Chapter 72
SEVENTY-TWO
JAMES
It took only a few hours to clear the blood and rubble from Cyclos’s town square.
The people were eager to restore order now they felt like I had proven myself worthy of them. Not only as a fighter, but as a Leader. One capable of protecting the largest Collective in the world, even against the world’s governing body if needed.
Cara’s Radicals moved like shadows around the square, their presence a strange contrast to the help they offered.
Many of them had fought these same people not long ago, an Amplifier in their midst, rage in their veins.
Now, they patched wounds, translated buildings back to whole, and stood shoulder to shoulder with those they had once tried to destroy.
It was...complicated.
But then again, so far everything in this war had been.
The Leaders of Sisu and Coastal had already reached out, messages sent to me, Caden, Vincent, and Petru. Not with congratulations, but with declarations.
Of war.
A clean, formal promise of retribution against those who had dared to oppose the hierarchy. Who had shattered the illusion of stability. Who had taken a stand when the world wanted them silent.
In other words: Kanata C, Slava, Cyclos, Crown, and every Radical who had bled in that square would still be at war with at least two of the most influential Collectives on the planet.
At a time when unity was needed more than ever.
At a time when fracture was a death sentence.
So yes, congratulations to the United Chiefs.
They had succeeded.
They’d done exactly what the world had feared they would.
They’d made us enemies of each other, when alliances were the only thing standing between survival and extinction.
And then there was Emma.
The girl who had fought harder than anyone. Who had shown the world what she was capable of, not just with strength, but with something far rarer. She’d revealed her powers without apology, hazes plural, burning bright and visible inside a Collective, where they should have been undetectable.
Two hazes instead of one.
A first cycler with less than two years of formal training under her belt…breaking bubbles and creating them.
If she hadn’t been a target before, she sure as hell was now.
Whichever Collective she chose to stand with would have one hell of a job keeping her safe.
After the square was cleared, after the blood was washed from the stones and the wounded were carried off to the Healer’s wing, Emma disappeared.
She retreated to her room, alone.
No celebration. No victory lap. No triumphant speeches. Not even Caden Colt.
Only silence.
The kind that wrapped around you like armor when the weight of what you survived was heavier than the battle itself.
When I asked Colt about her, he simply shrugged, said whatever storm she was facing, she had earned the right to face it on her own terms. For now.
In the days after the Battle of Cyclos, holding off another magi war became a brutal, sleepless scramble.
Sisu’s Leader—Lova Vikander—and her First Offensive were already sharpening their knives, desperate to light the match and drag the world back into bloodshed, this time with themselves on the throne.
Colt and I fought tooth and nail to keep it all from slipping, burning through sleep, strength, and whatever scraps of diplomacy we had left.
Jackson was still recovering, and without his Orator talents, we weren’t exactly thriving.
All the while, Stephen’s body lay untouched.
It wasn’t until the fifth day after we’d killed off the United Chiefs, tempers cooled enough for us to even consider holding a funeral, a real one, for the only father figure I’ve ever known.
Caden, Emma, and Sean had portaled to Crown the day before to bury Saoirse, and although I didn’t ask how it went, the grim, shuttered look on Emma’s face when they returned told me more than any explanation ever could.
I kept my distance, knowing that whatever she’d faced there, whatever grief she was carrying, Caden would be the one to hold her together… If she let him, which was always the question with her.
I forced myself to turn away from all of it, from everything I couldn’t fix, and focused instead on the funeral still waiting for us.
My relationship with Stephen had been strained ever since his revelations in Switzerland.
Him choosing to trust Caden over me, to have Sean experiment on the woman I loved, hurting her, abducting her.
To twist and weaponize our bond like it was some kind of game.
All to manipulate me into falling for someone who was never supposed to end up with me.
It had left me unwilling to reconnect with him before he died.
Still, despite everything, the years before mattered.
They mattered when I was a scared kid with no one and nothing, and he stepped in.
They mattered every time he stood behind me in training, pushing me harder because he believed I could be something more.
They mattered because, for a while, he was the only person who ever looked at me like I was worth saving.
For better or for worse, Stephen had been the one constant in a world that kept shifting underneath me. And now, he was gone.
That kind of emptiness didn’t simply sit in my chest. It settled in my bones like frost.
And it hurt.
I was locked inside my room, an hour before his funeral, when a knock shattered the silence I’d wrapped myself in. Pulled me out of the spiral I couldn’t seem to crawl out of.
“It’s open.”
I half-expected Emma. Or maybe even Caden.
But it was Cara Sinclair standing there instead.
She wore all black. Clean lines, minimal distractions. Her hair was pulled back tight, drawing all the focus to the high angles of her cheekbones, the tension in her jaw, the mouth that never smiled without a reason.
She looked exhausted. Like someone who hadn’t slept in a week. Like someone who’d seen too much and carried all of it in the stiff set of her shoulders.
Haunted. Dangerous.
And fucking beautiful.
I hated that I noticed.
Hated how my eyes kept tracking the curve of her mouth, how some reckless part of me kept wondering what it would take to pull that tight composure apart.
Because even as my head screamed enemy, something deeper—something buried and stupid and human—wanted to feel what it would be like to be near her. To want her.
And that, more than anything, pissed me off.
She lingered in the doorway, one hand still resting on the frame like she wasn’t sure whether to step inside or back away.
I didn’t bother hiding my irritation. “What do you want?”
She blinked, then offered a faint, forced smile. “Nice to see you too.”
I sat back in my chair, arms crossed. “I’m sorry, were you under the impression you and I were on speaking terms?”
Her smile faltered, eyes narrowing slightly before something more vulnerable slipped through. “No. I guess I wasn’t.”
A beat of silence passed.
She shifted on her feet, glanced at the floor, then back at me. “I just thought…maybe you shouldn’t be alone today.”
I let out a dry, bitter snort. “And me not being alone somehow translates to spending time with you?”
I rose to my feet, my voice rising. “What, you think fighting one battle with us, tossing out some nostalgic bullshit I heard as a kid, is enough to make me forget everything you’ve done? That I’d welcome you with open arms?”
Her jaw tensed, but she held her ground. “I’m not sure what I did to deserve this level of hostility—”
“No?” I cut her off, stepping closer. “Let me remind you.”
Her breath hitched, but I didn’t stop.
“You attacked my Collective. You launched a nuclear weapon at us, a nuclear weapon, miss Sinclair. You killed seven Cyclos children.”
“You then turned around and handed Maurice—or Gordon or whoever the hell that bastard was—the means to kill three more. You.” I pointed a finger at her chest. “You backed the man who bubbled the entire country, who marked Emma as a terrorist and gave the kill order that got her parents executed.”
Her face had gone pale. Still, she didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
“You gave him the intel he needed to lure her to New York, helped him abduct me and Jackson Lau, who happens to be my best friend. Do you need me to go on?” I hissed. “Because I’ve got a hell of a longer list.”
I don’t know what I expected. If I’d spoken like that to Emma—or to any other woman, for that matter—I probably would’ve been slapped, yelled at, torn down with a dozen arguments or half-baked excuses.
But not Cara Sinclair.
No, she simply straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and met my fury with something far colder, and far more composed.
“And this is your opinion of me?” she asked dryly and unflinching. “By those calculations, my faults are indeed substantial, though hardly substantiated.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’re quick to judge, Mister Walker. I only wish you were as quick to verify your facts.”
No hesitation. No retreat. She didn’t shrink from my accusations, didn’t stumble backward into some rehearsed apology.
She stood there, tall and sharp-edged, like she’d been forged in the same fire I was trying to avoid.
“If I’ve been misinformed,” I snarled through gritted teeth, “by all means, enlighten me.”
Cara didn’t flinch, no, she shook her head, her expression unreadable.
“I don’t think there’s much I can say right now that would matter to you,” she said quietly. “Not when you’ve already decided who I am.”
Her voice wasn’t pleading. It wasn’t defensive. Only calm. Steady.
“But if the day ever comes when you are ready to listen,” she continued, “I’d be honored to tell you my side. To set some things straight.”
She paused, searching my face, not for approval, not for forgiveness. Just…a flicker of openness. Of possibility.
And damn her, because in that second, I almost gave it to her.
I should’ve slammed the door in her face, should not have entertained her. But instead, I took a step forward.
Then another.
Cara stayed perfectly still as I crossed the distance between us, her eyes tracking me the whole way. Watching, waiting. Her breath shallow, chest rising and falling like she wasn’t sure if this would end with a kiss or a knife.
Maybe I didn’t know either.
I stopped only a breath away, close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin. Close enough to see the fine lines of exhaustion at the corners of her eyes, the tiny scar below her jaw, one I hadn’t noticed before, though it felt vaguely familiar.
“A chance to be heard,” I said, as the anger dulled now into something rougher, “is not something you’re owed, Miss Sinclair. It’s something you earn.”
She didn’t back down. “Then let me earn it.”
I don’t know who moved first.
Maybe it was me, leaning in without meaning to, caught in the gravity of her. Or maybe it was her, tired of waiting, tired of pretending she didn’t feel it too.
Either way, one second there was air between us, and the next, her mouth was on mine.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet.
It was a collision. Teeth, heat, desperation. The kind of kiss that tasted like anger and grief and everything we’d never say. Her hands fisted in my shirt, yanking me closer with a force that said she didn’t care if this ended in ruin, as long as it felt.
And I didn’t stop her.
My hands buried in her hair, pulling just enough to make her gasp. Her body slammed against mine, all sharp edges and soft curves, and I felt her hips press forward, a challenge, a dare, a need.
We moved like we’d been here before. Like our bodies remembered a fire our minds refused to admit. She kissed like she was trying to win a fight. And maybe I was letting her. Maybe I wanted her to.
Her teeth grazed my lower lip. I groaned into her mouth, one hand sliding down her back, anchoring her to me.
For one breathless, dangerous moment, there was no past, no pain, only this. Only her.
And then—too fast, too hard—I tore myself away. Panting. Reeling. Staring at her like I’d just stepped off the edge of something I could never climb back from.
She looked at me, lips swollen, chest heaving, eyes wide, dark and burning.
Fuck. She looked so fucking hot. Too hot. Too close. Too much.
And somehow, like a memory I couldn’t remember. As if the kiss had cracked open a door in my mind, enough to feel the echo of something I couldn’t quite reach.
“Who are you?” I breathed, the words slipping out before I could stop them, my mind flashing back to what she’d quoted to me after Stephen died.
Her expression shifted. A flicker of something unreadable passed through her eyes.
“That’s not a story for today,” she said quietly.
I swallowed hard, the fire in my chest collapsing into ash. Regret surged up before I could stop it, like tar in my chest.
What the hell had I just done?
I took a step back, suddenly cold, suddenly hollow.
“You should go,” I said, voice hoarse, barely holding together.
She clenched her jaw, her gaze steady.
“I will. For now,” she said. Then, softer, warmer than I expected, but no less certain. “But James…this is something you cannot outrun. Any more than you can outrun who you’re meant to be.”
“Wanna bet?” I muttered, already turning away, retreating behind the walls I’d spent years perfecting, rebuilding them faster than she could ever tear them down.
Cara walked to the door, her steps slow, like she wasn’t done, like she had more to say but was choosing not to.
Right before she slipped out, she turned to face me one last time.
“When the ground gives way beneath you,” she said, sounding all calm and clear, “I’ll be there to hold your foundation steady. Aleksander.”
The door clicked shut behind her, leaving me frozen as my real name echoed in the quiet.