Chapter 8 #2
The question echoed in my skull, burrowing deeper every time I tried to shake it loose. The glitches clustered around me. The Veil bled harder when my power spiked. Correlation wasn't causation, but—
Maybe the King wasn't lying about what I was doing. Just about what I was.
The thought was poison. I swallowed it anyway.
Hiding wasn't working. Running wasn't working. Every door I tried closed in my face, and the world kept tightening around me like a noose made of fear and twenty million marks.
A crack in the slate near my knee had split wide enough for soil to gather.
And there—stubborn, impossible—a wildflower.
Tiny, purple-blue, petals no bigger than my thumbnail, growing where nothing should.
I watched it longer than made sense. My finger traced the edge of one petal, barely touching, the way you'd reach for something you were afraid to ruin.
It had no business being alive up here. Neither did I.
I pulled my hand back and tucked it under my arm before the tenderness could spread.
I was so tired.
My eyes shut. Just for a second. Just to breathe without seeing my own face staring back from every wall—
A hand clamped over my mouth.
Body pressed to my back. Hard. Unyielding. A wall of controlled power that pinned me before I even registered the movement. His other hand held a blade to my throat—cold steel kissing the place where my blood beat hardest.
I lurched and thrashed, then drove my elbow into his groin. He growled and his free arm locked around me, pinning both arms to my sides. I bucked against him. Useless. Like fighting a wall that knew how to breathe.
His lips grazed my ear.
"You're not hiding as well as you think you are, little fox."
The Crownforged. My stomach flipped in a way I wanted to blame on the blade.
My marks seared. They surged in furious tandem, reacting to his proximity like flame to oil. His power answered—that subtle thrum from the tunnel, a resonance that made my teeth ache.
The steel edge pressed harder and my breath hitched.
"Every patrol in the city is looking for you," he continued, conversational, like we were discussing the weather. "And here you are, bleeding power onto a rooftop like a beacon. I could feel you from four streets away."
Four streets.
I evened my breathing and slowly crept my hand towards the knife sheathed at my thigh, inching toward the hilt.
"Mmmm, I wouldn’t choose that one," he purred against the shell of my ear.
"That dagger at your left thigh. You shifted your weight toward it the moment I pinned you.
" His fingers curled around my throat, tilting my head.
"Try the one at your lower back. You'd get two inches closer before I could stop you. "
Arrogant. Insufferable. Bastard.
"You could also try the headbutt again." His voice dropped, velvet over gravel. "But I learn from my mistakes. Do you?"
"Didn't feel like a mistake," I hissed against his palm. "Felt like your nose cracking under my skull."
His torso vibrated against my back. A laugh. Sordid, dark, and completely inappropriate for a fae holding a blade to someone's throat.
"Sloppy angle," he murmured. "You telegraphed it with your shoulders. If I hadn't been distracted, you'd have shattered your own orbital bone."
"And yet." I bared my teeth against his hand. "You bled. I didn't."
The steel shifted—a hair's breadth, barely a whisper of movement—and suddenly the flat of it lay against the curve of my neck instead of the edge. Not a threat. A caress. My pulse kicked hard enough that he must have felt it through the steel.
"Don't worry, Scar-Bearer." His mouth was close enough to my ear that every word had a shape. "You'll get your turn to bleed."
My breath caught and I bit my lip. Hard.
Get your shit together.
My fingers found the knife at my lower back. I ripped it free and drove it backward into his kidney.
His hand caught my wrist. Mid-strike. The dagger frozen an inch from his side.
"There she is." His voice curled with approval. "I was wondering when you'd stop playing helpless."
His fingers dug into my wrist. Letting me feel how easily he could control it.
"Cute," I spat.
"Predictable." He twisted my arm, forcing the blade away from his body. "You always go for the ribs. Try the femoral next time. Messier, but harder to block."
"Thanks for the tip. I'll use it when I gut you."
"You can't run forever." His breath was warm against my neck. "You can't hide. Your marks won't let you—every time you try to subdue them, they scream louder. And every hunter in Velmyra is listening."
He was right. That bastard.
"What do you want?" The words came out muffled and pathetic against his palm.
His laugh was low and humorless.
"Nothing you're ready to give." His grip loosened—just a fraction. "Yet."
And then—
He let go.
I spun, daggers already in my hands, steel flashing in the searchlight's distant glow. I cocked my arm to throw—
He was gone.
Just... gone. The rooftop empty, the shadows undisturbed, as if he'd never been there at all. Only the phantom pressure of his hand on my mouth and the ghost of his blade at my throat remained, burning like a brand.
I stood there, chest heaving, daggers sweating in my grip.
How?
How had he found me? How had he gotten that close without a sound? And why—why—had he let me go?
The questions spiraled, unanswerable. But one truth cut through the noise, barbed and undeniable.
I climbed down from the roof, my hands steadier than they had any right to be. Serenya was awake—of course she was. That girl slept like a cat: one eye open and an opinion already forming.
"We're joining them," I said. "The Uncrowned."
She didn't gloat. Didn't say I told you so. Just nodded, like she'd been waiting for me to catch up.
"I already told them we'd agree to meet," she said softly. "At the stronghold. At dawn."
Of course she had.
I sank down beside her. Too tired to fight what was already decided.
We had a few hours until dawn, and I planned to spend them pretending unconsciousness was the same thing as peace.
My head jerked as I drifted in and out of sleep, resting on Serenya's shoulder—the one fixed point in a world that wouldn't stop spinning.