Page 53 of The Scars of War
It should piss me off. But it doesn’t.
Because beneath that stillness, I can feel it. That hum. That pull. The bond is still hot between us, a thread of heat coiled low in my belly. It’s different now, less of a spark, more of a throb like it’s settled in my marrow, waiting.
My breath shudders out.
“I thought the fire would end something.”
The words come out before I can catch them. They fall flat in the air between us and hang there like smoke. Riven watches me across the table, eyes unreadable. “What fire?” he asks. Not because he doesn’t know, but because he wants me to say it.
I glance down at my hands. Still faintly shaking. Still coated in the memory of power I haven’t begun tounderstand. “This one,” I whisper as I point at my chest. “What just happened. Back there on the floor. The heat. The whiteout. The way everything cracked open. I thought it would burn itself out. I thought that when it was over, I’d feel empty. Clean. Finished.” I drag in a breath. It catches. “But I don’t. I feel…”
“Ruined?” he offers.
I shake my head. “Ready.”
His mouth twitches. It isn’t quite a smile but something darker. Something reverent. “It didn’t end you,” he says. “It began you.”
I look up. And that’s when he gives it to me. The line that will stay with me longer than his touch. “Fire doesn’t erase the forest, Lux,” he says, voice low, rough, like something sacred. “It clears the way.”
I lean back, closing my eyes for a second too long. And that’s when I feel them. Not memories. Not dreams. Presences, threads of something deeper than thought brushing against the edge of my consciousness.
The first one is cold. Clinical. Precision honed to a blade so fine it slices without pain, until it’s already too deep. Itslides behind my ribs like a scalpel. Cold hands. Cold eyes. Cold intention.
Elias.
His presence is exact. Sterile. I can almost feel the way he catalogues the damage, makes note of the fractures, and measures my pulse from a distance. It doesn’t feel cruel. But it’s not kind. He’s watching me like a specimen under glass, trying to understand what I’ll become if I’m left to grow wild.
My breath falters.
The next wave is heavier. Not physical. Not even warm. Just…inevitable.
Like a shadow in a hallway, I never noticed until it moved. It doesn’t press. It waits. Still. Soundless. I don’t see him, but I know, somewhere beyond the veil, he’s already seen me.
Vale.
Death.
He feels like an echo. Like silence after something sacred. He’s not touching me, but he’s there. The moment I let my guard drop, I know I’ll feel his breathagainst the back of my neck. I know he’ll speak my name like he’s always known it.
And then there’s him.
The third.
Different from the others.
Famine.
The moment his presence brushes against mine, my stomach twists. My mouth goes dry. The air feels rich, and sweet, and rotten, like fruit left too long in the sun. There’s something fluid about the way his awareness slithers under my skin, sticky, and sinuous. and satisfied. He isn’t curious. He’s already decided how I’ll taste. I snap my eyes open.
Riven watches me without a word, but I can see the shift in his expression, the faint tightening around his mouth. He knows.
“I can feel them,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“All of them.”
“They’re not all here.”
