Page 79

Ellie locks up mid-step, as if the command alone froze her in place. Breath caught. Shoulders rigid. Muscles trembling with the effort not to bolt. I see it immediately. The silver flaring too bright in her eyes, her control slipping as panic sets in.

The officer who called out is still too far away to notice. But he’s coming.

A single misstep, a second too long. A visible hesitation, and he’ll see what she is.

Move.

I step between them. Cutting into a line he would have to cross to reach her.

“Keep walking. Through the door. Immediate right. Second left. Wait there.”

“But he said?—”

“ Now .” The command bites.

Ellie jerks back into motion, slipping through the door just as the officer's voice sharpens into a bark, his footsteps quickening.

I turn to meet him.

Head lowered, spine hunched, just another obedient servant. Dull and unremarkable. But every inch of my stance is deliberate, my body angled to block his sightline to her. Angled to kill, if necessary.

“Sir.” I keep my voice flat, submissive.

The officer stops in front of me, irritation shadowing his features. “That woman was instructed to stop.”

“She is under care for an eye affliction, sir.” The lie forms before he can say anything more. “Too much direct sunlight worsens the condition. She is required to report to the healers after meals.”

His lips thin, eyes narrowing. He doesn’t believe me. He wants to press. Wants to dig .

“Identification,” he snaps, thrusting out a hand.

I hand over my papers, while my mind already runs through all the ways this could unravel.

I could kill him. Right here. Right now. One whispered word. And he’d drop. The temptation is strong, but I force it down. There’s a time to fight, and this is not it.

The shadows inside me stir, waiting and ready to be unleashed.

The officer barely glances at my papers before shoving them back into my hands. “Next time, you both stop when instructed. Medical condition or not. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

The contempt in his gaze is clear, but his attention is already shifting toward his next victim.

I bow my head deeper, bury the rising shadows, and step through the doorway, following the path I told Ellie to use. She’s waiting, pressed against the wall, hands covering her face. Her shoulders heaving with each unsteady breath.

I cross the space between us. “Ellie.”

She lowers her hands just enough for me to see her eyes. The silver is no longer just flecks. It floods her irises, brilliant and uncontrolled. Unmissable even to casual observers.

I immediately position myself to shield her from anyone passing by.

“I couldn’t do it.” Fear and frustration lace her voice. “When he called out, everything just?—”

“Emotional triggers are powerful.” I keep my tone even, steady . She can’t afford for me to waver. “Especially when fear and anger collide.”

“What do we do now? I can’t just walk back to my room like this!” She touches her face.

She’s right, she can’t.

“This way.”

I guide her down the hallway, scanning ahead through the narrow avenues of shadow that cling to the walls.

There. Three doors down ...

A storage room. Small. Windowless. Locked, but those are only obstacles for people who respect them.

I send a tendril of shadow through the keyhole, twist, and the lock gives way. The door swings inward.

Inside, the air smells of dust and old wood. Shelves line the walls, stacked with buckets, cloths, and other cleaning supplies. Nothing important.

Perfect.

I usher her inside, and close the door behind us. In the dimness, her eyes glow like starlight. Beautiful, but dangerous.

“I can’t make it stop. Everything I try makes it worse.” Her voice breaks.

“The techniques I taught you are for prevention,” I remind her. “Not for once it’s already taken hold.”

Her laugh is sharp, unhappy. “Great. So much for being useful.” She fumbles in her pocket. “What about that vial?—”

I catch her wrist. “Not here.”

Her pulse flutters beneath my fingers like a trapped butterfly .

“Then what am I supposed to do?” She looks up at me, wild and desperate. “I can’t just walk around with glowing eyes!”

“Focus on me.”

I take her hands in mine, palm against palm. The second our skin connects, the shadows inside me surge forward like they've found something they've been seeking.

The energy hums between us, vibrating along unseen lines, but a steady resonance that should not exist.

Her breath catches. "What are you doing?" Her voice wavers between fear and wonder.

"Redirecting." I weave tendrils of shadow between our fingers, coaxing the excess silver out, siphoning it away without consuming it. The shadows and the light don’t fight. They move together, each tempering the other. Her power folds into mine, accepting the guidance without resistance.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she whispers.

“Neither do I.”

But I can feel it … her power reaching for mine, my shadows catching her light, tempering it. The silver seeps from her skin, drawn toward our joined hands before dispersing into the air.

Her fingers tighten around mine. “That’s … helping.”

“Your power responds to mine. They’re complimentary, somehow.”

“It didn’t start at Stonehaven, did it? It started in the tower.”

“Yes.”

The last wisps of silver fade from her skin. Her eyes still shimmer, but the danger has ebbed, buried deep enough that only those who know it’s there would notice .

“Better.” I study her, ignoring the pull that tightens through our hands. “We need to move before there’s another incident.”

I should let go. The immediate danger has passed. The prudent action would be to release her, step away, erase the evidence of what just occurred. Then check that the hallway is clear, and return to our rooms … separately .

But I don’t move.

Neither does she.

Something between us shifts again. It isn’t the overwhelming collapse of barriers that happened in Stonehaven when she touched my familiar, but a current, a steady, gathering pressure beneath the surface. A hum of awareness I can’t outrun.

Through our joined hands, I can feel her. Not just the chaotic swirl of her emotions, but fear of discovery, frustration at her lack of control, and determination battling with the longing for the life that’s slipping further from reach.

But beneath it all, there’s something else entirely.

“We should go.” Her voice is unsteady, but she makes no attempt to pull away.

“Yes.” The word leaves me slowly.

Her eyes—still too bright, too alive—search mine. I need to step back. Instead, I stand there, caught in the pull, watching silver burn through her gaze, and for the first time in decades, I lose track of what’s going on around me.

The door handle rattles. A sharp, jarring intrusion.

Ellie jolts, and I release her hands immediately, the severed connection snapping through my skin like a lash .

“Supply check,” a voice calls through the door. “Unlock for inventory.”

I assess our options. The room has no secondary exit, and no concealment. A confrontation would draw too much attention. We need an alternative explanation for our presence.

“Follow my lead,” I whisper, then crack the door open, just enough to allow my face to show.

A mid-ranked supervisor stands outside, papers clutched in one hand. His initial irritation shifts to mild surprise when he sees me.

“This room is occupied,” I tell him, allowing a trace of embarrassment to color my voice. Let him assume. Let him fill in the blanks.

His eyes narrow slightly. “Fraternization during duty hours is forbidden.” A warning, not an accusation. He’s only one rank above us, he has no real authority.

“Of course. We were just …” I let the pause build for a second too long. “ … finishing.”

The moment the words leave my mouth, understanding clicks into place behind his gaze. Disgust fills his eyes, but more than that, discomfort. He doesn’t want further details.

His grip on his papers tightens. “Room needs inventory by the end of the day. See that you’re not here when I return.”

“Understood. Thank you for your discretion.”

He leaves quickly, eager to distance himself from any implications. When his footsteps fade, I shut the door and turn back to Ellie .

She’s standing where I left her, face flushed red from hairline to collarbone, eyes wide with outrage and embarrassment.

“I don’t even need to understand your language to know what you just implied.”

“Servants often find ways to make their days more bearable.” My voice is dry. “Despite rules against it.”

“Great. Perfect. Just what I needed.” Her voice rises half a note, then breaks off when she realizes shouting will only worsen the situation.

“You’re unlikely to ever see him again.”

“But still …” She cuts herself off, clearly imagining whatever rumors might already be circulating … among people she doesn’t know … and will never have to face.

For some reason, it makes me want to smile.

“We should go back to our rooms before anything else happens.”

She nods, forcing composure back into place. “This won’t happen again. I won’t let it.”

I don’t comment. Instead of leaving her in her room, I take her to mine. She’s too wrung out to ask why.

As soon as we step inside, she sinks heavily onto the edge of the bed.

“Well, that was fun.”

I don’t reply, my thoughts circling on the connection between us. A connection growing more complex with every breath she takes near me. What began as a simple resonance has become something more immediate. A link that allows energy transfer when she loses control .

It shouldn’t exist. Yet it does.

The shadows within me respond to her presence, differently than anything I’ve ever known. Not mere acknowledgement of a complimentary power. But recognition.

But recognition of what exactly?

I turn to look at her, and find her asleep, curled on top of the bed, one hand fisted loosely in the worn blanket.

I move to the window, drawing the thin curtains to block out the remaining light.

Tomorrow I will retrieve my ring, the final fragment of the power I sundered before my imprisonment. Tomorrow I will be whole again.

But what follows is no longer certain.

Particularly with Ellie, and with what she’s becoming.

For now, I let these thoughts remain unanswered, though they've taken root too deeply to ignore. The shadows within me stir restlessly when I look at her sleeping form, curled on my bed like she belongs there.

Ellie Bennett, from a world I have never seen, has become more than an unwilling participant in the war older than her lifetime.

Even in sleep, the silver beneath her closed eyes betrays the truth. She is no longer foreign to this world, nor to me. Whether she wishes it or not. Whether I planned it or not.

Completion once meant reclaiming the power I lost. Now, watching her breathe in the twilight of Ashenvale, I accept a truth I can no longer deny. There is no completing myself without her. And whatever follows, there will be no undoing what has begun.