Page 49 of Blood Marked

“I didn’tlether do anything,” Nyra said with a shrug. “She found it herself. Smart girl.”

Kael closed his eyes.

She knew now.

About her bloodline. About what she really was. About why everyone wanted to use her like some keystone to a bridge they didn’t understand.

“You planning to tell her about the visions?” Nyra asked, too casually.

“No.”

Nyra raised an eyebrow.

“If she finds out, she’ll run,” Kael said. “Or worse, she’ll try to savemeagain.”

“She already did that.”

“That was different.”

“No,” Nyra said. “It wasn’t.”

Silence settled between them.

He didn’t have words for what Selene had done to him out there in the trees. Not the pulling him back part. Thestaying.

Like she wasn’t afraid of what she saw. Like maybe she understood it.

Nyra stood back up from the chair after a moment to leave. Before she walked out the door, she casually mentioned, “Oh, by the way, Selene wants to talk to you.”

After Nyra left, Kael sat there for another hour before finally rising.

He walked the corridors with no purpose. Just a ghost in his own home. Guards nodded. Courtiers kept their eyes low.

But he wasn’t hunting threats this time. He was trying to figure out how to belessof one.

As he ventured outside, he spotted Selene in the gardens.

The snow had softened, melting into damp stone and patches of frostbitten earth. She stood near the central fountain, cloak wrapped tight, eyes distant.

He almost turned around, but she turned first.

And gods, those eyes, Grey like a storm about to break.

“I didn’t know if you’d come,” she said.

Kael forced himself to speak. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Why?” Her voice was soft. Not accusing. Just tired.

Because I’ll get you killed. Because I’ll watch it happen and see it in my dreams until I join you. Because I don’t think I can survive that again.

Instead, he said, “You’re not safe here.”

She blinked. “That’s not your call,” she said.

“It is,” he growled. “Itisnow.”

Selene stepped toward him, chin tilted. “You think I don’t know what this is doing to you? You think I can’t feel it too?”

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