Page 13 of Stormvein

The room is too still. Too perfect. His bed stands against one wall, bedding neatly in place, waiting for an occupant who will never return. There’s a book open on the mattress, a pen beside it. His journal written in the same elegant handwriting I remember from the tower.

I shouldn’t be here. It feels like trespassing in a way that nothing else has—not entering the tower, not infiltrating Ashenvale. This space never got to be part of the story we shared. It was his private sanctuary. One that I was never invited to enter. But that was before everything changed between us. Before his shadows and my light intertwined. Before he looked at me with something more than calculation in his eyes.

But he’s not dead. I won’t let myself believe it.

I sink onto the edge of his bed, my hands trembling as they reach for the blanket. The energy inside me pulses in time with my racing heart, casting strange patterns across the walls. For a moment, the shadows seem to reach back.

He’s not dead.The words pound through my skull, drowning out the unbearable silence.

Because if he is, then what am I supposed to do? I’m trapped in a world that isn’t mine, with a power I don’t understand, surrounded by people fighting a war I barely comprehend.

The power turns erratic, feeding off the chaos inside me.

I can’t do this. I can’t sit here, in this room that still carries the presence of him, pretending that he’s?—

No.

He isn’t dead. I would know if he was. I would feel it. Wouldn’t I? There would be some kind of … severance. Somefinal breaking of whatever connection formed between us that night in Ashenvale.

A sob wrenches free before I can stop it. It startles me, as if it belongs to someone else. I press my hands over my mouth, but it doesn’t stop another from escaping. The next breath shudders through me, followed by another, then another, until I can’t hold them back anymore.

I fold forward, my forehead pressing against the cool sheets, and I break. My body shakes, my hands twisting into the fabric as sobs tear free—ugly, gasping, and relentless. My throat aches, my chest burns, but I can’t stop.

I don’twantto stop.

I clutch at the sheets, but it’s just fabric. It doesn’t hold warmth. It doesn’t hold him.

He’s dead.

No.

I squeeze my eyes shut against the flood of memories.

Sacha standing at my side, his voice delivering some dry, cutting remark in that low voice that sometimes,rarely, held a hint of warmth meant only for me.

Sacha catching my wrist, stopping me from walking into danger, his touch firm but careful. Always careful, as though he thought I might break … or worse, I might run.

Sacha looking at me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t solve. Or wouldn’t allow himself to solve.

The bed shifts beneath me as I curl into myself. I can’t breathe past the grief, can’t think past the echo of him.

I want him to walk through the door. I want him to tell me he’s fine. I want him to call me a fool for believing he could be lost so easily. To tell me I should have more faith in the Shadowvein Lord, theVareth’el, in that arrogant tone that makes me want to grind my teeth.

I slip my hand inside my tunic, fingers closing around the cool metal of his ring. The weight of it grounds me.

It’s real. Solid. He was here. He was real.

He’s not dead.

Hecan’tbe.

The thought steadies my breath just enough to fill my lungs. I breathe in again … then again. My heartbeat slows. My body stills. The grief is still there, suffocating, crushing, but somewhere beneath it, that faint sliver of denial remains. A tether to hope, however frail.

I won’t believe it. Ican’t.

Sleep pulls at me like an undertow, dragging me down before I can untangle grief from hope, reality from delusion. My last conscious thought is of the ring pressed against my palm, a circle without end.

And then I dream.