Page 34

The light here doesn’t feel like light. It presses instead of shines, slipping beneath skin like smoke that never burns off. It isn’t warmth or cold. Just wrong. The magic doesn’t thrum—it waits, and that’s worse. Everything in this place is suspended in a kind of too-perfect balance, like the second Luna breathes too deep or someone says the wrong name aloud, the whole chamber will collapse into some mythic sinkhole Branwen made just to be petty from beyond the grave.

We’ve all split off, studying the pillars, hunting down our own crests like dogs trying to sniff out the scent of ourselves. I haven’t found mine yet. I don’t want to. Not really. If this place can replicate our worst, it sure as fuck knows how to weaponize it.

But Silas?

Silas is standing three rows ahead of me, back to a pillar carved in copper-veined stone that flickers like heat lightning. His body language screams casual—one hip cocked, mouth curled in that permanent not-quite-smile, shoulders loose in a way that always means he’s hiding something.

And he’s rolling something across his fingers.

I pause mid-step.

It’s small. Circular. Familiar in a way that grabs me by the back of the neck and yanks.

A coin.

Not just any coin. Gold. Real. Etched in symbols I remember from the dragon’s hoard. The kind of gold that isn’t just currency—it’s memory. Magic-laced. Cursed, probably. And definitely not something we walked in here with.

My voice cuts the space between us, flat and loud enough to make Luna glance over her shoulder.

“You fucking stole from the dragon.”

Silas doesn't flinch. Doesn’t stop flipping the coin over his knuckles like it’s some soothing tick he’s always had. Like it means nothing. That’s what gets me. He knows we all saw what that thing was. A hoard guardian. A beast older than the gods themselves. You don’t steal from something like that unless you’ve got a death wish or a very compelling kink.

“I didn’t steal,” he says after a beat, drawling the word like it’s beneath him. “I rescued her. Found her trembling under a pile of blood-soaked rubies. Whispered my name in the dust.”

“She whispered your name,” Elias mutters behind me. “Must’ve been traumatic for her.”

Silas turns toward me slowly, tossing the coin once into the air and catching it with a flick of his fingers. The soft clink echoes across the chamber like a threat.

“It’s just a coin,” he says, holding it up between two fingers. “Something to touch. The ones I make don’t weigh the same. They vanish. This one… this one stays.”

I move toward him, closing the space until we’re toe-to-toe. He doesn’t step back.

“You know what kind of magic was woven into that hoard,” I say, low and sharp. “Everything in that room had weight because it wasn’t meant to leave. You brought a curse with you, Silas.”

His smile shifts, just slightly.

“No,” he says, and there’s something quieter under it now. “I brought something real. In a realm made of rot and memory and facsimiles of people we once thought we loved… I needed something real in my pocket. Something that won’t disappear when this place decides we’ve had enough.”

Luna’s watching now. She hasn’t moved, but I feel the change in the air when her attention sharpens. The bond tugs, hot and immediate, and I grit my teeth against it because gods, even when she’s quiet, she pulls.

“She’s not going to vanish,” Silas says, and his eyes flick toward her for the briefest second. “But if she does—I want to hold on to something. Even if it kills me.”

He flips the coin again. I catch his wrist mid-arc. The gold spins in the air and drops. Doesn’t bounce. Doesn’t ring. It lands like it belongs here. And that’s what makes my stomach twist.

It shouldn’t.

I release his arm and step back, letting the moment bleed out between us. Silas watches me like he’s daring me to tell him it wasn’t worth it.

“I hope your little treasure doesn’t bite,” I murmur.

“Oh, she already has,” he says, grinning. “But I like it rough.”

Elias groans somewhere to the left. “And now I have that mental image. Fantastic.”

Luna turns back to the pillar she was studying, but I see the corner of her mouth twitch. Just a flicker. Barely there. The kind of almost-smile that only comes when she’s too tired to be angry and too in love to pretend she isn’t used to us by now.

I don’t look away from the pillar I’m studying—carved from a dull, rust-veined basalt, its glow weak, like it’s trying too hard to be forgotten. My crest’s etched into the base, or something trying to be it. But the angles are off, the wrath sigil thinned out like someone didn’t dare engrave it fully. Cowards. This one isn’t mine.

I hear it then. Not a voice. Not magic. A jingle.

Soft.

Faint.

Sharp as a blade to the gut.

I turn slowly. Silas. Shining with guilt that only someone like him could wear like a crown. His hands are nowhere near that coin he was flipping before—it’s tucked away now. But his stance is wrong. Shoulders tense. One foot slightly back. Ready to bolt. And there it is again.

That metallic clink. The sound of stolen gold singing in his fucking pocket.

My jaw tightens, rage prickling down my spine in a wave I don’t bother to stop.

“Silas.”

He freezes. Smiles too easily.

“Riv,” he says, voice light. “You’re looking very ‘murdery’ today. That’s new. Something on your mind?”

I take one step forward. Controlled. Precise.

“Empty your pockets.”

The silence hits like a shift in gravity.

He blinks. “That’s a bold opening line, even for you.”

“Don’t fuck with me.” My voice doesn’t rise. It drops. Cold. Final. “You took more than one coin.”

There’s a heartbeat where no one moves. Luna straightens. Caspian’s already starting toward us, slow but lethal in his approach. Even Elias—gods help him—stops whatever cringeworthy thing he was about to say and pays attention.

Silas’s smile falters just a fraction.

Then he does the stupidest possible thing. He runs. The bastard actually runs.

“Son of a—” I’m moving before the words are out of my mouth.

He darts between two pillars, laughing, and I swear it echoes like blasphemy in this cursed temple of futures. His boots skid across the smooth stone floor, and I see the flash of another coin fall from his coat and bounce once before rolling off into the dark.

He’s faster than he looks. But not faster than me.

I snarl and break into a sprint, the bond to Luna flaring hot in my chest as I cut down a side row, moving parallel to him. Caspian shouts something behind me—probably mocking encouragement—and Luna? She doesn’t stop me. She never stops me when it’s about Silas. Because she knows I won’t kill him.

Probably.

Silas ducks under a low-hanging arch of pillar roots, spins, and throws something in my path. A coin. It hits the floor and glows—a burst of magic that flares up like an old trap awakening. I leap straight through it, let the pulse hit me, let it burn.

“CHEAP TRICKS DON’T WORK ON ME!” I roar, already closing the gap.

He looks over his shoulder, laughing breathless and high.

“They work just fine when they’re sexy, !”

“YOU’RE DEAD!”

“I mean—only on the inside!”

I lunge. Tackle. We crash down into the dust between two pillars so close together their runes flash red in warning, reacting to proximity. I slam him down hard, pinning him by the throat with one hand and driving the other into his coat.

A handful of coins spill loose. Gold. Silver. Bronze. Even one crusted in blood.

He stares up at me, panting, pupils blown wide. Not afraid.

Never afraid.

“I needed something to hold onto,” he says quietly. “In case she—”

I snarl. “She’s not going anywhere.”

Silas doesn’t answer. Just looks at me, and for once, there’s no joke. No grin. Just that terrifying depth under all the madness. That deep, quiet truth he doesn’t say out loud.

He needs Luna. Like I do.

Like we all do.

I release his throat and shove the coins into his chest, one by one, hard enough to bruise.

“You carry these again,” I say, voice low, “you better be ready for what they do when they start carrying you back.”

I stand. He stays on the floor a second longer. Then, slowly, he laughs.

“Gods, I love it when you get all poetic and feral. If I die in this realm, I want that on my tombstone.”

“Your tombstone’s going to say Here Lies Silas, He Had It Coming.”

He grins and rolls to his feet. And when we walk back to the others, runes still flickering—Luna’s watching us. Expression unreadable. But her hand brushes mine as I pass her. Not to stop me. Just to remind me.

I’m still hers.

I pass another crest, this one carved too sharp. The outer loop of the wrath sigil fractured into something jagged, almost desperate. Wrong. Another illusion, meant to mimic and mislead. Branwen’s final middle finger from beyond the grave.

And then Elias lets out a sound I’m convinced was designed to echo forever and haunt the dead. A single, ragged howl of laughter. It bounces through the chamber like thunder rolling over bone. Everyone stops. Even Luna lifts her head, startled. Elias is doubled over, bracing himself against one of the pillars, shoulders shaking. His voice comes out in gasps, barely coherent.

“Oh gods—no, no—someone—Silas, come here! You need to see this. I think your crest’s grown tits.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Then—

“What?” Silas blinks, mid-coin flip.

“Boobs, man!” Elias wheezes. “There are actual boobs on your sigil! This one’s just… just out here vibing with a pair of tits like it’s leading a sacrificial fertility cult!”

Silas jogs over with far too much excitement.

“Are they mine?” he asks eagerly. “Because I did once bind a witch who had a blessed rack and very low standards.”

Silas reaches the pillar and squints at it like he’s studying a mural painted by horny gods.

“Oh,” he breathes, awe-struck. “Oh, that’s not how I remember it… but I’m not mad. She’s a curvy little thing now.”

Luna’s mouth presses into a line as she approaches slowly, standing just behind Silas, arms crossed.

“Your actual crest,” she says, voice sharp but amused beneath it, “doesn’t have tits.”

Silas waves her off, still inspecting the voluptuous ridges and slightly-too-enthusiastic domes added to his sigil. “Art is interpretation, Luna. Magic evolves. Maybe this is how my essence wants to be seen.”

“Your essence is a walking HR violation,” Elias says, wiping tears from his eyes.

“It’s expressive,” Silas replies solemnly. “Sexually liberated. I feel very seen.”

“You’re going to feel my boot if you don’t move,” I growl, stepping between them and the pillar, scanning the details.

And sure enough—there they are. Curved, ridiculous, full-breasted additions to the standard envy sigil, carved like they were sculpted by a blind, overzealous bard with nothing but fantasies and wine in his blood.

This isn’t a pillar of magic. It’s a fucking shrine to perversion.

“Branwen had to know this would throw us off,” Orin says, appearing on the edge of the scene like a stormcloud. His gaze flickers over the engraving with academic detachment, though the corner of his mouth lifts ever so slightly. “She corrupted the most unstable sigils with purpose. Turned them into caricatures. If the pillar mocks you, you won’t believe in it. You’ll dismiss it.”

“Branwen thought I’d ignore boobs?” Silas says, scandalized. “She never did understand me.”

Elias points at the pillar again, this time more serious.

“But that means this one’s a fake, right?”

I nod once. “Definitely.”

Silas sighs dramatically, like we’ve just shattered a holy relic. “Rude. I was going to name her.”

“You don’t name the exit out of hell,” I snap.

“I name everything I love,” he says, placing a hand over his chest like the goddamn theatrical bastard he is.

The aftershock of Silas’s boob-sigil discovery is rippling through the chamber like the world’s worst spell gone horny. Elias is practically wheezing behind a pillar, still cackling to himself like he discovered divine comedy. Silas is back to rolling his sacred gold coin like nothing’s happened. Caspian’s doing his signature lean, arms crossed and jaw tight, somewhere between menace and seduction. Typical.

But it’s Lucien that catches my attention. Because he’s not looking at the pillars. He's not examining the lines of the crests, not running calculations in his head, not analyzing exit paths or probability sequences or whatever rigid, militaristic shit usually keeps him upright.

He’s looking at Luna.

From the corner of his eye. Just the faintest tilt of his head. But his focus is razor-sharp and undeniably locked on her. And he’s smiling. Not a smirk. Not his usual smug brand of disdain-glazed superiority. A real fucking smile. Soft. Barely there. But there. And the worst part? He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

I stalk toward him slow, savoring it. The moment. The chance. He doesn’t hear me until I’m already next to him, close enough to count the tension in his jaw that he tries—and fails—to conceal when I speak.

“Look at you,” I murmur, low and lethal. “All dewy-eyed and dreamy.”

Lucien’s mouth twitches. The smile vanishes like a snapped spell, replaced with that classic glacial calm.

Too late.

“I wasn’t smiling,” he says, cold and clipped, like the sentence itself offends him.

“You were,” I drawl. “You looked like you were about to write her a poem. Maybe press a hand to your chest and sigh.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I’m never absurd. Silas is absurd. I’m observant. And you—” I tilt my head, let the smirk bleed across my face, slow and deliberate. “You were making moon eyes. Like some lovesick lordling from a cursed fairytale.”

Lucien doesn’t answer, but his throat flexes.

And gods, it’s so funny watching him try not to look again.

Of course, he fails.

His gaze drifts back to her—not directly. Not foolishly. Just a glance. Just a brush. Like his eyes have a magnetic memory, and her silhouette pulled the compass needle true. Luna is standing by a pillar at the far edge of the chamber, light crawling across her skin, runes catching fire against her collarbone, hair backlit like a fucking prophecy. She’s studying the sigils, calm but focused, and there’s something in the set of her shoulders that makes her look not just powerful, but sacred.

I get it. I do. But that doesn’t mean I won’t mock him for it.

“I think she caught you,” I say, just loud enough to make him tense again.

“She’s not looking,” Lucien says, voice dry, controlled.

“She never has to. She feels everything.”

He says nothing. But his fingers curl at his side.

“You’re allowed to love her, you know,” I say, quieter now. Just between us. “Even if you fucked it all up.”

Lucien turns to face me fully, and for a moment, I see the raw edge behind all that polished control—the regret, the restraint, the quiet rage he keeps leashed not because it’s gone but because he doesn’t trust what happens when it gets loose.

“She doesn’t want my love,” he says, not bitter—just true.

I shrug. “She didn’t want mine either. Until she did.”

That shuts him up. I let the silence settle, then lean in just enough to press the final nail.

“You keep looking at her like that,” I murmur, “and she’ll start looking back.”

And then I walk off. Because I don’t need to say anything else. Not when I can feel the pulse of our bond flare across the room—Luna’s attention dragging toward me, like a thread being pulled tight. Not possessive. Just known. I don’t need to watch Lucien follow her with his eyes again. I already know he will.

Lucien

I shift my gaze. Not too fast. Not in a way that confirms anything. But the moment his smirk hit me, I felt the ground tilt—just slightly. Not because of him. But because he’s right.

And that makes me fucking furious.

I turn and move to another row of pillars, deeper into the shadows where the light doesn’t touch the floor so easily, where the walls lean a little too far in, like this part of the chamber remembers how to suffocate. I welcome the cold that finds me here. The solitude. It’s the only thing that dulls the low, brutal ache thrumming behind my ribs.

The ache that started the moment she lifted her shirt and revealed her skin.

Not the tattoos—though gods know those are a problem in and of themselves. Her magic etched into flesh. But no. It’s her. The ease with which she bore the weight of every gaze. The defiance in the set of her shoulders. The way she didn’t flinch when Silas grinned, or when prowled, or when Caspian stared like she was the only altar worth bleeding on.

I close my eyes for half a breath and press my palm to the pillar nearest me. It thrums faintly against my skin, not hostile, not inviting. Just aware. But it’s not my crest carved here—this isn’t the right one. I’m not even looking for it. Not anymore.

Because all I can see is the curve of her waist when she turned. The shadow under her throat where sweat had begun to gather. The sharp edge of her hips and how they moved when she stepped back, shirt falling into place like she hadn’t just detonated every goddamn thought I’ve been trying to repress since the moment she stopped hating me.

And she has stopped hating me.

I can feel it in her silences. The way her eyes linger now, not in fury—but in recognition.

And maybe something else. But it doesn’t matter. It can’t. Not when she’s already claimed. Not when the others have lines drawn to her heart like they were carved by fate itself, and all I’ve done is damage.

The restraint it takes to remain still is staggering. Every time her voice touches the room, I feel it low and precise, like it was pitched for me alone. Her magic doesn’t answer mine—but it hums just under the surface of my skin, like it would, if I let it.

And that’s the most dangerous part of all.

Because I’ve always known how to break someone.

But I’ve never known how to need them.

A rustle breaks the quiet—a whisper of boots against stone. I don’t turn. I know the gait. The swagger. The barely-concealed arrogance of a man who knows every version of you you never wanted to admit existed.

Elias slides into view with a lopsided grin and a smirk that promises nothing good.

“You look broody,” he says, leaning one shoulder against the pillar beside mine. “Like... tragic hero broody. Like you’re two seconds away from writing ‘To Luna, Love Me Not’ in blood across the wall.”

I grit my teeth. “Shouldn’t you be licking a rune or flirting with a trap?”

“I tried that,” he says breezily. “The trap flirted back. It was awkward.”

“Leave.”

“Oh, come on. You have to talk about it eventually.”

“There is nothing to talk about.”

Elias squints at me, tapping his chin. “Right. So you weren’t staring at her like a cursed king watching his salvation disappear into the mist.”

I don’t answer.

He takes that as a win.

“She did look good, though,” Elias adds, wistful now. “All golden light and ink and chaos. And that mouth…” He whistles. “You’re a stronger man than I am.”

I finally turn my head, jaw sharp enough to cut through him if I had the patience.

“I’m not stronger,” I say. “I’m smarter.”

Elias laughs like I told a joke. “Lucien, you’ve got it bad. Just admit it. The rest of us already have. She’s the kind of problem you want to get lost in.”

“She’s not a problem,” I mutter, before I can stop myself.

Elias stills.

Then—softly—“That’s the first true thing you’ve said all day.”

He doesn’t push after that. Just claps my shoulder like he’s proud of me for finally cracking. When he walks off, it’s quieter. More knowing. I wait until I can’t hear his footsteps anymore before I look back.

Luna is on the far side again. Her head is tilted toward Orin, listening to him explain something—one hand on her hip, the other brushing against a pillar marked in starlight runes. The light curls around her fingers like it wants to worship her.

And I feel something break in my chest.

Not pain.

Not regret.

Something older.

Something that sounds like hers.

I step back into the shadows before she can catch me watching again.

The crest carved into the obsidian pillar is wrong. I don’t need to study it. I knew it the second my gaze swept over it. The lines are clean, the geometry nearly flawless—but there’s a tilt in the central ring, a subtle warping of the balance that throws everything off. Branwen’s imitation is clever. Almost convincing. But not enough.

I should mark it. Move on. Focus.

Instead, I stay.

Because she’s still in my periphery.

Luna.

And gods forgive me—I let her stay there.

She’s bent over slightly, scanning the crest etched into another pillar, fingertips ghosting along the ancient grooves like she’s reading a forgotten scripture. The runes hum for her, drawn to her presence, glowing the way they never glow for anyone else. She moves with that careless, devastating grace she doesn’t even seem aware of—like she’s the eye of the storm, and the rest of the world rearranges itself just to orbit her a little longer.

She’s a fucking masterpiece. Every line of her—intentional. Every shadow that curves across her skin—holy. And whatever flaws she might carry, she wears them like they’re just another form of armor. Beautiful. Brutal. Inviting you to bleed if you dare touch.

And I do dare.

That’s the worst part. Because wanting her is a war I didn’t prepare for. The others love her openly. Silas fawns. burns. Caspian aches. Even Elias, for all his snark and flinching humor, craves her with the kind of devotion you can’t fake. They reach for her because they can. Because they’ve already fallen.

I’m the only one still trying to resist. Because I know what I become when I love something. And I refuse to become that man for her. But watching her now—head tilted, lips parted slightly as she reads, her magic flaring faintly beneath her skin like it wants to be seen—I feel the unraveling. Slow. Silent. Complete.

I’m not immune.

Not to her.

Not anymore.

My hand is resting against the false pillar when I feel movement at my side. A familiar one. Orin, of course. He’s always where no one else is looking—except me. I feel him there before he speaks, and still, I brace.

“You’re not reading that pillar,” he says, quiet, calm, just short of amused.

I don’t look at him.

“And yet I’m standing in front of it.”

“Ah. So that’s what passes for subtle these days.”

He folds his hands behind his back like we’re in some diplomatic court, not trapped in a collapsing pocket realm built from the bones of our past mistakes. He doesn’t push. Orin never pushes. He merely exists long enough for the truth to rise on its own.

“I know what I’m doing,” I say, finally.

“I don’t doubt that.” He pauses. “I’m only curious if you know what you’re feeling.”

I give him nothing. But the silence answers him anyway.

Orin turns, glances over his shoulder toward Luna—who hasn’t noticed us. She’s laughing at something Silas said, though she doesn’t turn fully toward him. It’s the kind of laugh that’s half real, half reluctant. The kind that hides something sharper beneath it.

“She sees everything,” Orin murmurs. “Even the things you think she doesn’t.”

“I don’t need her to see me,” I mutter.

“Then why do you look at her like that?”

That stops me. I let the pillar go, the hum of magic beneath my palm fading like it’s been dismissed. Orin steps back into the shadows without waiting for a reply, leaving me there with a pillar I never wanted to study, and a woman I can’t stop watching.

I glance at her again. And for a second—She looks back. Not long. Not directly. Just a flick of her gaze in my direction before it slides away like it meant nothing. But it did. It always does. And I hate how that one flicker lands like a mark on my chest. Like I belong to her already. Even if she never takes me.

I move deeper into the rows. Not away from the pillars. From her. It's not retreat. It's strategy. A reassessment of internal variables. That's what I tell myself. But the truth is simpler.

I need space. From Luna. Because being this close to her is a slow destruction I can no longer name as anything other than desire. And it isn't lust—that would be too easy. I've had lust. I've commanded it, manipulated it, used it like a weapon. What I feel when she's near is something else. Something worse.

It's want.

And it’s too fucking real.

The air between us has always been sharp—war-torn and simmering with unfinished things. But lately... it's gone quiet. Not empty, but thick with knowing. With possibility. With the silent consequence of what if.

And maybe that’s what this really is. Not obsession. Not weakness.

It’s fear.

Not of her.

Of myself. Of what I might say if I let the words out. Of what she might do if I did. Because the truth is ugly. It’s not noble. Not worthy. It's needy. Raw.

I want to bond with her.

There. The thought carves through me with surgical clarity.

I want it. I want to feel her magic pressed against mine, wound into my skin like she belongs there. I want to feel the thrum of her pulse when she’s a mile away and know she’s safe. I want to touch her and not have to restrain myself. I want to fucking belong to her in a way no command or Dominion has ever allowed.

And I can’t. Because if I offer it—if I lay that at her feet, stripped and vulnerable—she could turn me away. She could look at me the way she used to. With that blaze of contempt in her eyes. With the bitter twist of betrayal still bleeding in her voice.

And if she says no, I can’t compel her.

Not with magic. Not with force. Not even with the truth.

Because she’d have every right.

I pass another pillar without registering the mark on it. My hands curl into fists. My chest feels too tight. My head’s buzzing with her voice, the memory of it soft in the dark, the way she said my name once when she didn’t mean to.

I need to get the fuck out of here. This cathedral of stone and lies and fractured memory—it's not helping. And every second I'm here beside her, it eats at the careful cold I’ve spent years building. Every second, I want her more. And gods, I hate that it shows.

I catch her glance across the chamber again. Not a look. Just a flicker. But enough. Enough to make me lock down the pull before it can reach her. Enough to clamp down on every word screaming in my throat.

You could have me.

She could. With a glance. With a word. With a fucking smile.

And that’s why I need distance.

I turn, sharp and clean, like I’ve found something worth chasing deeper in the rows. I don’t care if they notice. I don’t care if she does. I just need the cold again. I need the space. I need to think. Because if I don’t find a way to control this—It’s going to destroy me.

I mark another pillar. The sigil is wrong—an imitation of my crest, the curling loops of Dominion carved too sharp, too elegant. It's all flourish and none of the severity that defines me. The root rune is fractured, split clean through the center like someone tried to mimic command but didn’t understand what it meant to wield power that carves obedience into bone. Branwen was clever, but not omnipotent. She built these for confusion, not perfection.

I drag the tip of my finger through the lower quadrant of the glyph and slash a diagonal line through it. My own way of saying: not this one.

And I move on.

The next is worse—an almost cartoonish rendering of my crest. The outer circle swollen, curling like a thorned crown, overly dramatic. As if the Hollow’s magic couldn’t help but exaggerate my nature, like it needed to punish me with it. I cut it too. Harsh. Final. I don’t hesitate. I could do this all day. Trace and destroy. Evaluate and discard. It gives my hands something to do. Something that isn’t reaching for her.

I press my palm against the next pillar and close my eyes, just for a second. The stone hums beneath my skin, a low pulse that mimics the throb behind my ribs. Not magic. Not memory. The next sigil’s a mockery. My crest reversed, mirrored like a spell meant to reflect my own nature back at me. I smile, cold and humorless, and draw a slash through it without pausing.

"You're on a warpath," Orin's voice comes behind me, unhurried, the weight of centuries in every syllable. He steps around a nearby pillar like he’s been watching me longer than I’d realized. He probably has.

I don’t look at him. “None of these are right.”

“They’re not supposed to be,” he says, calm. Always calm. “They’re meant to test certainty. To see what remains after doubt finishes its work.”

“I’m not doubting myself.”

“You’re doubting her.”

That earns him a look. He meets it, steady, unflinching. There’s no challenge in his tone. Just knowing. Like he’s already lived the version of my future I’m still running from.

“I’m doubting what I am when she’s near,” I correct.

Orin inclines his head. “So you run.”

“I recalculate.”

“Call it what you want.”

We stand there for a breath. Two.

“She doesn’t know,” I say finally. The words taste like shame.

“She suspects,” he answers. “And I think she’s waiting.”

I narrow my eyes. “For what?”

“For you to stop punishing yourself.”

He walks away after that. No dramatics. No pointed last word. Just leaves me alone with my thoughts, my mark-carved pillars, and the truth I keep trying to outrun in this too-quiet chamber. I turn to the next crest, already knowing it’ll be wrong. Because nothing in this room is real. Except what she makes me feel.

I don’t remember telling my body to move. One minute I’m carving rejection lines through another fake version of my crest, and the next—I’m walking. Not fast. Not overt. Subtle. I tell myself that like it’s a ward against humiliation. Like she might not notice if I just exist my way toward her. Casual. Controlled. I’m good at that. It’s what I am.

But every step feels like exposure.

I keep my eyes on her, tracking the way she shifts her weight from one foot to the other, her back to me now as she studies a pillar covered in copper glyphs. The light catches her skin—barely visible through the strands of her dark hair—and it’s ridiculous how it hits me.

Like I’ve never seen a woman before. Like I haven’t watched her bleed, and command, and break a god down to nothing with nothing but her voice. Like I haven’t hurt her.

Silas spots me first. He’s lounging across a pile of cracked stone, half-sitting, half-doing something he probably shouldn’t be. When his eyes catch mine, they go wide, then narrow. And then—he winks. Followed by finger guns. I’m going to kill him. No—worse. I’m going to owe him if this works.

I school my face back into stillness, ignoring him completely as I keep walking. The others are busy. Or at least pretending to be. knows better than to interfere. Caspian watches me like I’m a weapon about to misfire. Elias sees me and immediately looks away, like proximity might infect him with whatever emotional malfunction I’m clearly suffering.

And now I’m close enough to smell her.

I hate that I notice it. The way the air shifts around her, like it bends just to hold her scent a little longer. Warm. Metallic. Sweet. Magic clinging to her like an afterthought.

Gods.

I need to say something. Say something. Anything. Something cold. Or clever. Or commanding. Something that doesn’t sound like I’ve been memorizing the way she stands when she’s thinking.

But my palms are—sweating.

What the fuck.

I wipe them down the sides of my slacks in one quick, practiced motion. If she sees, I’ll lie. Say blood. Say ash. Say the pillar burned me. I’ll say anything except the truth—that I’m standing here like a teenager in front of the only girl who’s ever made me forget how dangerous I am.

She hasn’t looked at me yet. She knows I’m here. She’s always known. Her magic flutters slightly under her skin, reacting to my presence like it’s some instinct older than her name. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t turn. She’s waiting. And I don’t know what to give her.

Cool?

Romantic?

Dominant?

I’m not romantic. I’m not even good at this.

But her fingers twitch where they rest against the stone, and I swear I feel it in my chest.

And then I say the first thing that doesn’t taste like a mistake.

“You distracted me.”

Her head tilts slightly, but she doesn’t look back yet. “From what?”

“Everything.”

Now she turns. Slowly. Eyes meeting mine like she knew I’d say it, like she was ready for something honest and didn’t expect it from me. Her mouth curves—not a smile. Something sharper. Something more dangerous.

I step closer. Just enough to see the flecks of starlight in her irises, to feel the heat radiating off her skin.

“I should be looking for my crest,” I murmur. “I should be marking the path.”

“You should,” she agrees, soft and even.

I nod once. “But I can’t stop watching you.”

She stares at me a beat too long.

And the moment stretches.

Not soft.

Not sweet.

Just a live wire stretched between two storms. If I touched her now, I’d burn. And I’d let it consume me.