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“Go,” he said, more firmly, making her jolt. “You have another chance at life. Embrace it.” His eyes shone at her. “Show them. Show them your worth. You have a lot of good to do.”

She stared at him for a few moments, clearly torn, and definitely hurt by him brushing her off.

“Okay,” she murmured.

And then she took one last look at him and disappeared in a burst of shadows that I watched climbing up the house, before spilling into the balcony on the second floor.

I dropped my spell and before I could do another thing, Cassius teleported right in front of me.

“You wish to use this knowledge as leverage, yes?”

I started at his brazen question.

“Listen, I just—”

“Be frank,aberration.”

I let out a weighty sigh. “I don’twantto. But I’m not the only one you need to worry about.”

“You are speaking of Kai Hunter.”

“He is far more schooled than I am with this sort of thing. He’s been researching into powerful beings for years on end. Obsessively. While I’ve been running and ignoring my own heritage, and a lot was also denied me from my family with them even embracing me not wanting to know more.”

“I am sure he has already identifiedthisthen,” he said, pushing his shirt aside to reveal the mark I’d seen before on Guardian Compound grounds that night. “It is called a Soul Brand.”

“That’swhat one looks like?”

“I see you at least know the term and what it means. If it makes you feel better, they all look different, reflecting the specific individual souls that were branded and bound together.”

“Oh my God. You didn’t just heal Velra.”

“Apparently not.”

“You didn’t realize she wasn’t just close to death, but had actually touched it?”

“Correct. I had never performed such magic before. It is outlawed, for one. The details of such a thing are not wildly known, even for me. It became clear, however, once the brand didn’t just appear on her as a mark of a tether, and appeared on me also, that I had overstepped and actually pulled her from death absolute.”

“That’s why you took off so suddenly earlier? You literally felt her hurt through the Soul Brand?”

“Her distress, yes. Although, as I’m sure you heard, it was actually her distress for me that I was feeling.”

“That’s… incredibly complicated.”

“It certainly is.”

“Why did you do it? Why save her?”

“You heard what I said to her. It would have been unjust.”

“I heard, but I don’t believe that’s all there was to it. Not for a True Celestial.Sub-human automatons with no thought, emotion, or sentience of their own.That’s how one of my boys describes your kind. But I don’t see that from you. Not now. Even not entirely with our first encounter.”

“You are technically a True Celestial as well, Ariana. One who is not tethered to the Celestial Plane in the way that I am, however. In spite of that, they are your kind, too. Yet, you do not fit that description either.”

“I was raised on the mortal plane. It’s different. But for you to stand apart from that… it’s a lot more profound.” I smiled. “A lot more impressive, to be honest.”

“I wouldn’t suggest you class me asimpressive.I violated an age-old Law and now I am marked as a sinner forevermore.”

“No. I don’t see it like that. It marks you asbetter.You took a stand, you took a risk for somebody else’s wellbeing, to do not what was written but what was right. You chose life and care when you could have allowed death and despair to reign instead.”