Page 19 of Evermore

I was more than this. I was Paesha Vox. A survivor. A fighter. I had clawed my way out of the gutters, faced down crime lords and obnoxious gods. No matter how many times I had been beaten down, I always rose again.

And in that moment, I remembered me. When the world became too cruel, too heavy to bear, I had always found refuge in dance. In the steps and spins, the leaps and turns, pouring my heart and soul into each gesture until everything else fell away and I was free.

With shaking limbs, I pushed myself to my feet. The whispers hissed in my ears, but I forced myself to tune them out, focusing instead on the steady thrum of my heartbeat.

And then I danced.

At first, my movements were small, hesitant. A gentle sway of my hips, a graceful sweep of my arms. But with each breath, each stretch and turn, a fragile sense of calm settled over my fractured nerves. I focused on the placement of my feet, the elegant lines of my body as I moved through familiar forms.

Spin. Turn. Bend. Point.

Move.

Slow, sweeping circles gradually gave way to faster, more complex steps. I leapt and spun across the moonlit meadow, my hair flying out behind me in a wild tangle. The whispers faded to a distant hum as I lost myself in the silent music, the soft shush of my feet through the grass, the chirping of the crickets, the soothing metronome of my breath and heartbeat.

The Remnants responded to the rhythm, their frantic writhing gentling into something almost like a dance. Their shadowy tendrils caressed my skin like cool silk, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Like they were a part of me, as vital and necessary as the blood in my veins or the air in my lungs.

When I leapt, they lifted me higher, until I was soaring, weightless and free. When I spun, they whipped around me in a shadowy vortex, blurring the edges of my form until I became something more than human, a wild creature of the night.

The whispers had gone silent, drowned out by the rush of power, the wild thrill of letting go, of unleashing everything I’d kept pent up inside for so long. I threw my head back and laughed, giddy and drunk on the sheer joy of movement. The sound echoed across the meadow, eerie and unearthly. This was madness. This was freedom. This was the monster’s playground. My damn playground.

But as I completed another turn, a flicker of movement at the edge of the meadow caught my eye. My heart stuttered in my chest. I recognized the tall, broad-shouldered silhouette standing motionless in the shadows of the trees. Reverius. Maybe Ezra, but I was sure I’d seen the black mark on his neck when he shifted backward, trying to hide in the shadows when I spun.

Now, he stood as still as a statue, his face half-hidden in darkness. Even from this distance, I could feel the weight of his gaze upon me. The hazel eyes that had once looked at me with such tenderness now seemed to burn with an unreadable intensity.

I didn’t want him to be here. He was seconds from ruining the only peace I’d felt in days. The Remnants recoiled, sensing the shift in my mood, their dance transforming into fury, immediately taking over any sense of joy.

They swirled around me, a living barrier of shadow and mist. They sensed my anger, my pain, and responded in kind. Tendrils of darkness lashed out like whips, slicing through the air between us. The grass at my feet withered and turned black, as if life was being drained from the earth.

Reverius approached slowly, his steps measured and cautious. The moonlight caught the planes of his face, throwing half of it into sharp relief while leaving the other shrouded in shadow. Gods, he was handsome. Infuriatingly so. And I wanted nothing more than to rip that fucker to shreds with my bare hands.

“Stay away from me.”

He took another step forward, the crunch of grass beneath his boots unnaturally loud in the stillness of the night. “You’re unraveling.”

The Remnants surged in response to his voice, coiling around my limbs like living armor. I could feel their hunger, their desire to attack, to tear and rend. It took everything I had to hold them back. This was my moment. Not theirs.

“And whose fault is that?” I spat, clenching my fists at my sides. The shadows mimicked my movements, clawed hands of darkness forming in the air around me.

“Let me help you.”

He might as well have splashed ice water on my face. “In no realm, in no lifetime, in no space of existence from now until the end of time, will I ever, ever come to you for anything more than to watch your final breath.”

“This isn’t you,” he whispered.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

He took another step forward. “You took too much power and you can’t control it. This anger isn’t you. It’s the power. It’s consuming you.”

“Does living in a pit of audacity give you that youthful glow, or is it the constant state of denial? You trapped me behind a veil, pretended to be someone else, lied through your teeth at every fucking turn and let someone who believed she was your friend die. You could have saved her, all powerful asshole. You didn’t. But then you could have done about a thousand thingsdifferent, so I guess we’re all living with the consequences of your actions now.

“Let me make myself perfectly clear. I don’t want you here. I don’t need you here, and I’ve got news for you, asshole. You don’t get to interfere. Or have you forgotten our bargain?”

I watched him straighten. I watched the color drain from his pretty fucking face as I played the only card I had left in my arsenal. I took a step toward him this time, letting the Remnants creep forward, darkening the space between us. His eyes flashed to the ground, but he made no attempt to move. “Come on, Reverius darling. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already, or did you not realize?”

“What bargain?”

“You said you’d help me find the king. And you said you wouldn’t stop me when the time came for me to do what I needed to do. You agreed to that, didn’t you? You gave me your word.”