Eighteen #2
He slides his palms under my elbows, steadying me.
My knees weaken. His hands are gentle but unyielding.
My muscles tense, expecting him to restrain me, to make me still, but he holds me instead—not to hurt, but to keep me from hurting myself.
It shouldn’t shock me. He’s never been violent with me, not really.
But something monstrous lives just beneath his skin, and my body knows it.
Can I really trust anyone in this place?
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he murmurs, as if we are the only two people left in the world and I am his sole responsibility.
“It will heal,” I say, trying to pull away. But he doesn’t let go.
“May I?” he asks, sliding his hands up to reposition my arms before adjusting my stance. He moves my hips next, then my shoulders and my fists. Every correction is a brush of skin on skin. Firm, deliberate touches that wake every nerve in me.
“Again”, he says, still behind me.
I do as he says. This time, the punch lands cleaner, the pain less jarring.
He makes a low sound of approval. “You move like you’re trying not to exist,” he whispers.
I repeat the punch. Again and again.
I switch hands, and he adjusts my stance again. I move how he wants me to.
After a while, he moves around to face me. His hair is damp, curling at the edges. He looks... unreal. His eyes shine like black glass, full of the night.
He takes my hand in his, inspecting the knuckles. He brings them to his mouth and kisses them, as though his lips are the ones healing the split skin and not the Mother Shard’s magic.
I shiver, and he smiles, slow and wicked.
“Better,” he says. “But you still fight like you expect to lose.”
I glare at him, my breathing ragged from training. “I don’t remember the last time I won.”
He tilts his head, studying me. Then, out of nowhere, he slams his fist into the dummy with such force that it splits down the seam. Sand spills out in a slow trickle.
He wipes his hand on his shirt. “Do you think you’re the only one who has something to lose?”
I look away, but he catches my chin between his fingers. His grip is tight at first, too tight, but he loosens it when I wince.
“Don’t look away from me,” he says, but it is a request, not a command.
I meet his gaze, and my anger evaporates. There is only two of us, suspended in a tension that is equal parts violence and longing.
He leans in, so close I can taste the cinnamon spice that lingers on him. He doesn't kiss me, not yet. Instead, he runs his hand down my jaw, thumb lingering on the corner of my mouth.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper. My voice has gone ragged.
“Because I need this,” he says.
He presses his lips to mine, hard and urgent. I’m not prepared. My mind goes blank, so I kiss back with everything I have left. His hands are everywhere—my face, my back, pulling me closer, as if he’s trying to fuse us together.
That’s all I want. I don’t want to remember anything else.
For a second, nothing else exists. There is only his touch, his breath, and the pulse of our hearts. Too fast. Too close.
He breaks the kiss first. My lips are bruised, my hands still clawing at his shoulders, my knees trembling.
His eyes are wild, pupils blown.
His hand rests at my throat, not threatening, but steadying. “You’re not allowed to leave me.”
It’s a joke, I think, but the way he says it makes it sound like a promise. Another I can’t possibly keep.
I nod anyway, my hand over his. What’s one more?
I can feel him, hard beneath his trousers. It’s awkward and desperate, and I don’t care.
He lowers his hand, fingers tracing the length of my chest. He doesn't go further, but they linger. Like it means something. Like it shouldn’t.
“You’re... dangerous,” he breathes.
A sound interrupts us—a slow, mocking applause—and we break apart instantly.
Atheron stands at the entrance, his expression bright with delighted contempt.
“Don’t stop on my account,” he says. “Quite the show, boys.” His lips curl in a sneer. “I expected better from you, Prince. You can’t both survive. My apologies. Let me rephrase that. Neither of you will survive.”
Kael steps in front of me, shielding me with his body. He is slightly taller than Atheron, but the Fireborn heir radiates malevolence like heat from a forge.
Atheron leans against the entrance, arms folded. “You know, your little Airborn friend almost did it,” he says. “Almost. Then poor Maleiros just had to throw himself in the way.”
He grins at me, all teeth and malice. A caricature. Theatre dressed up as cruelty. I saw him on the dais. Maleiros’ death shook him.
“I won’t make that mistake,” he continues. “When the time comes, I’ll do what needs to be done. You should prepare for that.”
He gives Kael a look of pure loathing. “The games are over. Your father would be so disappointed. If my daughter behaved like this, I’d have her put down.”
Kael doesn’t flinch. He just stands there, a wall of shadow and bone.
Atheron pushes off the frame, straightening. He looks at me, then at Kael, then back at me. His expression can’t settle between hatred and disgust.
“Pathetic,” he spits. “Stop getting in my way, little rabbit, or I’ll make sure you suffer the most.”
“Don’t call him that!” Kael snaps, and I almost laugh. Rich coming from him.
Atheron leaves, a trail of embers hissing in his wake, and the silence that follows is thick with the aftershock.
Kael turns to me, jaw clenched, the beginnings of shadow curling through the whites of his eyes.
“I’ll protect you,” he says, the words almost a snarl. “You’re my little rabbit.”
He says it like it’s different when it comes from him.
But I believe him.
I also know what it’s going to cost.
Loyalty. Brotherhood.
I lean into his chest, letting the rhythm of my heart slow his.
A soft golden light slips from me, grazing his shadows, softening them where they meet between us.
For a while we stay like that.
I don’t think about the future. I don’t think about the next trial or the threats hanging over our heads. I think only of now—the warmth and weight of his arms, and the way the guilt and fear go quiet with him here, holding me up.
The dining hall smells of salt and meat, but Atheron’s words have left ash on my tongue. The tables have been rearranged, their neat lines broken by the absence of so many bodies. The chairs don’t feel empty.
I enter late, trailing the echo of Kael’s touch. He is already there, a shadow among shadows. But Marissa is sitting with him, and she is smiling. That almost shocks me more than anything I’ve seen here. Kael looks up, and our eyes meet. He nods, just once—an invitation.
But I don’t go to him. I spot Morwen, alone at the edge of the hall, her hair pinned in a pale halo, almost washed out against the blue of her uniform.
She could be a ghost herself. She sits with perfect posture, as if her spine has been replaced with iron.
A plate of food sits untouched in front of her.
I change direction, moving towards her. Kael watches, unreadable, his attention following me across the hall. He turns his focus back to Marissa, though I still feel him on me.
I take the seat across from Morwen. She acknowledges me with a small, dignified tilt of her head.
There are no words. She cannot speak in any case. Just as well. There is nothing to say.
She picks up a quill and a piece of parchment—a gift, I think, from the Mother Shard—and writes:
You came.
I nod. “I wanted to see how you were.”
She writes, slower this time, every stroke careful:
It is strange to survive after so much hurt. My body feels like it should fall apart.
“You were brave,” I say immediately, because I don’t know what else to offer her.
She shakes her head, writing:
I wasn’t anything. Callen protected me, but he died for nothing. My time will still come.
I bite my tongue. There is nothing I can say that will make this better.
She continues:
I remember the sword. I remember his arms around me. I could feel his heartbeat as it faded.
She stops writing, her hand trembling. She takes a deep breath and forces herself still. She writes:
He learned some signs you know.
I look at her, startled. I didn’t know.
She keeps writing, shaky and uneven now:
That’s the painful part. He tried so hard to speak to me. To learn my language.
She hesitates, then writes, smaller:
I’ve never been afraid before.
The sentence sits between us, alive and terrible.
She breaks. Not loudly, but fully—her face crumpling, the tears streaming straight down.
She covers her mouth with one hand, the other curled around the quill in a tight fist. I don’t know what to do, so I slide around the table and put my arm around her.
It’s awkward, but I am as gentle as I can manage.
She shakes and shakes, then quiets.
She leans into me, small and rigid, almost brittle, and we stay like that for a minute.
When she looks up, her eyes are wrong—too wide, the irises rolled back, the whites a cloudy grey like swirling mist.
She reaches for the dinner knife, and I tense, but she doesn’t attack me. She presses the blade into her palm, drawing a clean, deep cut. Blood gushes to the surface as she slams her hand on the table.
The blood moves, wriggling like worms across the table, forming words:
THE DEEP CALLS
A FRACTURE COMES AGAIN
SEEK TRUTH
COME TO THE SHADOW
The words sear my brain.
Morwen’s body convulses. Her head jerks back, her jaw locking open in a rigid grimace.
The entire hall falls silent. Every Offering stares, the light flickering overhead.
For a heartbeat, time seems to stop, then reverse.
The room stutters, and the last few seconds replay: Morwen sinking back into her upright position before jerking back again.
Kael’s eyes widen—then settle again, and the loop continues.