Fifteen
I must have slipped into sleep.
The darkness stutters behind my eyes, fragments of memory from the Heartlands churning through me.
My body is weightless, then heavy. My skin tightens and peels with phantom burns, and the salt left behind by tears and sweat.
I can feel Lyssandra’s fingers in my palm, then the slip, the drop, the way the water severed my desperate grip.
The shock of her absence is ice-cold and cruel.
When I come to, I am still on the floor of my room, the golden cracks beneath me faintly pulsing. My arms, folded under my chest, have gone numb. My cheek is pressed to the cold floor. The discomfort feels more deserved than the safety of the bed.
Dust and old Mana hang in the room, remnants of Offerings past.
I sit up, waiting for the blood to return to my limbs, for my body to become useful again, but the aftershock runs too deep. Every breath catches before it can settle. I sit there for a long time, as useless as I was when she fell, staring at the cracks and telling myself over and over not to cry.
The knock on my door is soft. So soft, I think it must be Marissa. I ignore it.
The handle rattles, then stops. Not Marissa, then—Kael.
I hear him breathe through the gap in the frame, the faintest growl caught at the edge of it.
I don’t think he’ll force the door, but I can’t be sure.
How well do I know this boy? This dangerous prince who saves me and ruins me in the same breath.
I wait, uncertain if I can bear to see him.
Part of me wants to see him break down the door.
A minute later, he knocks again. More insistent this time.
I get up. Not because I want to, but because I can’t bear the thought of him waiting on the other side, worrying.
I open the door.
Kael is there, slouched against the frame with one boot crossed over the other. His uniform is singed at the cuffs, one sleeve ripped, the opposite shoulder torn open. His face is drawn with exhaustion, and still, stupidly, beautiful. His dark eyes scan me in one fierce sweep.
He looks at me the way he did before, as if he’s committing me to memory in case I disappear.
“Can I come in?” he says.
I step aside, and he moves in. Suddenly the room feels smaller, like there is less space for me to fall apart. He closes the door behind him with a gentle click, then stands by the bed, as I sit back down on the floor.
He says nothing for a while before dropping onto the bed. The mattress protests, sagging under his weight. “I tried to get to you.” There’s frustration in his voice, but something softer beneath it too. An apology?
“Atheron got in my way. Then the bridges. Then I saw Rask and I wanted to end him.”
I look up at him, and the Shadow Prince falls away. The trained killer too. All that’s left is the exhausted, unravelling boy beneath. His left hand is curled in a fist on his knee, so tight his knuckles are bloodless.
“I thought you were dead,” he says. The words are quiet, but the tremor in them is not.
I shrug, because I have nothing else.
Kael lets the silence build until it’s unbearable, then cracks it with a short laugh. “You’re really fucking me up, you know.”
He looks around the room, unable to settle on anything. “I had Rask by the throat. I was ready to rip his head off for what he did to you. And then the sky turned gold. I didn't know what to think.”
I remember the shockwave of light, the way it torched the mist and lit up the sky.
“Atheron nearly had me,” I say. “I lost control.”
He stands abruptly, pacing the small room. He moves like he’s afraid to sit still in case he erupts.
“I tried every shadow I could reach,” he murmurs.
I shake my head in disbelief. “You caught me, didn’t you?”
“I came this close to losing you,” he snaps, pinching his fingers together until there is barely any space between them.
What is he saying?
“But you didn’t,” I say. “You caught me.”
Kael’s mouth tightens. He comes to a crouch in front of me, folding himself until we are almost eye level.
He puts a hand on my knee, tentative and gentle.
“When I saw you go over the edge—” He stops himself.
“Every time that number changes, I’m terrified it’s you,” he says, his eyes locked on my forehead, unable to meet mine. “I can’t stand it.”
“I let her go,” I blurt out. “I tried to save her, and I couldn’t.”
He narrows his eyes. “You held on longer than anyone else would.” There’s something harsh in his tone, but I don’t think it’s aimed at me. I think it’s aimed at all of this.
I look at his hand, warm and solid on my leg. His tattooed skin is unmarked and smooth. The uniform remembers what his body doesn’t.
“I just can’t accept that she wanted to die,” I say. “I saw the look in her eyes. It was fear.”
Kael lets out a slow exhale. “It was her choice, Luceris.”
I can’t look at him, so I stare past his head, at the seam where the wall meets the ceiling, golden cracks stubbornly spiderwebbing across the stone. It’s the only bright thing in this room right now.
Kael’s voice shifts lower, gentled only through effort. “You don’t have to be alone,” he says, and I almost break on it.
I’m hollowed out, but I don’t want him to leave.
He slides onto the floor beside me, his arm brushing mine. My cheeks heat.
Could he tell I wanted him to stay?
The contact feels too intimate, and my lungs tighten around it.
“You’re making me soft,” he says after a while.
He pauses.
“That gets people killed where I’m from. I hate myself for it.”
I look at him then, really look at him. He’s not joking. He’s not playing the careful predator. He is—afraid?
“Why?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
He stares straight ahead, eyes gone hard. “I don’t know. I just do.”
I want to reach for him, to press my face into the crook of his neck and breathe until I forget the room. I’m not sure what to do with the urge. I don’t deserve the comfort.
Kael solves the problem for me. He leans in until his lips brush my temple. The kiss is feather-light, barely anything, but it undoes me anyway.
I let myself lean into him, head dropped against his shoulder. He slides his arm behind my back, the weight of his hand grounding me. We stay like that for a long time, neither of us speaking. His breathing slows, matching mine.
When he eventually pulls away, it’s slow and careful, as if I might break under any sudden movement.
“Get some rest,” he says, but it’s a command.
He stands, running his hand through his hair. Before he leaves, he glances back at me. There’s something unsaid in his eyes. Something unfinished.
“I chose you,” he says, almost too quiet to hear.
Then he’s gone, and I am left with the echo of his words and the static of his touch.
The place where his arm held me still feels warm. I don’t understand why I miss it so quickly.
I look down at my hands. They’re shaking. Lyssandra is gone. But Marissa isn’t. Not yet. I feel like I’m betraying them both by needing him this much. But Kael can help me keep Marissa safe. I can’t do it on my own. The tremor turns to something other than fear.
Something like hope.
It’s Marissa’s face that finally pulls me out of myself after Kael leaves.
The last time I saw her, she was running. Then Serraith’s fireball struck, and she was gone. I need to see her, to known she’s okay. My heart aches, but the guilt eats at me more.
I search the halls, scanning every alcove. There are no Overseers in the Embrace, and that makes me more nervous, not less—like I’m being watched from behind the stone itself. Even with fewer Offerings, the Embrace shouldn’t feel this empty.
I find Marissa in the Dome, training alone under the much-too-bright lights.
She’s hunched over a quarterstaff that is far too big for her, bracing herself for another swing.
The moment she hears my footsteps, she flinches, ready to bolt, but when she realises it’s me, she drops her shoulders and smiles.
“Luceris,” she says, and the relief in her voice loosens something in my chest.
I take a step closer. “Trying out something new?”
She shrugs, like I’ve caught her doing something embarrassing.
“Oh, this?” she says, giving the staff a twirl. “I’m not very good with it. I just—I needed to do something with my hands. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“I get it,” I say. And I do.
She turns the staff once more, half-heartedly, before letting it clatter to the floor. “I’m sorry I left you,” she says.
I don’t know what to say. Why is she apologising?
“What are you talking about?” I manage. “I told you to run.”
She laughs, but the sound is a ghost of one. “I know, I know. But I shouldn’t have listened. I should have stayed, but... I was so scared. I couldn't even find Callen. I just hid behind a rock and cried.”
My chest tightens. “I’m so sorry,” I say, hating how pointless it sounds. “I’m meant to be protecting you, but I can’t protect anyone.”
She shakes her head hard. “No. Don’t be. I survived because you made me run. If you hadn't, I’d have just got in your way and...” She lets the words die. “Anyway. We made it.”
Some of us did, at least.
Silence settles between us.
She looks up at me, searching my face. “You keep saying you’re not brave, that you’re not strong. But you are, you know. I think you’re the bravest one here.”
I flush. “That’s not true.”
“It is,” she insists, like she’s angry at me. “You always put yourself last. You never hesitate to stand between the rest of us and whatever is coming. And not just for me... or Kael.” She smiles slyly as she says his name. “But even for someone like Lyssandra, who didn’t want to be helped.”
She looks at her hands, twisting them awkwardly in her lap.
“I don’t want to die,” she says. Her voice is so small it threatens to break me. “But I don’t want to stand by while you die for me either.”
“That’s my choice,” I say, the irony not lost on me. “You just—you deserve better than this.”
She nods slowly before saying, “You do too, Luceris. Maybe you most of all.”
I don’t believe that.
We sit in silence, staring at the lights above us.