Page 198 of Emylia

“Yeah. All the time.”

She shifted closer, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders brushing mine. “I used to think you left me.”

That cracked something. Right down the middle.

“I didn’t,”I said. “They tore us apart, and I didn’t know how to fight for you. But I wanted to.”

She didn’t respond at first. Just reached over, hand sliding into mine with quiet certainty.

We sat like that, fingers tangled, wind howling past us like the ghosts of everything we’d lost.

And I realized—there were no more walls between us.

Just stars.

And fire.

And home.

“You two always this quiet after victory?”came Sebastian’s voice from the path behind us.

Evie jumped. I didn’t. I’d felt them coming.

Maalikai emerged from the dark first, carrying a thickly rolled blanket under one arm and a jug of something steaming in the other. Sebastian followed, chewing on what I hopedwas leftover pie and not something feral he’d found in the woods.

“Didn’t think you’d let us freeze on the cliffs,”he added, plopping down beside me like he belonged there—which, annoyingly, he did.

“You lost,”I reminded him, grinning.

“Did we?”he murmured, gaze flicking to the fire, then to me.

Maalikai said nothing. He just set the blanket down over our shoulders—Evie’s and mine, both—without asking, without comment. His fingers lingered just long enough to say what words never did.

Evie smiled, tucked into my side like she’d never left it.

We didn’t need to talk about the past anymore.

The fire cracked.

The stars burned steady.

And the four of us sat there, wrapped in stolen warmth, letting the night hold us.

ChapterForty-Three

The morning was still draped in mist as we made our way down from the cliff, dew soaking the cuffs of our pants, the scent of damp earth heavy in the air.

Most were still asleep. The world felt hushed–balanced on the edge of something waiting to happen. Smoke curled from dying coals, warmth clinging by a thread as it threatened to splutter out. It rose skyward, coiling into the pale light like offerings to Gods who didn’t listen anymore.

Sebastian didn’t speak, and neither did I—not at first.

The silence wasn’t heavy. It was comfortable. Familiar. The kind we’d built over years of knowing when to talk and when not to.

A crow cawed in the distance. The wind stirred the trees just enough to rattle their leaves like a warning.

I rolled my shoulders back, already feeling the fire rising in me again—not the dangerous kind. Not the magik. Just the hunger to move, to breathe, to burn off the ache before it drowned me again.

“You good?”Sebastian asked eventually, casting a sidelong glance.

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