Riven
I wear sunglasses to hide it.
The gray.
Because gray means soft. Gray means the bond is fucking humming. And the last thing I need is Silas spotting it and launching into som.
“emotionally repressed bad boy needs a cuddle”
speech while Elias makes it worse with something snide about my broody aura.
I’m not broody. I’m building a wall.
Literally.
The side of the house took a hit last week when whatever the hell Ambrose pulled unstitched the foundation magic. So now I’m outside, sleeves pushed up, sweat clinging to my spine, and my hands raw from reshaping stone and sealing it in place. Earth magic wasn’t mine originally, but I’ve bent enough wrath into it to make it work. Violence always makes things cooperate.
I’m halfway through reinforcing the final arch when I hear them.
Two voices. Too loud. Too obnoxious.
“Are those sunglasses?”
Elias’s voice cuts across the courtyard like a scalpel wrapped in sarcasm.
“Is our resident wrath god doing construction in disguise?”
“Maybe he’s hiding a black eye,”
Silas adds, tilting his head, stepping up beside Elias with a conspiratorial whisper.
“From Luna. Did she finally hit him with that frying pan she keeps threatening?”
I don’t look at them. I keep working.
But the crack in the stone beneath my hand spreads like lightning.
“Hey,”
Elias says again, coming closer, circling like a shark.
“You good, man? You seem... tense.”
“Shut the fuck up,”
I mutter, standing straight, shoulder blades tight. I don’t need this. I need silence. I need her not to be in my head like a song I can’t stop humming.
Silas leans in, squinting at my face.
“You’re hiding something.”
“Obviously,”
Elias says.
“Who wears sunglasses while doing construction? You’re not in a Top Gun reboot.”
“I swear to every ancient god that ever crawled from the Void, if you don’t back up—”
“Let me guess,”
Silas says, ignoring the growl in my voice like it’s background noise.
“You and Luna had a moment. A bonding moment. And now your eyes are gray.”
Elias makes a low, drawn-out “ooooh”
and points at my face.
“That’s why. You’re full-on heart-eyes mode.”
“I will fucking bury both of you under this wall,”
I say flatly, turning to glare at them.
Which is a mistake.
Because Elias grabs my glasses before I can stop him and pulls them off. Silas makes a gasp so dramatic it sounds like a dying opera singer.
“They’re gray!”
he screeches.
“He’s in love! He’s been emotionally compromised!”
“I will kill you both,”
I say through clenched teeth.
But they’re already celebrating like this is some victory. Elias is pacing dramatically, hands on his head, muttering.
“We’re losing him. First us, now . Next thing you know, Orin’s going to be writing her poetry.”
“She’s powerful,”
Silas says with a nod.
“Terrifying. And hot. Honestly, a little scary how into it I am.”
I shove my glasses back on, grinding my teeth.
“Get the fuck away from me.”
“Love you too, sunshine,”
Elias chirps as they wander off, cackling.
And when they’re gone—when the courtyard is quiet again—I press my hand against the unfinished wall and let the magic rise through my skin, shaping the stone again.
Gray eyes or not, I’m not like them.
I’m not giving in.
Even if she already owns me.
I barely finish reinforcing the last stone before the realization hits me like a damn wrecking ball to the chest.
They’re going to tell her.
Those smug, chaos-worshipping assholes are going to run straight to Luna, flinging my name like confetti, probably with some embarrassing reenactment of me in sunglasses—which I now realize makes me look more like a grieving boyband member than someone with an actual ounce of dignity.
I don’t think. I move.
The sunglasses come off. The wall is left half-finished. My hands are still coated in dust, but I’m already storming across the field, boots chewing into the dirt like it insulted my mother.
They’re not hard to find.
Their laughter is like a fucking siren—high-pitched, frantic, and utterly damning.
I round the hedge and see them in the open courtyard. Elias is mid-mimicry, dramatically swooning with his hand over his heart, and Silas is on the ground pretending to weep into the grass.
“, no,”
Elias croaks, eyes fluttering like he’s in a bad stage play.
“Not the sunglasses. It’s too soon. I’m not ready for this relationship.”
“I can’t believe you’ve changed,”
Silas sobs into the dirt.
“What happened to our emotionally unavailable rage monster? Who is this soft-eyed simp and what did you do to him?”
I lunge.
They scream. Actually scream. And scatter like fucking pigeons.
Elias ducks left. Silas bolts right. I go after Silas because he’s faster and dumber—and that combination always ends in something spectacularly bad.
“Get back here, you shadow-sucking maniac!” I yell.
“YOU CAN’T SILENCE THE TRUTH, RIVEN,”
he shrieks over his shoulder, laughing like a madman.
“LOVE MAKES US STRONGER!”
“I will gut you!”
He vanishes around the corner. I follow, rage blooming like wildfire in my chest. I’m not even thinking anymore. I’m acting on pure adrenaline, pure bond-induced panic, because if Luna hears about this from them, I will never live it down.
Not just the gray eyes. Not just the fact that I let her see them. But the truth that it felt—good. That for a second, I let her in deeper than I ever meant to.
I catch him near the stairs, grab his arm, and slam him into the nearest wall. Not hard. Just enough for him to feel it. For him to remember that I’m not the nice one in this group.
He grins like I’ve gifted him a birthday present.
“She’s going to find out, ,”
he whispers.
“Whether it’s from me or from Elias or from the way you look at her like you’d rather burn the world down than see her walk away.”
I stare at him. At the way he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink.
“Stay out of it,” I growl.
He leans in, voice low, mock-serious.
“We’re already in it, big guy. Welcome to the emotional apocalypse.”
I shove off him, disgusted with him, with me, with everything. I turn and storm away, not sure where I’m going but knowing if I don’t move now, I’ll do something I can’t walk back from.
I catch movement at the edge of my vision—too fluid for a threat, too erratic to ignore. I turn.
And there she is.
Luna.
Barefoot in the courtyard, sweat clinging to her skin like stardust, the Wrath blade in her hand a gleaming, venomous thing. But it’s not just Wrath—it pulses with the slow, creeping weight of Sloth, the acidic bite of Envy. She’s drenched it in all of us, bleeding the bond into the steel like she knows how to hurt the world with what we are.
She's trying to train. Trying to learn.
And fuck if it doesn’t wreck me.
I step behind a half-cracked pillar and lean there, silent, watching. I should move, should make a sound, should do anything but stare. But I can’t. Not with the way she moves.
It’s messy, unrefined—she still drops her shoulder on the twist, her grip too tight on the spin. But she’s trying. And there’s something almost holy about it. Like she’s not just wielding a weapon—she is one. A conduit for all the chaos we’ve poured into her, made flesh and blood and fury.
I taught her that form. The tight arc, the pivot of her back foot, the breath she holds in the silence before the blade strikes. She’s not there yet. But she will be. Because she doesn’t stop.
The bond hums in my chest, pulling taut like it senses her too. Like it’s trying to drag me closer to her, to the wild way she’s bending all of us into something new.
She doesn't know I'm here. Her focus is narrowed, sharp as the blade itself. Her brow furrows when she falters, lips pressing into a line of determination that makes my chest ache in a way I hate.
Because I shouldn’t feel this.
Not for her.
Not when it’s Luna, and everything about her pulls me off center, makes me something softer, something weaker. She doesn’t even mean to do it. She just exists, and the world shifts.
She spins again—too wide. The blade slices a branch clean off the nearby tree, and she stumbles, catches herself, huffs a breath and curses.
I almost laugh.
Instead, I let the bond thrum low between us. I let myself feel her for a second. That quiet frustration. That burning determination. That undercurrent of something brighter she’ll never admit to—but it’s there. Always has been.
She resets. Tries again.
And this time… it’s better.
I exhale, slow. Almost proud. I should go back to the wall. Pretend I didn’t see this. Pretend I didn’t feel it. But I stay. Because maybe, just this once, watching her become something untouchable is worth unraveling for.
She doesn’t pause. Doesn’t look over her shoulder. Just keeps moving through the form—imprecise, determined, infuriating—then speaks without breaking rhythm.
“You gonna keep watching like a creep or actually help me?”
I freeze.
Her back’s still to me, but I swear she’s smirking. I can feel it in the bond, that flicker of smug heat under her skin, beneath the frustration she’s trying not to show. I grind my molars together and step out from behind the pillar, slow and deliberate, like I hadn’t been standing there watching her for a full ten minutes like an absolute fucking idiot.
“I wasn’t—watching.”
I roll my shoulder, feign a stretch like I’ve just happened to wander into her personal training session.
“I was making sure you didn’t cut your own damn arm off.”
Luna snorts.
“Uh huh. And the sunglasses? Super subtle.”
I ignore that. Mostly because she’s right and partially because I’m not about to explain that seeing her—really seeing her—makes something in me want to self-destruct.
“You’re still dropping your elbow on the spin,”
I mutter instead, stepping closer.
“You’re overcompensating with your off-hand. Stop gripping the hilt like it’s going to fly away.”
She stops mid-form and turns toward me. Sweat clings to the hollow of her throat. Her braid’s unraveling, strands sticking to her cheek, and she looks fucking devastating. And focused. Dangerous.
“You going to keep standing there with your arms crossed, or are you actually going to show me?”
Gods. She doesn’t even know what she’s asking. Or maybe she does. Maybe she’s doing it on purpose—baiting me. Digging under my skin the way she always does.
I step into her space before I can stop myself, reach for her hands, adjust her grip without looking directly at her. My fingers brush against her palm. She’s warm. Steady. The bond pulses between us, low and violent and alive.
“This blade,”
I say roughly.
“isn’t just Wrath anymore. You soaked it in Sloth, Envy. It’s heavy with too much of us. You can’t swing it like it’s one thing—it isn’t. It’s chaos.”
“Like you?”
I look up. She’s watching me, too close, too knowing. Her voice is soft, but not sweet. Like a dare. I step behind her. Wrap my hand around hers from behind and guide the blade through the arc. One, two, three—then I press my palm to her abdomen, just above her navel.
“Anchor here,”
I say, voice low.
“This is your center. You don’t move from here. Everything else follows.”
She shudders beneath my touch. Just barely. But I feel it. Fuck, I feel it.
I pull away before I do something stupid. Like bury my face in the crook of her neck. Like drag her back into the house and show her what real training looks like.
“I’m not your fucking teacher,”
I mutter, stepping back.
“No,”
she says, spinning the blade once, cleaner now, smoother.
“But you’re better than the creeper in the shadows.”
I give her the finger. She grins.
And I pretend like that doesn’t feel like victory.
She shifts her footing again, slow, deliberate. The blade sweeps outward—flawed, yes, but better. Stronger. Her core holds. Her breath evens. Sweat glistens against her collarbone, catching the fractured sunlight slicing through the trees like it wants to bless her.
And I hate this feeling in my chest. Hate how fucking soft it is.
Because it isn’t her beauty that kills me.
It’s the way she moves. Like something unchained. Like someone who’s never learned to stay caged and doesn’t intend to start now. She’s not a container. She’s a current. She doesn't hold you in—she shows you how to open.
And me?
I’m a monster forged in chains. In fury. In centuries of being used, bound, bled dry for what I am. And every part of me expected her to try. To do what all the others did. Take. Trap. Command.
But she didn’t.
She never has.
She’s chaos, yes—but not like me. Not like the rest of us. We destroy because that’s what we were made for. She creates through it. Remakes the world every time she steps into a space and dares it to defy her softness.
She should've collapsed under the weight of what we are. And instead she’s standing barefoot on this cursed earth, blade in hand, wrapped in wrath and envy and sloth—and still kind.
Still open.
Still herself.
And she never once tried to bind me. Never used the bond to force anything. No manipulation. No demand. No chains, no orders, no fucking magic words whispered into my skull to make me kneel.
She just... waits.
Lets me choose.
And it’s killing me.
I watch her nail the arc I taught her. Watch the firelight flicker over her face, eyes narrowed in concentration, lower lip caught between her teeth. My name—my rage—is soaked into the hilt of that blade. And she holds it like it’s holy.
Because to her, everything we are is sacred.
And gods—I love her for that.
For the way she hasn’t tried to fix me.
For the way she sees me—ugly, brutal, snarling—and still reaches.
For the way she’s becoming something we were never supposed to have.
Not control. Not obedience. Not worship.
Freedom.
She finishes the form, lowers the blade, turns—and catches me staring. I don’t even look away.
I can’t.
Because in this moment, in the quiet hum of the bond between us, where there’s no command—only choice—I realize I’d follow her into the void, not because I’m bound to.
But because I want to.
Because she makes it safe to be myself, and dangerous to be near her, and both of those things feel like coming home.
She doesn’t say a word. Just tilts her head, gaze steady beneath the sweep of her lashes, and lifts one finger. A crook of it. Barely there. A question, not a command.
And gods.
It wrecks me.
Because the bond—our bond—shifts. Opens.
I feel it like a slow bleed beneath the ribs. A wound I didn’t know I’d been keeping sealed tight for centuries. It opens, and she lets me in.
No shields. No walls. No careful little partitions to keep her love for the others in one place and me in another. No conditions. No demands.
Just her.
All of her.
And she’s fucking drenched in it.
Adoration. Not the kind you earn, or steal, or tear from someone’s throat. This isn’t desperation or obligation or some sad imitation of affection.
She loves me.
Fully. Wildly. Inexplicably.
She chooses to.
Despite the snarling, the temper, the way I ruin everything I touch. She sees the sharp edges, the blood on my hands, the fury caged under my skin—and still, somehow, she opens herself like I won’t tear her apart.
She trusts me.
And not in that fake, easy way mortals talk about like it’s a coin you hand over once and forget. No. She gives me real trust—the kind that costs something. The kind that risks being hurt. Again. And again.
And the bond—fuck, the bond—answers.
It sings.
My knees damn near give out from the way it floods me. Her love coats my insides, thick and raw, molten in a way nothing ever has been. I can feel it in every inch of me—how much she wants me. Not for what I can give. Not because she needs my power. Just me.
I take one step forward. Then another. My hands are fists at my sides because if I touch her right now, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop. Not without falling to my knees like she’s a god and I’m a sinner starving for absolution.
She doesn’t move.
Just holds my gaze, that finger still crooked, still offering.
And I lose the fight.
I close the space between us in a breath. I grab her wrist—not hard, just enough to feel the beat of her pulse flutter against my palm—and then I press my forehead to hers like that contact will anchor me.
“Luna,”
I say, and it’s not a curse anymore. Not a challenge.
It’s a confession.
She exhales like she’s been waiting her whole life to hear what I say next.
“I love you,”
I rasp. My voice is fucked—shaky and low and nothing like what I sound like when I’m angry.
“I’m so godsdamned angry all the time, but with you…”
I pull back just enough to look at her. To see her.
“With you I don’t want to burn. I just want to breathe.”
And she smiles like that was the right answer all along.
Ambrose
The rain’s been a constant murmur against the stone, but now it hushes, like even the storm holds its breath. The doors open, not with a crash, not with any real sound at all, but they part just the same—and the Council steps through like they’ve always belonged here. Like this isn’t sacred ground made profane by their presence.
Three cloaked figures. Faces shadowed. Dripping. Silent.
But I know the one in the middle. Of course I do.
Keira moves like she still owns the breath in my lungs. Like she’s the one who carved it out of me in the first place and left it burning in her palm. Her hood slips back, and her hair’s different—longer, darker, twisted into a crown of braids that looks ceremonial. Strategic. Her blue eyes snap to mine, and I don’t flinch. I’ve already lost that war. Years ago. Centuries, maybe.
Beside me, Silas mutters something under his breath. Elias makes a noise like he’s going to be sick and immediately follows it with.
“Oh this bitch.”
just steps forward. No posturing. No greeting. His voice is steel through velvet.
“Why are you here?”
Keira doesn’t answer.
Because this—this—shouldn’t be happening. The Council only comes once a year, and they were here nine months ago. That’s carved into the stone, into our laws. Into me.
The other two figures lower their hoods slowly. Older immortals, both of them. Lorian, with his jagged bone tattoos curling around his neck like smoke. And the other—I don’t recognize him, which is worse. New blood. They never add members to the Council unless one dies. And Council members don’t die. Not unless something went very, very wrong.
And now they’re here.
Now.
While everything’s unraveling.
While Luna—gods, Luna—is weaving threads of Sin into her skin like they were always meant to live there.
The bond doesn’t exist between us, but I feel it all the same. A leash. A hook. A set of invisible instructions embedded into my spine. Don’t speak unless spoken to. Don’t touch Keira. Don’t challenge the Council.
And that last one burns.
’s shoulders shift. A twitch. Barely perceptible. But I know him. I know when he’s about to snap.
Keira finally speaks, and her voice is smoke over snow. Cold. Smooth. Deadly.
“There’s been a violation,”
she says.
“One that threatens everything the Council has bound.”
She looks at Luna when she says it.
Not me.
Not .
Her.
Luna stares back, chin high. Unflinching.
And I—I’m suffocating.
Because I don’t know what I feel. Hatred, sure. For Keira. For the Council. For what they took from me. But underneath that, coiled and hungry, is something darker.
A part of me that remembers what it was like to want Keira. And that infuriates me.
steps in front of her like the fucking world will end if Keira breathes too close. And maybe it would. Maybe he would end it.
I look away.
Because that moment—, standing like a weapon between Luna and what he thinks is a threat—it does something I don’t want to name. Not jealousy. Not protectiveness. But something bitter and ancient that tastes too much like longing and not enough like power.
Keira’s eyes narrow like a blade sliding into place.
Predictable.
Her rage is always dressed up like righteousness. Like the fate of the world hinges on her ability to make everything personal.
Lorian steps forward, smooth and deliberate, and I hear the crackle of his bones under that too-perfect skin. His hood falls back, revealing that ageless, unreadable face. Lorian is beautiful in that carved-from-marble way—immortal beauty, devoid of soul. There’s no kindness in it. No warmth. Just perfection for perfection’s sake.
His voice is colder than the room.
“You should have summoned us,”
he says, addressing no one and everyone.
“When the barrier fell. When the Hollow shifted. When she was bound.”
He doesn’t say her name. Like it might burn his tongue. Or worse—like naming her might give her power he couldn’t contain.
doesn’t flinch. Gods, I love him for it. For the way he meets Lorian’s stare with something feral in his blood.
“We summon no one,”
he says.
“We created you. Don’t forget that.”
And fuck, I want to cheer. Because says it like it’s a fact etched into the marrow of the world. Because it is.
We didn’t bend knee to the Council. We birthed it. We breathed it into being when the world was raw and ruinous and screaming for someone to draw the first law in blood.
Lorian’s lips twitch—something between a smirk and a sneer—but Keira cuts him off before he can speak.
“This isn’t about authority,”
she says, stepping forward now. Her cloak parts, and her council insignia flares along the seam of her chest like a brand.
“This is about containment. You know what she is. What she’s capable of.”
I meet her gaze now, because fuck her, she’s talking about Luna like she’s a wildfire and not a miracle. And maybe she is wildfire. So what?
I’ve seen enough cold power to last ten lifetimes.
Give me the girl who burns.
“You never gave a damn about containment,”
I say, stepping forward. My voice is calm. Controlled. And it costs me.
“You only care about losing what you can’t own.”
Keira’s eyes flash. It’s a wound I know too well. And she hates me for knowing it.
I don’t care.
The girl behind —the one they’re all trying to control, to cage, to claim—is the only one in this room who’s never asked for anything but choice. That’s the real threat.
Lorian doesn’t like being dismissed. It shows in the twitch of his jaw, the way his eyes narrow not in anger—but calculation. That’s the thing about the Council. They don’t scream. They don’t threaten. They restructure power in the spaces between words. It's less war and more quiet execution. A smile that turns into a guillotine.
"This isn’t about the Sin Binder," says again, slower this time, deliberate. "So let’s stop pretending it is. We’re a little busy right now. And until you’re summoned, we have no need for you.”
And fuck, if it doesn’t hang in the room like a death knell. The Council—reduced to inconvenience. And from of all people.
Lorian doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. But it’s the cloaked one beside him who steps forward, and I don’t know which of them I’d prefer. He doesn’t pull back his hood. Doesn’t need to. His voice is a blade honed on centuries of power and silence.
“If word gets out,”
he says quietly.
“that you are no longer bound here, —without the Council’s sanction—what will that do to the morale of our people?”
Our people.
Like we’re still theirs. Like the blood in our veins hasn’t long since stopped answering to thrones made of forgotten promises and self-interest.
“Why the fuck,”
says, voice sharp and low and ready to slice.
“would I care what you look like to anyone?”
I almost smile. Almost.
Because there it is. The fracture line. The one they’ve been afraid of since Luna took her first breath in our world.
Not that she would burn it down.
But that we’d let her.
The third Council member finally speaks. Still cloaked. Still unreadable. But the voice is softer. Less edge. More… strategy and an accent.
“We request a night for rest,”
he says simply.
“Nothing more.”
Lorian’s mouth twitches again, displeased. He didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to need.
But that’s the thing about old power—it crumbles when it’s forced to beg.
doesn’t nod. Doesn’t agree. He just steps aside slightly, leaving the foyer open behind him like a silent threat.
And that’s when I speak.
“Enjoy your night,”
I say to the Council, watching Keira’s hands clench at her sides.
“But if you’re looking for relevance, I suggest you sleep light. The world’s already moved on without you.”
She turns to me, finally. Her mouth softens, but it’s not affection. It’s pity. And that’s worse.
“You look tired, Ambrose,”
she murmurs.
“You look like a mistake I never made,”
I say.
“Let’s keep it that way.”
She flinches. Just a flicker.
But I see it.
And I win.
Keira asks to speak to me alone. I want to laugh in her face. Tell her to fuck off, the way she deserves. But I don’t. Because curiosity is its own sickness. And I’ve never been good at resisting poison that comes in pretty packaging.
She waits until the others disperse, until even Lorian offers her a sharp glance that borders on warning. She ignores it. Of course she does. Keira’s always loved being on the edge of disobedience—without ever paying the price for it.
I follow her into one of the ruined parlors, where the ceiling bows inward like the house itself is tired of surviving her.
The door shuts behind us.
She doesn’t speak at first. She just removes her hood, shakes out rain-dark hair, and turns to face me with that fucking smile.
The same one she wore the last time I saw her. Right before she tore out my heart and handed it back like a broken trinket she couldn’t bother to repair.
“Ambrose,”
she says, like it’s still hers to use.
“You’re three syllables too close to me,”
I murmur.
“Step back or say something worth the risk.”
She laughs. Not loud. Not bitter. That low hum she always used when she thought she’d already won.
“I thought you’d be angrier,”
she says, drifting further into the room.
“You always led with vengeance.”
“No,”
I correct smoothly.
“I led with precision. You just mistook the blade for something personal.”
Her gaze flicks to the side. Not shame. Strategy. She’s checking her angles. Measuring what she can salvage. What she can still control.
“I didn’t know about Luna,”
she says after a moment, and I almost roll my eyes.
“Didn’t you?”
I drawl.
“That would make you the only immortal in this realm who didn’t. But then again, selective ignorance has always been your favorite alibi.”
Keira doesn’t flinch. But she comes closer, which is worse. She stops two steps from me, and I feel the familiar tug in my chest—the one I’ve spent months pretending doesn’t twist.
Her bond still hums beneath my skin. Not active. Not allowed. But there. Like a loaded gun with a broken safety.
She reaches for me.
I catch her wrist mid-air.
“Don’t,”
I say, voice low, lethal.
“You don’t get to touch what you discarded.”
“I didn’t discard you.”
“No?”
I raise a brow.
“Because it felt a lot like being gutted and left to rot.”
Keira's lips part. The act begins. The part where she pretends regret. Where she builds scaffolding around her actions with excuses carved from silk and sorrow.
I cut her off.
“You want to know the real problem, Keira?”
I step in now, closing the space between us like a closing fist.
“It’s not that you chose power. It’s that you thought I would beg to be part of it.”
Her breath stutters. Just slightly. Just enough.
I lean in.
“And now you’re here,”
I whisper against her ear.
“pretending this is about some council protocol, when what you really want is to see if I still bleed for you.”
My mouth curls into a slow, humorless smile.
“I don’t.”
Her fingers twitch in my grip, but I release her before she can make it look like she escaped. Before she can weaponize restraint into vulnerability.
“Get out,”
I say, turning my back on her like she never mattered.
“Before I show you exactly how well I learned to forget you.”
She says my name like it means something. Soft. Knowing. As if she still holds the version of me who once gave a damn.
“Ambrose.”
I should keep walking. Should let the door creak and close and lock between us. But I stop.
The rain has turned to mist outside, seeping through the cracks in the warped doorway, curling around us like it wants to listen in.
She moves toward me again, slower this time. Wary, like I’m some wounded animal that might bite.
“I’m sorry,”
she says.
“For what happened. I was—”
“Upset?”
I cut in, turning to face her.
“Don’t insult both of us with that excuse.”
Keira’s mouth flattens, but she keeps her tone syrupy.
“You don’t understand what I was dealing with—”
“Oh, I understood exactly what you were dealing with,”
I snap, stepping toward her now.
“Your own insatiable need to be important. To be the one they all needed.”
Her expression flickers. I’ve always known where her wounds are buried.
“I want to start over,”
she says.
“This doesn’t have to be war between us.”
That makes me laugh. Quiet, humorless, razor-edged.
“It’s always been war with you, Keira. You just prefer your weapons to smile first.”
I move toward the door, but she follows.
Outside, the courtyard is overrun with creeping ivy and wet stone, the twisted branches of the Hollow curling in like claws. The world here doesn’t feel neutral—it watches. Waits.
Keira is right behind me, and I can feel her breath at my neck. That used to mean something. Now it’s just a warning.
“I wasn’t ready to lose you,”
she says.
“And you made it easy. You didn’t fight for me.”
I spin back, fast.
“I don’t fight for things that already chose someone else.”
She scoffs, folding her arms.
“So now you’re jealous?”
“I don’t get jealous. I get even.”
Her lips part to say something else, but I don’t give her the chance. I step past her and into the cold, my coat catching the wind like it wants to pull me away from her orbit for good.
But she follows again, just a pace behind, as always.
“You don’t have to keep hating me,” she says.
“And you don’t have to keep pretending I ever loved you.”
The words land hard, and I almost regret them.
We walk into the fog-bleeding edge of the garden, bickering like something ancient and rotted clawing its way out of the grave.
This isn’t resolution.
This is the beginning of the next fracture.
And I intend to let it burn.