Page 216 of Emylia

I didn’t feel my feet move.

Didn’t feel the rocks shift beneath my soles.

The world had narrowed to a single point—the edge of the cliff, where the sky bled into the sea and the wind whispered my name like a promise. Like the call of a siren.

It wasn’t magik.

It was something older.

Something deeper.

Something that wanted to claimme.

My pulse slowed. My thoughts quieted. Even the roar of the waves fell away, until all I could hear was the wind... and the hum of power curling in my blood.

One more step.

One more breath?—

“Emylia.”

Evie’s voice pierced the trance—but not enough to claim me.

Not completely.

My foot hovered, trembling mid-air, suspended between surrender and something like choice.

“Emmie.”

Gods. That name.

It sliced through me, debilitating–an echo of something torn from me long ago, now roaring back to life as if it had ruptured something buried. Something raw. Familiar. Devastating.

It cracked everything wide open.

The name she’d used since we were children—soft and fierce, spoken like a secret only we shared.

It didn’t just carry memory. Or love.

It commanded it.

It didn’t just reach me.

It grippedme.

Gripped my soul.

Gripped the wild, spiraling thing inside me I hadn’t yet learned to control.

“Stop,” she said.

And I did. Not just me.

The wind. Like even ithad heard her.

Obeyedher.

Then the gust snapped.

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