Page 57 of Ashes of Honor

The older man held his head in shame. Alexiares caught me staring and pounced. His fist connected with my jaw first. The pain whitening. Radiating. I took two in the temple and could no longer see the hits that followed.

“Enough,” Riley said. His command was calm. Quiet. Muted. Alexiares was off all the same.

“Henry’s wife is dead because of this fucker and his silence.” Alexiares growled, panting from the burst of energy. “Your friend—Margot. Children died.”

I laughed, “Weak. All of you.”

“He’s not worth losing control. We’re better than that.”

“You’re better than that,” Alexiares emphasized.

“Please,” a smaller voice begged, out of sight. “You have to understand. Our choice was not a simple one. We risked our ability to stay either way.”

“There wasn’t a guarantee that you wouldn’t clump us together anyway, Riley. We fought our way to the gate that night together. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have turned back to help you, I could have left you.”

“Maybe you should have,” Riley said and turned on his heels.

Alexiares’s gaze swept the room. Slow and deliberate. His eyes never lingered long on any one person but always flickered back to mine. Assessing. Searching. Like he could peel back every layer, strip you down. His expression went unchanged, but the weight of his judgment was suffocating. He’d already damned us all. Guilty or not. It didn’t matter. We were never meant to plead our case. I could only feel sorry for those who had not known the gravity of the chaos we’d been sent to ensue.

Amaia and Reina entered the room. Riley held the door open, but no one moved, no one dared. The storm in Reina’s eyes was alive. Her face flushed, crackling with heat as she took us in. No mercy lay in her stare. No pity like there was when she looked at someone who was bad but chose to find the good. Blood seeped into her clothing in the shape of a clinging child. Small hand prints desperate for grip dragged down her skin, her shirt, her pants.

Amaia was different. Her face wasn’t blank the way Alexiares’s was. It was alive with emotion. Fury radiated from her. Not loud or wild, but silent. The kind that promised death. She moved slowly, pacing before each of us, studying each of our faces in a way that told me she could see every secret, every sin. Then, without a word, she turned and left, Reina in her wake.

“Executions at dawn,” Alexiares’s voice was casual. A crooked smirk that didn’t reach his eyes pulled at his lips. “Sleep tight, fuckers.”

Electricity snapped through my nerves. A thunderstorm raged around my skull. I lost control, neurons firing in patterns that didn’t belong to me anymore. The world shrank to the size of a pin. Each of my thoughts were scattered. Torn up the way paper would in a hurricane. Heat bloomed behind my eyes. Blinding. Sharp. My muscles betrayed me, pulling taut and slack in uneven ways.

I could not speak. Could not scream. Couldn’t even fucking cry. All I could do was drown in the chaos of my own body. I was trapped inside myself. Utterly, hopelessly, alone. Helpless.

“Tomoe,” the voice was distant. It didn’t sound real. A mere figment of my imagination.

“Tomoe.”

Someone was there, shaking me, their urgency cutting through the haze. Their touch was a tight squeeze that forced the sensation back into my body. Light. There it was. That blinding, small sliver of vision returning as my eyelids found the strength to move on their own. The haze cleared.

Tomás’s figure came into sharp focus. His shirt was soaked with the sweat of panic—clinging into his lean and annoyingly sturdy body. Instead of panic in his brown eyes, there was a maddening sense of calm. His gaze was fixated on me. Equal parts sharp and soft.

The usual stupid smirk he bore each time I saw him was gone, a tight line replacing it. He cradled me in his lap. I groaned, shaking myself back to reality.Fuck. I overdid it. Expelled too much magic too soon. A warm hand cupped my chin, tilting it up as his brows pinched in scrutiny.

Sunlight spilled across a tiny living room filled with books. Laughter curled through the air thicker than smoke, and therehe was, standing too close, his hand brushing against mine as I reached for my cup of tea. Tomás had an easy grin. A carefree disposition that was a rarity in my life.

I snapped back, breath sharp in the depths of my chest as Tomás’s face blurred into focus. His hand was on my arm, steadying. I wrenched away. He didn’t burn me but his touch felt like a punishment of pleasure. “I’m fine. Never seen someone have a vision before?”

“No.” He chuckled and helped me sit up. “Though I’m positive that was a seizure, my friend.”

“What are you, a doctor?”

“Well, not here no. I worked as a paramedic before though and?—”

“So not a doctor,” I mumbled. The sun still lit up the room, I hadn’t been down for long. “Got it.”

Tomás recoiled as though I’d struck him, the warmth behind his golden skin absent. “Did I do something? To offend you, I mean.”

I flicked my gaze toward him and took him in. He had a ruggedness to his otherwise put together appearance. A faint trace of a healed scar cut from his neck and under his shirt. He’d certainly been through some shit, that much was clear. And I had no intention of finding out what woes he’d nearly lost to. There was little interest I had in spending time with anyone outside of my family. It wasn’t worth the pain. Life had more to offer than romantic love.Who the hell said anything about romance? Dammit.

“Other than constantly invading my space … no.”

“This is Alexiares’s office,” Tomás said with hesitation. He pushed himself to his feet and scanned the room, his hand swiping across his low-buzzed hair. “And the first time was in Reina’s lab.”

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