Page 157 of Bitten & Burned

27 Ebry, Year 810

Either he’s a fool—orhe knew exactly what he was doing.

The words echoed in my skull like the chime of a cracked bell—fractured, off-pitch, and too loud to ignore. They rattled around inside me, bouncing off the walls of every justification I’d built to protect Silas’s image.

I sat in the study, stiff and quiet, trying to hold myself together while the truth unraveled everything I thought I knew.

Had I really been so arrogant? So certain I knew better?

I had spoken so confidently, argued with Vael as though he couldn’t possibly be right. I had clung to the belief that Silas had been foolish, not cruel. Naïve, not manipulative. That if there were consequences, they were accidental. Unintended.

But that sigil burned inside me still. A beacon to my own naivete.

I stared at the floor, unable to meet my father’s eyes wherehe sat by the fire, turning the amulet over and over in his hands. He hadn’t said anything. He didn’t need to. I knew it all already.

Anton stood at my back, silent and steady, but I felt exposed. Like everyone could see it now. See how wrong I’d been.

I pressed my fingers against the wound at my thigh, as if I could will it shut. As if I could undo it. But it pulsed beneath my skin, rhythmic and damning. It wasn’t just pain. It was proof. Of my misjudgment. My mistake.

I had let him get close. I had worn his gift. I had defended him to the man I should have trusted all along.

“I don’t like this,” Quil muttered from the window, his tone tight.

And, instead of scared, I was grateful for the distraction. For the shift in attention. Because I didn’t want them to look at me right now. I didn’t want them to see that the mask had cracked.

“Don’t like what?” I asked softly, already knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.

Quil didn’t take his eyes from the window. “I hear something… footsteps. At least a dozen. Maybe more. Light tread. Cautious. Not wolves. Not animals.”

A chill ran slowly down my spine.

“Could be townspeople,” Vael murmured, though I could hear the doubt already tightening his voice.

Quil shook his head. “Wrong part of the forest for it. No one local would come down from the mountains this time of day. These are coming from the ridgeline.”

From the top of the mountain.

I frowned. “That’s?—”

“Strange,” Cassian finished for me, voice low, too calm. “The wards are shimmering. Something’s pressing against them.”

He turned to Vael without hesitation. “Take Rowena and Ambrose. Get to the basement. I’ll be there as soon as?—”

It hit me before he could finish. White hot and searing, the tremor tore through skin and muscle and straight into the bone ofmy thigh. I gasped, the pain so sudden and sharp I nearly doubled over.

“Inera—” I hissed, reaching instinctively for the source, my fingers scrabbling through my skirts until they found the wound. The sigil.

It was swollen. Throbbing. Weeping.

And wet. My hand came away slick with blood.

“I’m bleeding,” I whispered, staring at my fingers. Fig meowed and batted at my skirt. I reached for him, scooped him into my arms.

A beat of silence.

And then—howling. High-pitched. Inhuman. It pierced the air from somewhere just beyond the manor walls.

Quil moved before the echo had even faded, his chair scraping loudly as he stood. “Someone’s coming,” he said, already crossing the room towards me.