still. Unmovable. The dark presses close to his shoulders, not touching him so much as recognizing him, like it knows better than to crowd.

No apology offered.

No hesitation wasted.