Chapter 6
Thorne
This wasn’t what I expected. Not even close.
When she’d vanished into shadow—dissolved like smoke before my eyes—I’d been momentarily stunned. No one in Varrowmere had wielded that kind of magic in generations. Shadowmancy had been lost to time, whispered of only in legends and old war records.
And yet, here she was. A girl dressed in rags and desperation, holding onto a half-conscious boy like he was the only thing anchoring her to this world. A street rat with a storm of ancient power curling around her bones.
And the timing… gods, the timing. I had felt her magic flare to life just moments before the explosion. The same explosion orchestrated by the rebels.
Coincidence?
I didn’t believe in those.
Phoenix stood at my side, his arms folded as his grey eyes swept the room. He tilted his head, brows furrowed.
“This doesn’t look like a rebel base,” he muttered, voice low.
And it didn’t. The place was a hovel. Water-stained walls, crumbling plaster, the scent of mildew and blood in the air. No maps. No weapons. No sigils of resistance. Just two broken bodies and the echo of silence thick enough to choke on.
But I couldn't look away from the girl.
She looked so small before me. She had shown no fear. No fight. Just… stillness. She clung to the boy in her lap like he was already halfway gone, like nothing else mattered anymore. Not the soldiers at her door. Not the punishment that might await her. Only him.
And something twisted deep in my chest. Something I hadn’t felt in years.
She was younger than I expected. And stretched too thin—like she hadn’t slept in weeks. Or years.
Who are you?
And what the hell have you brought to my doorstep?
“Do you plan to kill us now?” Her voice was a whisper, barely more than breath, but it sliced through the silence like a knife.
The question caught me off guard. I almost took a step back.
She was supposed to be trembling. Begging. But she just looked at me like she’d already accepted her end—and wasn’t afraid of it.
Inside my chest, something twisted—something primal and furious. She thought we’d come to end her.
“No,” I said at last, my voice low. Controlled.
I waited, but she still wouldn’t look at me. I needed her to. I didn’t know why, but I did. I needed to see her eyes, to see her. But it was like she wasn’t even in the room—like she’d already stepped into some faraway place I couldn’t reach.
“You hid your powers from the king,” I said.
She gave a faint nod, acknowledging the truth, but she still wouldn’t meet my gaze.
Instead, she leaned forward, shielding the boy on the floor with her body like she was prepared to absorb the next blow herself.
His hand twitched and reached for her, curling weak fingers around her tunic.
She responded instantly, gathering him into her arms as if they were the only two people left in the world.
Something dark and possessive rose in me at the sight. A flicker of rage. A flash of something I didn’t have a name for. What the hell was that?
The silence stretched between us all—her body curled around the dying boy, the soft wheeze of his breath, the sound of chaos still echoing outside the shattered windows.
Phoenix shifted at my side. “She’s not a soldier. She’s a street kid with power she barely controls.”
“She’s a shadowmancer,” I muttered. “That alone makes her dangerous.”
“Does she look dangerous to you?”
I didn’t answer. Because yes—yes, she did. Not in the way they meant. Not because of her magic. Because something about her unsettled me in a way no enemy ever had.
Leo knelt down beside the fallen pair, his hand poised as if reaching out to touch her.
Leo glanced up at me, waiting for a call.
I took a step forward.
“Elira?” I said. The name felt strange on my tongue, but right somehow. Her shoulders flinched when I said it. “You don’t have to die today. But you know you have to come with us.”
She looked down at the boy again. Finn. His breath hitched. Her arms trembled around him. Her face was streaked with tears, and dirt, and blood.
“I won’t leave him.”
“You won’t have to,” I said, quieter now. “We’ll bring him too.”
A lie. Probably.
But I said it anyway.
Her head bowed.
And then, slowly, she stood.
Her legs almost gave out, but she stayed upright, one hand still clutching Finn’s. Her chin lifted. She was still defiant, still wild, still something ancient in a girl’s body.
I nodded to Leo, who knelt to lift Finn.
“Gently,” she snapped, her voice brittle.
Leo met her eyes. “I promise.”
She didn’t thank him. Just turned to me.
“I know who you are,” she said. “I know what you do to people. You destroy and you kill, indiscriminately.” She stepped up, this small creature, full of fire and hatred.
“But you will not break me.”
I’d heard it before. Empty defiance, bravado in the face of chains. But this? This was something else. I didn’t just believe her. I felt it.