Page 62

XANDER

I left Atlas hunched over the table, shoulders tight with failure.

At least now he knew how helplessness felt.

The difference was, Atlas might still get the chance to fix it.

I knocked twice, then stepped into Orion’s room without waiting. The air inside was stifling, thick with residual tension that hadn’t settled.

Orion ripped the costume over his head and tossed it aside. His back was to me, muscles tight.

I leaned against the wall, arms crossed. The movement felt too casual, but I needed to look steady, even if I wasn’t.

“You good?” I asked, keeping my voice even. “We can’t risk you losing it again.”

He didn’t answer at first, tugging on a pair of pants with quick, uneven movements. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. If there’s even the slightest chance—”

“This again?” He turned sharply, snapping his belt shut. His magic shimmered behind his eyes, barely contained. He didn’t have to say it—I knew he’d tear himself apart to get her back.

“We need you to think clearly. She’s relying on you keeping it together,” I said.

“You don’t know a fucking thing about what she needs.”

My jaw tensed, but I didn’t bite. He knew exactly what he was doing—testing me. Pushing boundaries like he always did.

“Don’t let your volatility put her at risk.”

He rolled his eyes and turned back to the dresser, grabbing a shirt. “I don’t need a babysitter, brother.”

“You sure about that?” I asked, watching him closely. “Because right now, you’re barely toeing the line and we both know how that ends.”

The last time he crossed it, we were pulling bodies out of the wreckage for hours.

I can still smell the scorched wood and hear the screams echoing through the trees.

He didn’t come down for days after that—not really.

And I was the one who had to clean up the fallout.

Shield the survivors. Lie to the Council.

Stitch our family back together while he spiraled.

I’m not doing that again.

He’s not doing that again.

Orion sighed, and his shoulders dropped. For a moment, the fire in him dimmed—so unexpectedly that it threw my calculations out of the window.

“She trusted me,” he said. He yanked the shirt over his shoulders, snuffing out the vulnerability like it burned. “She finally trusted me—and look what that got her.”

Guilt stirred low in my gut. He wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t just on him.

“You can’t carry this alone,” I told him. “We all bear the weight. But it’s not us who took her. And we will make them pay.”

“You’re supposed to be the smart one!” Orion yelled, throwing his hands in the air. “You, of all people, didn’t see this coming?”

I didn’t answer. I’d asked myself the same question a dozen times already.

She was the distraction. And the answer. That’s what blinded me. I hadn’t wanted to admit it—but the truth had grown like weeds, spreading in every corner I ignored.

“I won’t lose her,” Orion said, sitting at the edge of the bed to tug his boots on. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes blazing. “I can feel it—my magic, her pull. It’s like she’s calling out to me. And if we lose her…” His voice cracked. “I can’t.”

His fists clenched, knuckles pale with strain.

“We’re not losing her,” I said, firm.

He looked up at me like I’d said something na?ve. “You don’t get it.”

“Get what? That she’s important to you?” I pushed off the wall. “We’re all risking something, Orion—”

“I’m not talking about her magic!” he snapped, standing so fast the floor creaked under him.

He closed the space between us in two strides, his face inches from mine.

“You held her all week! She was here—in our arms—and now you’re pretending like none of that matters? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

A muscle twitched in my jaw. His words landed. Hard.

He wasn’t wrong.

But admitting it wouldn’t save her. It couldn’t.

“Caring doesn’t help her,” I said, low. “Focus does. Can you manage that, or do I need to worry about you too?”

“Why are you fighting this?” he growled. “Stop resisting her already, or it’ll cost us everything.”

My breath caught. Just for a second. Just long enough to give me away.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I masked it fast—but I saw the flicker in his eyes. He saw it—the thin crack that exposed just how much I’d been sinking these last weeks.

I was drowning—those nights wrapped in her warmth, the softness I didn’t deserve, the touch I craved but hadn’t even begun to earn.

Orion had known for a long time. I’d told him once, when the silence between worlds was too loud and the grief too heavy to carry alone.

We’d been stranded for too long—trapped here with no way home—and I’d confessed everything.

About Columba. About the Divide. About how it was my failure to find another way without severing the gates.

He hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t judged. Just looked at me with quiet understanding and accepted the truth.

The same way he was looking at me now.

“I see how much you’ve been beating yourself up all these years, Xander. But maybe if you’d fought for Eve with even a fraction of the fire you’ve turned on yourself, you’d finally see—you’re allowed to move on.”

My breath hitched. The floor felt uneven, like the past had torn through the present and left me standing in the wreckage.

“You’re not to blame for what happened with Columba.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said, voice strained.

Because it wasn’t that simple. Because if I let myself believe I was allowed to move on, I might start pretending the cost was ever worth it.

And I couldn’t do that. Not while the gates were still sealed.

Not while Columba was still dead.

“Fighting it won’t change it,” he said. “You’ll just hurt her more.”

“This isn’t about me.”

“You’re right. It’s about Eve,” his voice sharpened. “She’s terrified. And you’re standing here pretending you feel nothing. You need to get the fuck over yourself and admit you’re in love with her too.”

My fists clenched at my sides.

He was wrong. This wasn’t love.

It couldn’t be…

The door slammed open.

“You two done airing your shit?” Ragnar barked. “We’ve got a church to storm.”

He didn’t wait for a response, already powering back toward the living room. I turned, but Orion was halfway out the door.

I flexed my fingers, trying to ease the pressure building under my skin. My magic had never been loud before—but now it howled.

I understood what Orion meant. The pull. The compulsion. She was more than that, but thinking like that could get her killed.

Maybe, once she was safe, I’d let myself feel it.

But not yet. I still had too much blood on my hands to risk staining her soul, too.

So I buried it—every feeling, every ache—and moved, following the sound of war in Orion’s footsteps.