Page 49

Kieran

Morning came too fast.

The kind of morning that didn’t belong to sunrises and birdsong, but to war drums beating just beneath the skin.

I sat by the hearth, Mercy across my lap, the whetstone gliding in slow, deliberate strokes. Each pass left the blade keener. Cleaner. More dangerous.

I didn’t look at her yet. I couldn’t.

She was still half-curled on the bed, blanket tangled around her waist, bare shoulders kissed by shadow and scar. Her soul was tied to mine now. Her breath echoed in my chest. Her pain rested under my skin like a second pulse.

And she was walking into the circle alone.

The door creaked. One of the guards—a younger one, eyes too sharp for his own good—stepped inside without speaking and handed over a leather bracer etched with faint sigils. “From one of the older fighters,” he muttered. “She’ll burn slower with this. Maybe.”

I took it. Nodded. “Thanks.”

He left without waiting for a reply.

I turned back to Mercy and resumed the slow rhythm. Scrape. Breathe. Sharpen. Breathe.

Behind me, the sheets rustled.

“Didn’t sleep,” she said quietly, voice husky with exhaustion.

I finally looked at her.

Hair tousled. Lips dry. Eyes—gods, those eyes—heavy with fear she wouldn’t name. She was already dressed beneath the blanket, her undershirt dark with old bloodstains we hadn’t managed to wash out.

“Figured,” I said, setting Mercy aside. “Didn’t either.”

She stood slowly, limbs stiff, and came to sit across from me on the rug. The firelight painted her skin gold and red, and I had to fight the urge to pull her back into my arms and never let her go.

Instead, I offered her the bracer.

She blinked. “What’s this?”

“Something to help keep your arm intact when you burn the world down.”

She gave me a soft, tired laugh. I slid the bracer over her forearm. I adjusted the straps with care. “Stylish,” she murmured. “Goes great with homicidal vengeance.”

I passed her a cloth and the small bottle of oil I’d used on Mercy’s hilt. “Polish the bracer. It’ll hold better.”

She took it without question. Our fingers brushed. Static danced between us, not from magic. From something older. Rawer.

“I should be the one going in,” I said after a long pause. “You know that.”

“I know.” Her voice didn’t shake. “But you can’t.”

My throat tightened. “If she kills you—”

“She won’t,” Dahlia interrupted. “Because I’m going to make sure she bleeds first.”

Gods, I loved her.

I knelt in front of her and wrapped her hand around Mercy’s handle. “Then take this. And make her regret ever saying your name.”

Her hand squeezed mine. “I planned on it.”

She leaned forward and rested her forehead against mine. No flames. No shadows. Just breath and stillness.

And the weight of everything we had to survive.

A knock rattled the door like a warning shot.

Dahlia stiffened. So did I.

It opened without waiting.

Two guards entered—different from the others we’d seen. These weren’t the younger, hesitant ones. These were older. Hard-eyed. The kind that had seen things and come out meaner for it.

“Time,” one of them said, already reaching for Dahlia’s arm.

She stood before I could move. Held Mercy with calm hands. But when he grabbed her elbow, too tight, too fast—I saw it.

The flicker of pain in her jaw. The restraint in her fingers.

The restraint she didn’t deserve to need today.

I rose slowly.

“Let go,” I said, voice quiet enough to draw attention.

The guard ignored me. Gave Dahlia a small shove toward the doorway. “Move, witch.”

She didn’t cry out.

But I did.

Not with words. With shadow.

They poured from my back like wings unfurling, fast and sharp and furious. The room dropped ten degrees. The fire in the hearth shuddered out.

The guard closest to me reached for a blade—then froze as my shadows slid under his chin.

“Touch her again,” I said. “See what happens.”

The second guard scoffed. “She’s just a witchling. Harmless.”

I stepped in close, shadows rising around my feet like smoke from a battlefield.

“Say that again,” I murmured, voice ice and blade. “Slower. I want to remember the last words you ever speak.”

His face blanched, my shadows slithering up his throat.

The first guard swallowed hard and loosened his grip on Dahlia. She straightened her spine, never looking at me, but her knuckles went white around Mercy’s hilt. I let the shadows fall to her feet, content, like a hunting dog.

The second guard didn’t speak again.

They led her from the room more carefully this time. As though remembering they were in the presence of something holy.

Or cursed.

I didn’t follow. Not yet.

But my shadows did.

They’d know I was coming.

And gods help them if she came to harm before the Bloodrite began.