Page 30 of The Scars of War (Of Ruin and Fire #1)

What Lies Beyond

The sheets still smell like him. Sweat. Skin.

Salt. Power. It should comfort me. The way his scent clings to my body like a second skin, the way the mattress dips where his weight once was, the way the ache between my thighs proves last night happened.

It wasn’t a dream, not a fever, not another fucking hallucination.

All it does is remind me how alone I am now.

Riven didn’t stay. He didn’t wake me. Didn’t touch me again. Didn’t whisper some possessive little promise that I’m his. He was just…gone. Like he knew I needed silence more than I needed him.

I push the sheet back and sit up slowly. My body screams with the memory of him, of us, of what I claimed. Beneath that…something deeper. Like my soul is bruised .

The mark on my palm is dull now, but still there. A cracked circle etched into my skin like a secret only I can see. It doesn’t throb or hum or burn anymore. But it hasn’t disappeared either.

It’s waiting. Watching.

I curl my hand into a fist. The house feels quieter today.

I dress in silence, piece by piece, like armor. Black jeans. Tight tank. Leather jacket that doesn’t belong to me, it's too big, sleeves are long, smells like war and smoke. It settles on my shoulders like a memory I haven’t earned.

The mirror in the corner doesn’t lie. I look like myself, but I don’t feel like her.

There’s too much weight behind my eyes now.

Too much blood under my skin. The kind of heaviness that doesn’t come from grief, it comes from knowing.

From seeing. From screaming into the dark and hearing something scream back.

My reflection tilts her head. I don’t. And then I leave.

The hallway outside the room isn’t the same one I came in through.

Of course it isn’t. This place reshapes itself like it’s alive, no, not alive—responsive.

A creature waiting to see what I’ll become before it decides whether I’m a guest or a threat.

The walls are quieter today. The shadows longer.

The air is just a little colder than it should be.

I don’t rush. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know where I’ll end up, and I’m right. Because when I round the corner, Vale is already there.

He’s sitting in the old leather chair like he’s been there for hours. Like he never left. The room is nothing special. No grand war gallery. No veil-bent vault. Just dark wood, bookshelves that climb into shadows, and the scent of something dry and cold, like old paper and even older regrets.

Vale looks up slowly when I enter. Unsurprised, as if he knew I’d come, like he waited through the whole damn night for me to step into this moment. Like it was always going to be this way. “Close the door,” he says quietly.

I don’t remember opening it. I shut it anyway. I don’t sit at first. I just stand there, arms crossed, back straight, like distance will save me from what I already feel crawling under my skin .

He watches me the way he always does. Calm. Still. Unreadable. The kind of expression that tells you everything is intentional, even the silence. “You left,” I say.

He nods once. “You needed time.”

I study him. “To process?”

“To decide.”

The word sinks into my gut. He doesn’t mean to decide what I want. He means decide what I’ll become. I walk past the desk and sit across from him, hands resting in my lap like I’ve forgotten how to hold them properly. “You knew I’d come to you,”

“Yes.”

“You knew I’d have questions.”

He nods again. “Not all of them have answers.”

“Then lie to me,” I say, voice low. “But make it a good one.”

That earns a flicker of something, the closest thing to a smile Vale ever offers. It doesn’t reach his eyes. Nothing ever does.

We sit in silence for a long time. The kind that isn’t empty. The kind that thickens. I lean back, exhaling. “What am I? ”

“You know already.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

His jaw tightens by a fraction.. Like a knife that knows it’s about to cut something soft. “You are the gate.”

“To what?”

He doesn’t look away, “Oblivion.”

The word hangs heavy. Not poetic or symbolic. Final. I feel it settle in my chest like a weight. I want to laugh. I want to scream. I want to punch him in the fucking throat and ask why it had to be me. Instead, I whisper, “And what does it want?”

He answers without blinking. “To be known.”

I shift in my seat, fingers curling into the fabric of my jeans. “The vault. The power. The voice that wasn’t mine. It all…it all recognized me.”

“Yes.”

“And the sigils,” I press. “I’ve seen them. Yours. Riven’s. Niko’s. Elias’s. Even the fifth. But I don’t have one.”

“No,” Vale says. “Because you aren’t part of the order.”

“Then what the fuck am I part of?”

“You’re the reason it exists. ”

The silence that follows isn’t stillness. It’s pressure. It wraps around my chest and squeezes. I lick my lips. “Why me?”

“Because your blood woke it. Your voice called it. And your body…” he trails off.

“Say it,” I snap.

His gaze sharpens. “Your body can carry it.”

I recoil like he struck me. “I’m not a vessel,” I hiss.

“You already are.”

I shake my head. “No. No. I chose Riven. I chose my bond. That was mine.” He doesn’t argue, but he doesn’t agree either.

“Then tell me the rest,” I whisper. “Tell me what happened to the last one.”

Vale’s gaze turns distant. For a moment, he looks younger. A man remembering something that never let him go. “She was a banshee too,” he says. “Born with the voice. The mark found her early. She tried to fight it.”

“What happened?”

“She didn’t scream loud enough.” The words land like a coffin nail.

Vale stands slowly, stepping toward me, slow, deliberate, no threat in stride.

“And you already have,” he says. “Which means it’s listening.

” I look up at him, breath caught in my throat.

“Be careful what you say next, Lux,” he murmurs. “It might hear you.”

He leaves without ceremony. One second, he’s standing in front of me, breath cool against my cheek, and the next, he’s just…gone. Without a sound, and now there is just an absence, thick and cold. Bleeding into the seams of the room like ink into paper.

I sit there for too long. Still as the stone beneath me. My heart won't slow. I don’t know what part of me still expected him to reach for me. Maybe the part that needs comfort. Maybe the part that still believes being wanted makes you safe.

Vale has never touched me like Riven does, and now that he’s gone, the air has turned. Everything’s off. Everything’s waiting. The house is too quiet again. But not dead.

It’s breathing. Breaths I can’t hear but feel. I feel them in the floorboards, in the walls, in my skin. The veil is closed now. So fucking close, I think if I opened a window, it would reach through and pull me under .

I find my way back to the hallway slowly, fingertips grazing the wood panels like I’m walking a dream I’ve already died in. There’s no one here. No guards. No Riven. No sound. Just the echo of a question I didn’t ask out loud.

If I’m the key…what does that make them?

I find myself in the glass hallway again. I didn’t mean to come here. My feet just drifted. The moment I step inside, the temperature shifts. Cooler. Still. Reverent, almost.

The glass cases line both walls, illuminated from within like altars. Some are pristine. Others cracked at the edges, like time itself has left its mark. Every case holds something brutal, a relic of violence, of conquest, of ruin.

A helmet scorched black, still etched with the bloodstained crest of a long-dead empire.

A rusted scythe blade, curved wrong, like it had been forced through something hard. A child’s doll, headless, wrapped in a soldier’s bandage and marked with ash. None of these things belong to the other horsemen. They’re all his. Riven’s wars. Riven’s ruin. Riven’s legacy .

And somehow, walking through them now feels different. Because I know what he is. Because now I know what I am.

The air thickens as I move deeper into the hall, past the relics arranged like coffins standing on end. Not labeled or explained. Just…remembered.

One case holds a crown split straight down the center.

Iron, dented and stained from battle. Another holds a weapon I don’t recognize.

A wicked, jagged thing shaped like a question mark, half-dagger, half-hook.

The plaque below it is cracked, and the name has worn away.

The only thing left behind is a smear of something too dark to be rust.

Riven didn’t collect these for display. He kept them because he couldn’t let them go. Because war doesn’t end when the fighting stops. It lingers. It breathes. It builds shrines like this one, where no one can forget what’s been done.

Including me.

I stop when I reach the end of the hallway. There’s no plaque here. No display case. Just a mirror .

Tall. Narrow. The edges gilded in tarnished silver, vines curling up the sides like they grew there on their own. The surface isn’t smooth. Not anymore. It’s pocked with age, the kind of glass that reflects in shades of memory, not clarity.

I’ve passed it before. But tonight, it’s different. Tonight, it sees me. The moment I step in front of it, the mark on my palm flares. Faint. A soft pulse, like a second heartbeat, not mine.

I raise my hand. Press it to the glass. No breath fogs the surface. No reflection stares back. Just the outline of me…warped.

My silhouette ripples. The features are mine, but the shape behind my eyes is something else. Something watching. Something caged. Something waiting.

The mirror doesn’t move. Doesn’t shimmer or glow or offer any sign of magic. But I feel it, the veil here is thinner. It knows I’m more than blood now. More than banshee. More than bone and flesh.

I’m the thing that doesn’t belong. The thing that calls .

“Let us through.” The voice isn't loud. It isn't even sound. It's an impression behind the glass. A vibration against my bones. A pressure that pushes instead of pulls.

I clench my jaw. “No.”

The mirror doesn’t crack. But something inside me does. A sound like wind in a sealed room scrapes down the back of my spine. The crown in the case to my left rattles once, then goes still. Every light in the hall flickers.

I back away. My reflection doesn’t move. It stays where it is, pressed against the glass, staring through me. And when it smiles, I don’t. The mark on my palm burns. A single flash. Like a warning shot. The mirror darkens. The reflection fades. The hallway stills. Something lingers.

Not on the other side of the glass, but behind me. I turn slowly. And he’s there, Vale.

He doesn’t speak. Just stands there, half-swallowed by the dark at the far end of the corridor, as if he’s always belonged to shadow more than light.

The war gallery curves slightly, and the way the illumination hits him makes him look like a statue carved from moonlight and blood. Perfect. Still. Wrong .

I don’t move, I wait. Because I’m not sure which one of us is the threat right now.

“I told you to be careful with what you let hear you,” he says quietly.

I swallow the taste of iron. “So, you’ve been watching me?”

His head tilts in a subtle motion, almost gentle. “I never stopped.”

My pulse stutters. He walks toward me, slow and smooth, hands loose at his sides. No aggression or tension. Every step sets the air off-kilter, like gravity is bending around him. Like the veil is closer here because he brings it with him.

“You’re not ready for what that mirror shows,” he murmurs.

“I don’t care,” I lie.

“Yes, you do.” He stops just in front of me. “And that’s the problem.”

I look up at him. I hate how beautiful he is. How calm. How everything about him feels like sleep, the kind that drowns. The kind you don’t wake up from.

“You knew what I’d see,” I say. “Didn’t you? ”

He doesn’t blink. “I know what’s waiting on the other side.”

“Then tell me.”

His expression doesn’t change. “No.”

Rage claws up my spine. “Why not?”

“Because you’ll go to it.”

The words hit harder than a scream. “I wouldn’t…”

“You already are,” he says, and there’s no heat in it. Just the kind of sorrow that cuts deeper because it’s true.

I step back, and he doesn’t follow. “I thought you wanted to help me.”

“I did.”

“Then what changed?”

He looks at me like he’s measuring a wound that hasn’t bled yet.

“You did.” Silence stretches between us like a wire pulled too tight.

He breaks it with a whisper. “They think they’ve claimed you.

Riven. Elias. Niko. Even I did, for a time.

” I freeze as he takes a step forward. “But you weren’t made to belong to anyone. ”

“I’m not theirs,” I snap. “I’m mine.”

Vale nods slowly. “Then act like it. ”

My breath catches. “What the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

He looks at me, really looks, and I feel it. The weight of every choice I didn’t know I was making. The way his gaze lands on me like a flame to dry leaves. It’s sudden, consuming, and impossible to ignore. “I think,” he says, voice barely a breath, “you’re still deciding which side you’re on.”

And with that, he turns and walks away. No threat. No blood. Not even a final word. Just the soft echo of his footsteps disappearing into the dark. And I stand there, staring at the mirror that doesn’t reflect me anymore. Knowing that whatever happens next, it won’t come quietly.