Chapter 16
CHAPTER
The fire crackled lazily, painting everyone gold in the strange light. Smoke curled through the air, and for a fleeting second, it almost smelled like home.
Most of the group had gone quiet, not the strained kind of silence, but the gentle one that comes when everyone’s too tired to fill it.
Eve sat close to the flames, her knees drawn up, the light tracing her sharp profile in amber and shadow.
Lionel was beside her, quietly mending another strap on his armor, though it didn’t look like it required mending anymore.
His hands just needed something to do. He was always restless when there was a lot on the line.
She noticed. Of course she did.
“You’re going to wear that piece down to dust if you keep picking at it,” she said, voice low but carrying easily in the hush.
He didn’t look up. “Just keeping busy.”
“Or hiding behind it.”
That made him pause. Slowly, he met her gaze, calm on the surface, but there was something aching underneath. “What would I be hiding from?”
Eve tilted her head. “You tell me, Lio. You’ve been quieter than usual.”
Lionel’s mouth twitched in what might’ve been a smile, or a flinch. “Guess I’m just used to quieter company.”
She laughed, soft and unexpected. “Are you calling me loud?”
“I’m saying you fill the silence.”
“That’s a dangerously poetic way of saying I talk too much.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly, then caught himself, rubbing a hand over his face. “Sorry. I’m not good at talking in general.”
Eve looked at him for a long heartbeat, her expression softening.
“You don’t need to be good at talking,” she said quietly. “You just need to be honest.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but her hand brushed his arm, stopping him. “And before you start apologizing again, don’t. Just… let it be, yeah?”
Lionel nodded slowly, and something unspoken passed between them, a fragile, cautious truce that felt like it created tension rather than the relaxation she had aimed for.
I smiled faintly into the fire. Maybe this strange place wasn’t cursed after all, maybe it was just forcing us to see what we’d been running from.
Ourselves.
Ashley shivered suddenly, pulling her cloak tighter. “Ugh. Why is it so damn cold? We have a fire mage and I’m still freezing.”
Before I could offer to stoke the flames, Nate wordlessly shrugged off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
Ashley blinked, startled. “What are you—”
“Being a decent person?” Nate said lightly. “Don’t look so shocked.”
Her cheeks flushed in the firelight, and she fumbled with the jacket, unsure what to do with her hands. “I-I didn’t ask you to—”
“Didn’t have to.” He leaned back, grin crooked. “Besides, if you freeze to death, who’s going to insult my jokes?”
She opened her mouth, before closing it again, gaze flicking away. Her shoulders stayed stiff for a heartbeat, until a gust of cold wind swept through the camp, and she instinctively leaned closer to him.
Nate didn’t say a word. He only shifted his arm, enough that it brushed against hers, casual but protective.
Ashley didn’t move away.
I bit my lip to keep from smiling too obviously. Finally.
Ashley cleared her throat a bit too loudly. “Okay, new rule. No one’s allowed to look at me like that.” Her eyes were locked in on me.
“Like what?” I asked, trying for innocence.
“Like you’re reading a romantic story… But like not in a book. Gosh, why did that sound even worse?”
“Fair enough,” I chuckled, hiding a grin. “But since you’re so determined to change the subject…”
Ashley narrowed her eyes suspiciously on me. “Don’t you dare.”
“Oh, I dare,” I said sweetly. “Truth or dare?”
“Ethalyn—”
“Pick one.”
She groaned, sinking lower under Nate’s jacket. “Fine. Dare.”
I tapped my chin thoughtfully, making the tension build a bit longer. “Alright. I dare you to compliment Nate. Sincerely.”
The look she gave me could have melted steel. Nate, stiffened, but a smile played on his lips. “Oh? This I’ve got to hear.”
“You’re—” Ashley began, visibly forcing the words out. “—not entirely unbearable.”
Nate gasped dramatically. “You’re practically confessing.”
“Don’t push it,” she snapped, but the faintest blush colored her cheeks again.
Nate chuckled low beside her, his hand brushing against hers again, deliberately this time. She shot him a glare that didn’t have much bite to it.
Jaden threw them a glance, half a smile and something else I couldn’t decipher.
It made me wonder if he had been betting against them or driving them together all along.
“Hey, Ethalyn!” Jaden shouted loud enough to wake the dead—or at least attract some demons. “Get up. I’m bored, let’s spar.”
A few heads lifted. Faelin exhaled through her nose, a soft, elegant sound that somehow conveyed amusement and disapproval at the same time. I closed my eyes briefly, seriously considering pretending I hadn’t heard him.
“Bored, in these woods?” I muttered as I stood. Jaden was already on his feet, bouncing like he had ants in his pants.
“That’s not a no,” he said, grinning. He wasn’t interested in me, never had been, so the grin wasn’t loaded with anything but restless energy. The ground near him shifted in a slow roll, as if sharing his impatience.
“We’re supposed to be resting,” I reminded him, stretching my arms.
“Exactly, I’m resting from being bored. Come on.” He waved his hand at me. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Like you haven’t seen me tearing through demons multiple times now,” I muttered.
“Yeah, but they’re not me.” His smirk widened.
I snorted. “Charming.”
The others watched with amusement as we closed the distance between us. Shadows from the twisted trees leaned long across the ground, but I’d fought in worse places. I let a spark ignite between my fingers, a warning.
Jaden cracked his knuckles. “Ready?”
“No,” I said, and launched the first blast of fire.
He laughed as he slammed his palm down, raising a slab of earth that drank in the flames.
Dirt and stone rippled out beneath him as he advanced, pushing the wall in front of him and forcing me to dance back over uneven ground.
I retaliated with a whip of fire that lit the branches above us in a brief flare of orange.
“Better!” Jaden called, lowering his wall. “But you’re still too—”
I threw a small fire ball at him, not waiting for his evaluation of my stance. It struck his sleeve, catching fire. Quickly, he used dirt to smother it. “Oh, I see, we’re playing dirty?”
“Funny, coming from the boy who actually plays with dirt,” I sneered and heard Ashley cackle in the background.
“You show him!” Nate cheered.
Jaden flicked his hand and a wave of dirt passed over the two of them, burrowing them in a mud-blanket.
“Hey!” Nate objected, but Jaden wasn’t wasting time. Instead of answering them, he raised four walls of dirt around me, caging me in.
I blew a strand away from my face, as I kicked against one of them.
It didn’t break, but it forced him to focus on keeping it strong.
They kept closing in, squeezing me in the narrow space.
I inhaled a long breath, before fire erupted all around me, burning against the walls and bringing them to a stop.
Then, I hurled myself against one of the sides, my flames eating their way through to create space for me.
Once out, the walls behind me fell to the ground again. “Not bad.” Jaden admitted. “But still…”
He didn’t move, but the earth beneath me jolted and made me fly into the air.
I fought to regain my balance, hurling myself into a roll instead of slamming against the ground.
I kept my hands to the dirt, letting my fires spread like veins through it, encircling him.
Jaden tried to dodge, dancing out of every possible outcome.
But fire spread too quickly, even now. The flames began to climb into the air, he hesitated for a moment, and that was all I needed. He was focused on me trying to cage him, thinking I was using his techniques. But instead I burst into a sprint towards him.
Jaden’s blue eyes locked on me, surprise gleaming inside of them as my hand balled into a fist that caught fire right before I swung it into his stomach. He stumbled slightly and a groan left him, but his eyes told me he felt no loss.
“Amazing,” he chuckled. “However—”
He prepared to strike back just as a powerful gale blew between us, forcing us both to stop.
“That is enough wasted energy,” Faelin sighed from the sideline.
“Hey, I was just about to win!” Jaden barked.
“You were not winning,” I scoffed and turned to walk away with the victory of getting the last hit.
“Wait, we’re not done!”
“Yeah, you’re done.” Ashley hissed as she dusted off the dirt that had ‘accidentally’ covered her and Nate during our battle. “It’s my turn.”