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“Right now.”
Silas groans dramatically. “Ugh, you’re both disgusting.”
“You’re shirtless,” Luna replies without looking at him.
He shrugs. “Exactly. You’re welcome.”
I smirk and lead her toward the door, the weight of what she’s asking not lost on me. Teaching her to wield sloth means showing her the parts of me I don’t talk about. The darkness that numbs. The stillness that drowns.
But I’ll do it. Because she asked.
And because I’d rather burn out every last shard of what I am than see her fight this war unarmed.
We don’t walk so much as drift.
The courtyard is still rubble in places—chunks of broken stone, scorch marks from things none of us talk about anymore, the ghosts of the last war not quite dead—but she walks through it like she’s already remaking it. Like she doesn’t notice how the ground hums under her feet when I’m this close.
“You already know what I can do,” I say, hands shoved into my pockets like I’m not nervous. Like her looking at me doesn’t short-circuit something behind my ribs. “Sloth’s not about sleep. It’s not about stillness. It’s about… distortion. Disengagement. I don't stop time, Luna. Imake it yield.”
Her eyes flick up to mine, sharp, curious. Alwaystoocurious.
“And that’s what I’m supposed to do?”
“You already are.” I glance at her, then away. “When you pulled me out of the Hollow, time cracked. You slowed it down without even knowing you’d done it. I felt it. Everyone did. Youdragged us into a space where nothing could touch you, not even the rules.”
She’s quiet for a beat too long. I hate that I can’t read her like I used to. The bond complicates everything—it heightens, amplifies,echoes—but it also shields. What she doesn’t want me to feel, she tucks away behind soft, golden silence.
“Show me,” she says finally. “Teach me how to pull it on purpose.”
Gods. She makes it sound so simple.
“You’ll hate it,” I tell her. “Everyone does.”
She tilts her head. “Even you?”
Especially me.
I don’t say it aloud.
Instead, I reach for her wrist, fingers wrapping gently around that delicate spot where pulse lives. “Time’s a liar,” I say. “It whispers comfort when it wants you to rot. Sloth weaponizes that. It makes you think you’re safe. That you don’t need to move. And then—” I exhale, slow, willing the hum of that latent power between us to spark “—you’re already too late.”
Her breath stutters as it hits her. My power flickers into her like ink in water. Everything slows—not stops, not quite—but drags. The sound of wind in the courtyard becomes syrup-thick. Her hair lifts as though underwater. She gasps, lips parting, and I know she feels it.Meinside her.
The bond crackles.
“Don’t fight it,” I say, voice rougher now. “Let it pull. Let itdrown.”
She closes her eyes, lashes trembling, and her shoulders slacken. I watch the moment she tips into it fully—her pulse syncing to mine, her mind expanding to wrap around the edges of what I’ve always known.
Time is a construct.
Luna is not.
When she opens her eyes again, they’re shining with something new. Understanding. Hunger. Power.
And gods help me, I want to kiss her so badly it hurts.
But I don’t.