Page 10 of Thunder's Reckoning

Malik began reciting something he’d learned that day, his voice even, measured. I nodded, but my mind stayed with the curtain’s movement, the shifted chair, the fraction of distance between Sable and obedience.

I would let her think I believed her.

People confess more when they think you’ve stopped listening.

I turned back to Malik, but in my blood there was already a warning forming its edges into something sharper. I wouldn’t call it a plan. Not yet. Plans make promises. Warnings only ask you to listen.

And I was listening now. I was listening to everything.

***

THAT NIGHT, THEintercom light steadied, its faint hum filling the bones of the room. I let my finger rest on the button a beat longer than necessary before pressing it. The pause was intentional, enough time for her to feel me before she heard me.

“Sable,” I said, soft, coaxing. She always came faster when my voice sounded like a promise instead of a summons. “Come.”

I pictured the way she’d rise—slow, careful—closing the door behind her like she could trap her fear on the other side. She thought I didn’t notice the change in her steps on the nights she’d done something to make me watch her closer.

Tonight, her steps would be different.

The balcony curtain had been disturbed earlier. A ripple, subtle enough most wouldn’t see, but nothing in my house moves without my leave. Someone had been there. And she’d been close enough for a whisper.

I didn’t need proof yet. Proof was for the weak.

I needed truth, and truth always comes if you press the right place.

Tonight, I’d wouldn’t press hard—that would come later.

She was mine—my creation, my flame—and no one touched what was mine.

She came, head bowed, robe whispering across the stone. The candles were already lit, twelve in their perfect circle, the black candle at the center like a pupil watching her.

She knelt without hesitation. Perfect. But perfection is a mask, and I like pulling masks off.

“Look at me.”

Her chin lifted slower than I preferred. Eyes the color of wild honey met mine, eyes that had learned to hide but hadn’t yet learned they couldn’t hide from me.

I circled behind her, letting silence grow heavy enough to bow the spine. “Do you believe the fire in you belongs to me?”

“Yes, Gabrial.” Quiet. Smooth. Practiced.

I smiled where she couldn’t see it. “Prove it.”

I held out the ash bowl, not to mark her, but to see if she would take it. Her hesitation was small, the width of a breath, but I felt it. She cupped the bowl in both hands.

“Pour it.”

Her fingers trembled as she scattered the ash over the black candle, snuffing it out in a single gray breath. The air between us cooled.

“Again,” I said, striking a match, relighting the wick.

She obeyed. Snuffed it again.

I made her repeat the ritual until her hands were steady, until obedience stopped being a thing she performed and became the shape of her will.

Kneeling beside her, I brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek. “If you ever hide your flame from me, I will see it. I will take it back. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Gabrial.”