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Standing in Aidric’s living room in Yharvan, Mira felt oddly nervous. Things were different now because he had confessed. Spoken truths.

His words still echoed through her soul.

Neither had changed out of their damp clothes, as if it was sacrilegious to do so—to step out of that moment in the rain.

His hair looked the most unkempt she had ever seen it. It suited him, she concluded.

Aidric’s Shadowflame was a lighter shade of gray.

“You used too much Dark Magic,” she said into the silence.

A sad smile cut across his face. “That is your concern right now?”

“It’s always my concern.”

The sheer ferocity of the spell he used at Rakkley’s hideout had cracked the stone floor beneath her. It would have killed Rakkley. It had for a moment.

Destroying the amulet had set off a chain reaction that almost killed them both. But she couldn’t find it in her to regret any of it because it had set him free.

Now they were far away from the magic world. Far away from Rakkley.

“Your spirit signifier.” She nodded toward his hand. “When did you get it?”

For a moment he didn’t say anything, and the only sound came from the wind, blowing through the trees outside.

“Like you, it was my second signifier,” he replied. “I got it when I was ten.”

Her parents hadn’t even allowed her to use magic at that age.

“I broke my foot during training with my father and cried. He screamed at me that Dawson men don’t cry and that I was a failure in a long line of great Wielders. He had three signifiers at my age.”

At age ten, Aidric had called upon a spirit to suppress his emotions. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“I hated my father and yet I was desperate to make him proud of me. I had convinced myself that if I got one more signifier, I would finally be good enough. One more spell perfected. But it was never enough.” His thumb trailed the signifier on his middle finger. “My spirit signifier helped me during and after the war. A way to shut it all down when things became too much. Too unbearable.”

She closed the distance between them and looked up into his face. On so many occasions his eyes had seemed emotionless, and now she knew why. Her fingers brushed against his, tracing the signifiers brimming with powers that could unleash untold violence. But now, in the non-magic sphere, their powers lay dormant. She wanted to hide in Yharvan, away from the destruction magic could bring. She wanted to hide him.

“I’m jealous of your spirit signifier,” she said in a soft voice.

“Why?”

“For just a day, I want to feel like my world isn’t on fire.”

Calloused fingers closed around hers in silent promise. “I will end him.” His voice was resolute.

“I know.”

His thumb drew circles on her palm. “To save you, I would use all of my powers, even if it killed me.”

His eyes seared hers with love and rage, with desperation and hope. None of them he could suppress.

After seeing him attack Rakkley, Mira was terrified he would hold true to his word. He spent Dark Magic with reckless abandon.

“That would break your promise to me,” she said.

“Which is?”

“That you’ll always come back to me.”