Page 23

ESALYN

H is words hit something raw inside me—a place I've kept guarded since the day I ran from Vorrak's estate with a newborn clutched to my chest.

" Because when I'm with you and Erisen, I remember who I was before the darkness took everything. And I want to be that man again ."

My hand trembles against his throat, the knife suddenly heavy. Blood beads around the blade's edge—his blood—dark against his gray skin. The sight of it makes my stomach twist. I've never been the one to draw blood, only to have it drawn from me. The power feels strange in my hand.

"Lower the weapon, Esalyn." His voice is gentle but firm, like he's speaking to a wounded animal. Those golden eyes that have watched me across market stalls and my tiny kitchen table hold steady. "I'm not here to hurt you."

"Aren't you?" My voice cracks. "What do you call this, then? This betrayal?"

"A mistake," he says, not flinching from my blade. "The worst I've made since Zevan died."

And what's awful is I want to believe him. I want to lower my weapon, to let him in. I have missed him as much as Erisen has, even if I don't want to.

My son's attachment to this demon tears at me in ways I can't articulate. For six years, we've been each other's entire world. Then Domno walked in with his quiet strength and careful attention, and Erisen blossomed like a flower turning toward sunlight.

"You made my son love you," I accuse, voice breaking on the words. "You made me—" I can't finish. Won't give him that truth. Not now.

His jaw tightens. "I never meant for any of this."

"That doesn't make it better." The knife wavers, my conviction weakening despite myself. "You were being paid to hunt us. While you sat at our table. While you touched me."

Heat crawls up my neck at the memory of his hands on my skin, how I'd surrendered to his touch so easily after years of never letting anyone close. What a fool I'd been to think I was special—that I was anything more than a bounty to collect.

"Look at me, Esalyn." His voice drops lower. "Really look."

I force myself to meet his gaze, and what I see there makes my breath catch. There's no calculation in those golden eyes, no hunter assessing his prey. Only raw, unshielded pain—and something dangerously close to devotion.

Slowly, I lower the knife. Not because I trust him, but because killing him won't undo what's already been done.

"You don't get to fix this with confessions," I say, stepping back to put distance between us, my spine still rigid with hurt. "Protection means nothing if it's built on secrets."

He reaches for me, then stops himself, hand hovering in the space between us. "I know."

"No, you don't." My fingers curl into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms. "You don't know what it's like to have the ground ripped out from under you again and again.

To never know who you can trust." My voice shakes, but I refuse to break.

Not again. Not for him. "I've spent six years building walls to keep Erisen safe, and you—you just walked through them like they were nothing. "

His face remains impassive, but I see how my words land in the tightening of his shoulders, the subtle clench of his jaw.

"I need space," I continue, forcing each word past the lump in my throat. "I need the chase to end."

The temple around us creaks, ancient stone settling as the wind howls outside. The single candle I lit flickers, throwing his face into sharp relief—the proud curve of his horns, the planes of his face that I've memorized without meaning to.

"Don't track me again," I tell him, wrapping my arms around myself. "I have to figure out what's left of my own strength without your shadow following my every step."

Something flickers across his expression—pain, resignation, respect. He steps back, his massive frame somehow smaller in the dim light.

"Where will you go?" he asks, voice rough.

I glance at Erisen, still clutched in the arms of sleep, unaware that his world has shifted again. My beautiful boy who deserves so much more than this life of running.

"That's not yours to know anymore," I whisper, the finality of it like a stone settling in my chest.

He wavers, his eyes flicking over me. I can tell he doesn't want to force me but he doesn't want to let go either. Instead he just says, "I will always want to protect you, Esalyn. Both of you. I hope you will eventually see that."

I don't move until Domno's shadow disappears completely from the temple as he slips back out the window. The sound of his footfalls outside fades into silence, and I'm left standing with a knife in one hand and the tatters of whatever we'd been building in the other.

He didn't argue. Didn't try to convince me. Just accepted my words with that single, sharp nod and walked away.

It's what I asked for. What I demanded.

So why does it feel like someone has hollowed out my chest with a dull blade?

The candle flickers as a draft sweeps through the abandoned temple, sending shadows dancing across cracked stone walls. I sink to the ground, still tucked out of view, so he doesn't hear me. My legs suddenly feel too weak to hold me.

"I did the right thing," I whisper to myself, but it doesn't feel right. "You'll understand someday."

But the words ring hollow in the temple's vastness. The silence that falls afterward is too complete, too final—a punishment for daring to want something beyond survival.

I've been alone with Erisen since the night we fled Vorrak's estate. Years of keeping my head down, of teaching my son to be quiet, to be invisible, to trust no one but me. I'd built our life on caution and fear, and it had kept us alive.

Then Domno appeared like some dark guardian from the shadows, and something inside me that had been locked away for so long stirred to life. Not just desire—though gods know that burned bright enough—but something more dangerous: hope.

I press the heels of my palms against my eyes, willing back the hot threat of tears. My throat constricts painfully as I swallow them down. I won't cry over him. I've shed too many tears already in this life; I won't waste more on a demon who'd seen me as nothing but prey.

Except... had he?

I think of how he looked at Erisen—not with calculation or disgust, but with something like wonder.

How his massive hands, scarred from countless battles, would become impossibly gentle when showing my son a new pebble for his collection.

How he'd sit at our rickety table, his broad frame making our shabby dwelling seem smaller, yet somehow safer.

"Damn you," I hiss into the darkness, the words catching like thorns in my throat.

The emptiness of the temple mocks me. Six years of running, of keeping everyone at arm's length, and now I've pushed away the one person who made me feel like maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have to run forever.

My arms feel too empty. My skin remembers his touch—calloused fingers tracing paths of fire along my collarbone, my shoulders, down the curve of my spine. The heat of his mouth against mine, drinking me in like I was something precious. Not possession, not ownership, but reverence.

Was it all a lie? A hunter's trick to make his quarry compliant?

I wrap my arms around my knees, making myself small as the vastness of what I've just done crashes over me.

I've spent so long running from Vorrak that I forgot what it was like to run toward something instead.

And now I'll never know if what sparked between Domno and me could have become something worth the risk.

"Maybe I just lost the one person who would've stayed," I whisper, my voice breaking on the final word.

Especially as I remember everything we've been through.

How he saved Erisen and helped him read.

How he made him little wooden carvings. Domno spent hours on it, whittling away in patient silence while Erisen watched with fascination.

It wasn't the gift of someone playing a role.

It was something real in a world that had given us so little to believe in.

But I can't trust that feeling. I've been wrong before, trusted and paid dearly. The scars Vorrak left run deeper than skin.

So I square my shoulders and harden my heart against the ache. Tomorrow we'll pack what little we have and find somewhere new. Somewhere Erisen can grow up without fearing shadows. Somewhere I can forget the weight of golden eyes that saw through every wall I'd built.