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I drop back into the rocking chair, and it groans under me—a soft complaint, like the house resents me for being here, for failing them all over again.

“That’s the only way I know how to survive.”

Violence was the first language I ever learned. It was the only thing the Iron Gospel wanted from me—my hands, my rage, my willingness to tear the world apart if they pointed me at it.

And she looked at that, at me, and said⁠—

“You survived the end of everything. I’m trying to survive you.”

Her voice echoes as loudly in this room as the fevered rustling of blankets.

I rub a hand over my face, jaw clenched hard enough it aches. Because she walked out of that barn dripping blood and fury and chose something in that moment—chose who she was going to be in this world.

I don’t shudder often, but fuck, I do now.

Because I know exactly what I unleashed in her, and I know the Gospel won’t call it survival. I know what it’ll do to me if I lose her.

I didn’t survive the end of everything. I’m still surviving it.

Barely.

And if something happens to her— if she changes, if she burns out, if she stops breathing—That’ll be the end of everything.

For real this time.

The fever doesn’t spike.

It erupts.

Selah jerks in the bed like someone yanked her spine upward with a hook. Her throat strains around a guttural, animal sound—the kind a person only makes when something inside them is dying or trying to crawl out.

For a split second, I go still.

Not frozen in fear.

Not fragile.

Just…still.

The kind of stillness I learned under the Gospel’s blade: the quiet right before a kill, right before the world tilts and blood hits the floor.

Then I move.

Her breath races in frantic, shallow bursts. Her skin radiates heat so violent it hits me like opening an oven door. Shadow recoils with a startled bark, hackles up, tail down.

“Not again,” I mutter, a low snarl curling under my breath. “Not happening again.”

Her skin is burning. Not warm. Not fevered. Burning. I flinch before I force my hand to stay on her cheek. The heat rolls off her in waves, thick enough I feel it radiating up my arm.

Shadow jumps to his feet, growling, tail jammed between his legs. His eyes go wide and dark—animals always know before we do.

“Don't move from her,” I warn him. My voice is steady now—cold, lethal, familiar.

Her body gives another violent jolt. Sweat pours off her, soaking the sheets. I strip them off, tossing them to the floor, ignoring the way her legs jerk and spasm.

Her wounds are redder than they were.

Darker.