Page 16

Aspen

I keep my distance. Not because I want to, but because I have to.

Every time I see her now, every time I hear her voice, watch her shadows curl around her like something alive, I remember what I am.

What I became. The memory of it sits heavy in my chest, a stone that won’t dissolve no matter how much I try to rationalize it away.

I should be with her. Holding her. Protecting her.

But I can’t. Not like this. Not when I still wake up feeling the muscles shifting beneath my skin, my body remembering what it became the moment we stepped into this realm.

What I let happen when those creatures attacked.

Not when every time I close my eyes, I imagine her blood on my hands—what could have happened if I’d lost control completely.

I exhale sharply, bracing my hands against the stone railing of the balcony.

The sanctuary is quiet this late, the sky a deep, endless black, but my mind won’t stop running in circles.

She almost died. She almost died, and I wasn’t strong enough to stop it.

The thought circles, like a vulture, refusing to give me peace .

A muscle in my jaw tightens. I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t stop the memories from flooding back. The way she looked at me when I changed, the flash of fear before she shoved it down, swallowed it back like she didn’t want me to see. But I did. I saw everything.

I know what I am now—a berserker, a monster, a thing made for violence—and I know she felt it too.

She’s never said it outright, never looked at me like I was something to be afraid of.

But she hasn’t looked at me the same since that moment when the ice in my veins turned to something older and darker.

And now… now he’s here. Kieran. His presence presses against my senses even from here, dark and unshakable.

He moves around her like he already owns a piece of her, like he’s been waiting centuries to claim it.

And maybe he has. But void help me, I can’t watch it happen.

Not when I already feel like I’m losing her to something I can’t fight.

“You’re brooding.”

Torric’s voice cuts through the silence, rougher than usual, strained with the same tension that’s been winding him tighter since we arrived.

He leans against the railing beside me, but he’s not really looking at me.

His golden eyes are locked on the door she’s behind.

He hasn’t taken his eyes off it since we left her with Kieran.

“You should get some rest,” I mutter, though I know it’s pointless. Torric doesn’t rest, not when he thinks someone might need him.

Torric lets out a humorless laugh, running a hand down his face. “I should do a lot of things.”

I glance at him, taking in the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his fists clench and unclench at his sides.

His entire body is wound like a wire ready to snap.

I know exactly where his mind is. It hasn’t left the moment she collapsed, the corruption spreading beneath her skin like poison.

Or maybe even further back, to memories neither of us can escape.

I hesitate before speaking. “This isn’t—”

“Don’t,” he snaps, cutting me off. His jaw works like he’s trying to grind down the words building inside him, but they break free anyway. “Don’t tell me this isn’t the same. That it isn’t happening all over again.”

My stomach knots because I can’t tell him that. Because I know exactly what he sees when he looks at her lying in that bed. Our sister, a corpse in a battlefield, a promise we made to ourselves never to fail someone like that again. The memory of it washes through me, cold and familiar.

I swallow, my grip tightening on the railing until my knuckles go white. “We didn’t lose her, Torric.”

“Not yet,” he mutters. But his voice is raw. Fractured around the edges in ways only I would recognize.

I shake my head, trying to believe my own words. “She’s still here. She’s still breathing.”

“And what if that changes?” He finally turns toward me, and I wish he hadn’t. His golden eyes are sharp with something desperate, something unhinged beneath the surface. “What if next time, she doesn’t get back up?”

Something dark claws up my throat, because that thought has been living inside me too.

Because it almost happened when the corruption took her down.

And no matter how many times I tell myself she’s okay, the bond doesn’t lie.

The hollow stretch of it hasn’t faded and the pain started the second she went down in that fight.

It was the moment I felt something in me splinter.

Something I haven’t been able to fix no matter how much ice I call to numb it .

“I wasn’t strong enough,” I say, the words coming before I can stop them.

Torric stiffens beside me. “Aspen—”

“I wasn’t.” My voice is quiet, but it feels like a roar inside my head. “She was right there, and I couldn’t stop it. I wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t strong enough, and now—” My breath shudders out of me. “Now I don’t know if she even wants me around.”

Torric exhales, rubbing the back of his neck. “She doesn’t—” He hesitates, searching for the words. “She doesn’t blame you.”

Doesn’t she? I don’t say it out loud. I just feel it in every interaction since that moment.

Every time she hesitates before looking at me, or her shadows curl toward someone else first. When she leans into Malrik, into Finn, into anyone but me.

Maybe she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.

Maybe she does. Either way, the space between us is growing, and I don’t know how to stop it.

“Doesn’t matter,” I say, forcing the words through the weight in my chest. “I know what I am now.”

Torric watches me, silent for a long moment. Then, quietly, he says, “Is that what this is about? The berserker?”

I don’t answer. I don’t need to. The truth of it is written in every tense line of my body, in the frost that forms unconsciously around my fingers when I think about what happened.

He curses under his breath. “Aspen, you’re not—”

“I am.” My voice comes out sharper than I intend. I drag a hand down my face, suddenly exhausted by the weight of it all. “I lost control, Torric. I felt it happen. I felt something else take over, something that didn’t care about anything but blood. ”

“I know.” He exhales, raking a hand through his hair. “I did too.”

His admission makes something twist inside me, something I don’t want to name. Maybe we are worse than I thought. Maybe that’s what Kaia sees when she looks at us now, something dangerous, something to be wary of. The thought settles like ice in my stomach.

I drop my head against the railing, letting out a slow breath that mists in the air before me. “I don’t want to scare her.”

Torric leans beside me, his own gaze locked on the sanctuary below. “You don’t.”

I don’t answer, because I’m not sure if I believe him. Because I still remember the way her breath caught when she saw me change, the way her hands shook when she reached for me afterward. The memory of it burns beneath my skin.

And now she’s in there with him. Kieran.

The ancient one with eyes that see too much and say too little.

The one who looks at her like she holds the answers to questions he’s been asking for centuries.

And maybe I don’t deserve to be angry about that.

Maybe I don’t deserve to be anything at all when it comes to her.

Void help me, the berserker in my blood doesn’t give a damn about what I deserve. It only knows one thing: Kaia is ours. But the longer she looks at him like he’s the only one who’s ever mattered, the harder it is to pretend it doesn’t hurt like hell.

Ice crystals spread beneath my fingers, delicate patterns that speak to the storm building inside me. I watch them grow, forcing myself to breathe. To remain in control. To be the calm one, the steady one, the one who thinks before he acts .

But the truth is, I’m none of those things anymore. Not really. Not since I watched Kaia fall and felt something primal and ancient tear through the careful walls I’ve built around myself.

Not since I realized I might love her in ways I have no right to.