Page 73

“I know that whatever power flows through you responds to your emotions. Control those, and you control the manifestations.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Just control my emotions. That’s your solution?”

“For now, yes. Tomorrow, before we reach Ashenvale, we’ll work on some suppression techniques. It’s unwise to do it here.”

Suppression . Not mastery or understanding.

Because the only way to make this manageable, the only way to make me manageable, is to smother it before it ever rises.

The mist thickens as night falls, insulating us in a shroud of shifting gray. Varam sets the watch rotation, but he leaves me out. I don’t argue. It makes sense. I wouldn’t be much use. Not like this.

Mira walks over and offers me a blanket. She nods toward a flat patch of ground near where she’s arranged her own sleeping space .

“You’ll sleep better there.”

I’m not sure I’ll sleep at all, but I thank her anyway, and settle onto the forest floor, wrapping the blanket around me. But rest doesn’t come easy.

The moment when silver light sparked between me and the bandit plays on a loop in my head. The look of shock on his face. The way the energy pulsed. The way Sacha moved the second it happened.

Would the bandits still be alive if I had done nothing?

The question gnaws at me, circling in endless loops until exhaustion pulls me under.

My dreams are fractured. Shadows and light, coiling and twisting in patterns that almost make sense … until they don’t. Until they dissolve into chaos.

I wake in the night, disoriented. Cold .

The mist has thickened even more, swallowing the camp in a dense veil.

Shapes blur at the edge of my vision, shifting like phantoms. Most of the group is asleep, their breathing quiet beneath the weight of the fog.

Two figures keep watch at the perimeter, dark silhouettes barely visible through the haze.

Sleep won’t come back. Too many thoughts being loud in my head. Flashes of silver light, the way the bandit looked at me, the bodies in the clearing.

Wrapping my blanket tighter around my shoulders, I move toward the edge of the camp to where the more familiar of the sentries is. Sacha sits alone on a fallen log, his figure half-lost in the mist. He doesn’t turn, but his voice reaches me quietly .

“Can’t sleep?”

“Too much in my head.”

I lower myself beside him, the cold seeping through the fabric of my clothes. I sit close enough that the edge of his cloak brushes my arm. The mist moves, curling around us, occasionally parting to reveal glimpses of stars before swallowing them again.

“Are you worried? About tomorrow?”

“Not worried, but concerned about uncontrollable variables. Ashenvale will have changed in my absence.”

I watch the shifting mist, the way it looks like it’s breathing with the way it moves. “When we get there … when you find your ring … what happens then?”

He turns slightly, his face half-hidden in the dark. The space between us feels even smaller now, like the mist has pressed us closer together.

“What happened today, the merchants and bandits recognizing me, that changes my timeline. Word will spread faster than anticipated.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted? For them to know you’re back?”

“Eventually. But timing matters. The Authority will intensify their hunt for me once confirmed word of sightings reaches them.”

I take in a deep breath, then ask the question that’s been lurking in the back of my mind. “And me? What happens to me after Ashenvale?”

I’ve asked before, but after today, after the bandit’s words, the silver light, the way they looked at me, it feels different .

The mist curls between us, shifting into shapes I can’t quite define before fading again.

“We continue trying to understand your connection to this world,” he says at last. In the mist, his profile seems more softened, more human. His leg brushes against mine, a quiet point of contact neither of us moves to break. “To understand what you are to Meridian, and what Meridian is to you.”

“That’s not really an answer.” I wrap my arms around myself, fighting off the night’s chill.

“But it’s the only one I have.” He pauses. “For now.”

His honesty surprises me. No carefully phrased response designed to manipulate or control, just an admission of uncertainty. From a man who calculates every word, every action, this vulnerability feels like a gift more precious than any reassurance could be.

We sit in silence for a while, watching the mist form patterns. Sometimes they resemble figures and shapes that dance just at the edge of recognition before dissolving again.

“You should sleep. Tomorrow is going to require full attention.” His voice carries a note of concern that wasn’t there before. Before the bandits. Before they called me the one with stars in my eyes.

I nod, and place my hands on the log to push myself up. But before I can, his hand moves, catching my wrist with a touch so gentle it sends a shock through me.

My head turns, to find him looking at me, the mist flooding thick around us, blurring the world to nothing but him, and me, and this fragile space between .

His hand moves, lifting, until the back of his fingers brush my jaw. A careful touch, then, very slowly, his palm cradles my cheek.

He tilts my face toward him, and the air stills in my lungs. He’s so close that I can feel his breath against my lips. So close that if either of us moved even a fraction more, our mouths would touch.

But he doesn’t move. He holds the moment in that unbearable space between almost and never.

“What happened today was not your fault.” The words are so low I almost miss them beneath the loud, rapid beating of my heart.

Then, with that same iron control he always has, he lets me go.

I stand up, slow and reluctant, but before I step away, I touch his shoulder. The fabric is cool beneath my fingers, but I can feel his warmth underneath, the solid reality of him.

“Thank you. For not pretending you have all the answers.”

He doesn’t respond with words, but his hand rises to cover mine for a second. A touch so brief I might have imagined it if not for the lingering warmth on my skin. I feel his attention follow me as I make my way back to my sleeping spot, like a physical presence at my back.

As I settle onto the cold ground, my thoughts don’t quiet, but something feels … different . A realignment of sorts.

The uncertainty that’s shadowed me since I arrived in this world hasn’t lessened, but the fear of it has.

Whatever I’m becoming, whatever is going to happen once Sacha regains his ring, I’ll face it.

One day at a time.

One challenge at a time.

One step forward on a path I still can’t fully see.