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Then his hand slides up, brushing my face, rough calluses scraping against my skin as he cups my cheek in mock tenderness.

“This one is pretty.” His breath hits my face, sour and hot. “Maybe we should keep her when we’re done.”

Something inside me snaps.

The energy surges, faster,hotterthan before, not building gradually but exploding through my veins all at once. A crackling pulse runs up my spine, spreading outward like lightning searching for ground.

The moment his thumb touches my lips, a flash of silver erupts between us—a searing flare that blinds me for a second.

For one impossible instant, I feeleverything. The heat of it, the bandit recoiling, the air splitting apart.

The man jerks back with a startled cry, stumbling into one of his companions. He stares at his thumb where the skin has blistered, red and angry.

“What the—” He doesn’t get to finishthe sentence.

Sacha moves.

One moment he’s beside me. The next, the bandit who touched me is on the ground, a sickening crack splitting the air as his neck snaps. There’s no hesitation in Sacha’s movement. No wasted motion. Just pure, deadly violence.

Before anyone else can react, he’s across the clearing, darkness rolling off him like smoke. The leader fumbles for his weapon, but Sacha is faster. His hand locks around the man’s throat, lifting him clean off the ground.

Chaos erupts.

Varam and the others strike, taking advantage of the confusion. I press back against a tree, as violence explodes around me.

The fight is brutal,and over in seconds.

Sacha moves through them like a force of nature, implacable and merciless. Every strike breaking, crushing, and ending lives. A knife flashes in a bandit’s grip. Sacha uses shadow to twist his wrist with a sharp, wet pop, sending the blade tumbling. He drives his elbow into the man’s skull. The body crumples without a sound.

Varam takes down two others, shattering one’s leg with a single bone-snapping kick before burying a knife into the other’s side. Mira moves through the fray in a deadly arc, her blade singing through the damp air, severing a scream before it can form. The other two fighters dispatch the remaining threats, with clean, merciless strikes.

The merchants watch, bound and shaking, eyes wide and mouths open in silent horror, as bodies hit the dirt around them.

Then …

Silence.

Not the soft silence of a forest at rest, but a heavy, suffocating stillness. Blood steams on the cold ground. The metallic scent of it clings to the air.

Six bandits lie dead. Two more groan and twitch in the dirt, clutching shattered limbs. Blood pools around them, seeping into the forest floor, staining the moss black.

Sacha stands over the leader’s limp body. His breathing is steady. His gaze is black and cold, so dark it seems to drink in the light.

No one speaks.

No one dares.

I stare down at my hands, breathing unsteady, each exhale a shudder that rattles through my bones. The energy still hums, slow and dangerous, a current I can’t control, can’t release. Silver light flickers faintly at my fingertips before fading.

I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t mean?—

It just happened. Fear. Anger. It lashed out on its own.

And now …

Six men are dead.

The bandits were dangerous. They wouldn’t have let us go. I know that.I know it.