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I shake my head. I keep walking.

This is the path I chose. A war I’m fighting.

The High Council is aware as they are waiting for me.

Silent. Watchful. Hungry.

The old man tilts his head, examining me as if I am something shaped from their hands, as if they are the ones who pulled me from the ashes and turned me into something new.

As if they fucking own me.

And maybe—maybe they do.

Perhaps this was always meant to happen.

Maybe I was always meant to be theirs.

But then why does it feel like my heart is still nailed to the battlefield I left behind?

Why do I still feel like I am his, even now?

His breath. His rage. His ruin.

I should have let Zephiran kill me.

I should have never let him live.

Becausef there is one thing I know?—

Zephiran never stops fighting.

And I have just declared a war I am not ready to win.

The old man steps closer, his voice low, measured, like he already knows what’s coming.

"You did well."

I should feel pride.

Satisfaction should swell inside me.

Instead—I feel nothing.

Not even when he smiles, not even when the others bow their heads, not even when they look at me the way a beast looks at the first drop of blood in the water.

They think I have given myself over completely.

That I am a weapon they can wield.

That I have let go of the past, of him.

That I have severed the last thread still tying me to the world I used to belong to.

I almost believe it too.

Until I hear his name.

Until the words fall from the old man’s lips like they mean nothing.