Chapter 10
AMARIA
The stronghold's exit was chaos in motion.
Rebels checked straps, counted blades, muttered last-minute instructions to each other like prayers.
The usual ritual before people went somewhere that might kill them.
I'd done it enough times to know the ones who talked the most were the ones most afraid of the quiet.
Maxx leaned against the cave wall, somehow looking bored and ready to kill someone in equal measure.
I was triple-checking my gear—when Kaelen crossed to Maxx and handed him a leather kit. A murmured instruction, too low to catch. Secrets already. We hadn't even left yet.
Maxx sauntered over, that insufferable grin already in place, and held the kit out like it was a shiny medal. "Present from the boss. Mark-tempered steel. Won't shatter when you channel through it."
I flipped the kit open. A dozen blades glinted inside, each one etched with faint runes along the spine. Beautiful work. Expensive. The kind of gear I couldn't have afforded in three lifetimes of honest work.
I selected one—a mid-length blade, balanced for throwing—and closed the kit.
Maxx's eyebrows rose. "Just one? There's a whole—"
"One blade's easier to retrieve." I met his grin with a hard stare. "If you turn on me."
He clutched his heart in mock offense. "You wound me, Flameheart. Truly."
I tucked the knife into my belt, the weight unfamiliar but manageable. One blade I could test. One blade I could lose if it failed—or if the people who'd given it to me did.
The rest of Kaelen's pretty gifts could wait until I knew whether I'd survive the night.
I shouldered my pack when I noticed Serenya was walking toward me. And she'd brought reinforcements.
Dreadscale moved beside her like a shadow given form, those unsettling tattoos curling over his skin in the wavering light. His dark eyes found mine immediately.
"No," I said before either of them could speak.
Serenya ignored me. "You have to fuse both marks on this mission. The wards are dual-natured—Kaelen said so himself."
"I'll figure it out."
"Like you figured it out in the square?" Her voice dropped, urgent and fierce. "You did it once, Amaria. Once. By accident. And you nearly tore yourself apart."
Heat crawled up my neck. I was aware of the others pretending not to listen—Maxx's knife-tossing had slowed considerably, and Ryla's gaze had drifted our way.
"I don't need an audience for this," I hissed.
"Then stop making it a performance." Serenya stepped closer, her hand catching my arm.
"This is his job, Amaria. He trains Shadowmarks.
He's the only one here who understands what you're carrying.
Just—" She exhaled, her frustration softening into a plea.
"Just listen. Please. Three minutes. That's all I'm asking. "
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her I didn't need some stranger poking around in my power, my shadows, my shame.
But Serenya wasn't wrong. Three minutes of training or a suicide mission. Not much of a choice.
"Fine," I bit out. "Three minutes."
Dreadscale didn't gloat. Didn't even acknowledge the concession. He simply stepped forward, positioning himself an arm's length away, and spoke in that baritone voice that seemed to bypass my ears and settle directly into my bones.
"You treat them as two separate beasts," he said. "Light in one hand. Shadow in the other. Warring."
"They are warring."
"Because you make them war." His head tilted, those mirror-dark eyes reflecting things I didn't want to see. "You fear the Shadow. Starve it. And when you reach for the Light, the Shadow thrashes against its chains. You are not fusing. You are suppressing."
"So what do you suggest? Let the Shadow run loose and hope it doesn't eat me alive?"
"I suggest you stop thinking of them as enemies." He raised one hand, palm up. "Close your eyes."
"I don't—"
"Three heartbeats. That is all you need to hold. Three heartbeats of balance." His voice hardened, just a fraction. "Or walk into those wards half-armed and see what happens. Your choice."
I glared at him. He waited.
Serenya's hand squeezed my arm once, then let go.
I closed my eyes.
"Find the Light first," Dreadscale said. "Not as a weapon. As a breath. Let it fill you without reaching for it."
I inhaled slowly, searching for that familiar warmth within. The Unravel stirred—muffled by the amulet, but still there. Still mine. I let it rise, not grasping, just... allowing.
"Good. Now the Shadow."
My stomach clenched. The Shadow lived deeper, coiled in the dark spaces I tried not to visit. It tasted like grief and fear and every terrible thing I'd ever swallowed to survive.
"Don't fight it," Dreadscale murmured. "Don't pull. Just... open the door."
I didn't want to. Gods, I didn't want to.
But I thought of the wards. The mission. Serenya's face if I came back broken—or didn't come back at all.
I opened the door.
The Shadow surged up, hungry and wanting, and I felt the Light flare in response—two forces slamming together. Heat and cold at once, fire in my lungs and ice in my spine, my skin straining against what was happening beneath it. My breath caught and my vision fractured.
"Don't separate them." Dreadscale's voice broke through. "Let them meet. Let them touch."
They'll destroy each other. They'll destroy me.
"Three heartbeats, Amaria. Hold."
The Light and Shadow crashed together—light and truth, Grief and clarity—
One heartbeat.
My ribs stung like they were being pried apart from the inside. A cord behind my sternum pulled taut, vibrating at a frequency I could feel in my teeth.
Two heartbeats.
Heat bloomed up my throat as a chill sank into my gut.
Three heartbeats.
I let go.
My eyes flew open. I was on my knees, gasping, hands braced against my thighs. Both Marks arced. The world had turned hyperreal—edges crisp, colors saturated, every detail dialed up to a frequency I'd never accessed before.
Dreadscale watched me with quiet approval. Or just the absence of disappointment maybe.
"Three heartbeats," he said. "You'll need more than that to breach the wards. But it's a start."
"Felt like a lot more than three," I managed.
"It always does." He was already pulling back into the shadows before I'd finished the sentence. "Don't let fear make you clumsy. The Shadow knows when you're lying to it."
By the time I blinked, he'd vanished. I sat there shaking, but somehow more prepared than I'd been five minutes ago.
Serenya offered me her waterskin. "See? Just three minutes."
I took the water and drank deep, not trusting myself to speak.
Brannick's voice rang out across the chamber. "We move in two. Finish up."
I wiped my mouth, threw back my shoulders, and buried the trembling deep enough where no one could see it.
We surfaced through a drainage culvert on the city's outer edge—a rusted grate that Brannick shouldered open, spilling us onto a dirt slope above a dry canal bed. After hours underground, the open sky hit like a slap. Stars still out, but fading. The air tasted different up here. Thinner. Colder.
The predawn chill went straight through my leathers. Wonderful. Cold, dark, and heading toward something that wanted to kill me. Just another Tuesday.
We crouched in the rubble of the Ruined City, pressed against a wall that had been grandeur once—temple, merchant's hall, didn't matter now.
Just disintegrating stone and creeping vines, the bones of a place nobody had bothered to bury.
Wind moved through the empty window frames with a sustained moan.
The whole place smelled like wet limestone and rust and the green rot of things growing where they shouldn't.
Brannick settled beside me. Extended a canteen wordlessly. I pulled my own from my belt instead.
His expression didn't change. He'd learn.
His usual warmth was banked now, replaced with an edge. Professional.
"Tower's abandoned," he murmured, barely a whisper. "Perimeter isn't. Crown runs skeleton patrols along the wall every hour." His eyes tracked the darkness ahead. "Don't engage unless you have to."
I nodded once. Didn't need to be told twice.
Ahead, Maxx slipped between the shadows like he'd been born in them. Ryla and Torin flanked him, moving in that eerie synchrony of theirs—two bodies, one intent. Maxx's hand rose, hooking into the air as if catching a thread. Showoff. Even his magic had swagger.
Then light bloomed on the far side of the wall.
Not real light. A shimmer. A suggestion. The false patrol lamp cast the silhouette of movement where there was none—flickering torches, the shadow of a helm, the rhythm of boots on stone.
Mirage-marked. Of course he was. It explained the easy lies, the slippery charm—his whole existence was built on making people see what wasn't there.
I'd have to remember that. Everything about Maxx was a trick of the light.
We waited.
Brannick eased into a practiced stillness beside me, weight centered and shoulders loose.
Voices carried from a distance, growing closer.
I pushed flat against the stone. Through a crack in the rubble, two Crown sentries rounded the corner—and took the bait like fish hitting a worm.
Their eyes caught Maxx's phantom light and they adjusted course, boots scraping cobblestone as they marched toward something that didn't exist. The Crown really needed to raise its hiring standards.
Away from us. Away from the tower.
Brannick touched my shoulder. Now.
We moved through the rubble in single file, picking our way over shattered stone and the remnants of lives long abandoned. Someone had hung curtains in one of the shattered windows. Faded blue, still holding their shape after gods knew how long. The last optimistic thing anyone had done here.
A tingle near my sternum—even through the amulet's dampening. Faint at first, then insistent, a warning creeping up my spine and settling at the base of my skull.
I froze. Raised a fist.
Behind me, Brannick stopped mid-step. Waited.