Chapter Twenty-Seven #3
As we walk, the uniform digs in heavier with every step, stiff collar biting, fabric suffocating. It screams outsider, marks me as theirs. But the streets under it? The smells, the grit of gravel, the sour smoke clinging to stone—they feel like home.
Only… It’s not the same.
Faces are tighter. Shoulders more hunched like everyone’s bracing for a blow that hasn’t landed yet. Posters crowd the walls in layers. More than I remember. Names, faces. Missing. Gone.
By midday, our oh-so-critical patrol route turns into investigating a disturbance on the north side of town. Which, naturally, is three drunk idiots shouting in a square outside a tavern. Should be easy. Until I see who one of them is. Kael.
Shit.
His hair’s longer than I remember—thick curls gone wild, matted with dirt and sweat.
A fresh scar splits across his brow, raw and red, like it hasn’t even finished healing.
He’s leaning against a fruit stall, two of his crew flanking him, and there’s no point pretending I haven’t seen him. His grin’s already locked on me.
“Well, look at this,” he shouts, voice curling around the square like smoke. “Our very own Lyra Bloom, in white.”
He pushes off the tavern wall a little too fast, catches himself with a stumble, then keeps coming—boots crunching over the cracked cobblestone.
Drunk. But not slow, just sloppy in that dangerous, unpredictable way.
My breath catches on the next inhale and Ezzy shifts beside me, half a step back. Smart.
“Didn’t think even you’d stoop that low,” he says, stopping just short of me. His eyes sweep the uniform like it’s something filthy. “But here you are. All official. All obedient.” He leans in. “How’s it feel, being owned?”
My spine locks. “Keep walking, Kael.”
“Ohhh, why would I do that when you still owe me, remember?” He sneers. “Ash-dried dragon scales.”
The officer beside me snarls and steps forward. “Harassing a Citadel official is grounds for arrest.”
“You gonna arrest me just for talking now? Go on. Show ‘em what the Citadel really does to the Outerlands.”
My jaw tightens, but I take a step forward. “Back off. You don’t want this—”
Something clinks against the stones. One of Kael’s drunk friends fumbles in his coat and a small packet tumbles free, bursts open across the cobblestones in a spray of yellow powder.
Spice.
The officer’s eyes narrow, voice slicing through the growing crowd. “Contraband!”
Kael doesn’t move, but his drunker, stupider friends do.
The short one slams his shoulder into the nearest officer, knocking him off balance.
The other reaches out, Threads sparking faint and crooked at his fingertips, and a cart tips like it’s been shoved by invisible hands.
Fruit spills across the stones, rolling wild under boots.
The officers freeze for a heartbeat before rage flares hot across their faces.
“Illegal Threadwork—Outerlander filth!” The dark-haired one snarls, his voice cutting like a blade. Power crackles over his hand. “You’ll regret that.”
He lunges, seizing Kael’s shorter friend by the collar and slamming him into a stall hard enough to splinter wood. The other officer wades straight into the spilt fruit, blade drawn, swinging for the other one whose Threads are still sparking at his fingers.
Ezzy, Finn, and Rowan stay back, pressed tight against the edge of the tavern. And Kael? He just smiles, drunk and unbothered, because now it’s only him and me.
“Cadet Bloom—take him!” The dark-haired officer snaps back at me, already breaking into a run after Kael’s shorter friend.
My stomach plunges.
Kael shifts like he’s about to bolt, but he’s drunk—steps too fast, body lurching sideways. That single stumble is all I need. I catch his arm, wrench it behind his back, shoving him forward until his chest hits the stall.
“There it is,” he snarls. “Our little traitor. Citadel white suits you.”
Tension curls up my spine, my brows pull tight.
I hate him, always have. But he’s an Outerlander.
My blood, my people. And he’s not wrong.
Right now, I feel like a traitor. My grip falters, just a second, but that’s all he needs.
He slams his heel into my shin and wrenches free, spins, and shoves me.
I hit the ground hard, breath punched from my lungs as he bolts into the crowd.
“Enjoy the leash, Bloom,” his voice calls back.
“After him!” one of the officers barks.
Shit. Before I realise what I’m even doing, I’m following—pushing through stalls, skidding around the square, heart in my throat, chest rising fast. I round the corner—
And slam straight into someone.
I stumble back, hand snapping to my dagger, instinct, then freeze.
Not Kael. Worse.
Stone-still. Arms loose at his sides. That battered jacket I know too well, those boots worn down from years on Ashvale stone, and those eyes—those goddamn warm, safe eyes that always see straight through me.
Bren.
The air locks in my throat. I look down, there’s too much Citadel white on me. Too much silence between us. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, just stares like he's seen a ghost.
“I can explain.” The words scrape out low, useless.
But before Bren can reply, movement snaps my attention down the street. Ezzy barrels around the corner, breathless, with Finn and Rowan right behind her, both wide-eyed and scanning.
“There you are!” She gasps. “Where’d he go?”
“I… I lost him.” My voice is too fast, too tight, a hard rush still hammering through me.
Ezzy’s eyes flick between me and Bren, cheeks still flushed from the run. But beside her, Finn’s grin is already spreading, like he’s walked in on something he shouldn’t have.
“And who’s this?” he asks too loud.
I hesitate. “This is Bren. My... friend.”
Bren huffs. Not quite a laugh. Not anything close to kind. “Lyra here was just about to tell me where she’s been.” He finally says. “You know: why she disappeared for a month, why I thought she was dead. Why she’s wearing that.” His chin tips toward my uniform like it offends him.
My mouth opens. Closes. No sound comes out.
Ezzy shifts, clearly feeling the tension, clearly ignoring it anyway. “Right. Well, it's... it’s been a weird month. Dragons, death threats, Talen...”
“Ezzy.” I say quickly, trying to shut her up with my eyes.
“Perfect.” Bren replies. “I’ve got the morning free. Lyra, you can fill me in at my place. I look forward to hearing all about Talen...”
Ezzy claps, delighted. “Ooh, can we come? I’ve always wanted to see how the Outerlands live. It’s so... rustic.”
Bren raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Sorry. And you are?”
“They’re—” I start.
“Friends,” Finn cuts in. “We’re her friends.”
Bren's expression doesn’t shift, but I feel it. That question twisting beneath his skin. Citadel friends. These are the people you chose over me?
My voice scrapes out. “Please. Just give me a little time. I’ll explain everything.”
Silence stretches. And finally, finally, he nods.
Rowan scowls. “We can’t leave our patrol.”
Ezzy throws her hands up. “Rowan, the officers are hauling those two drunks in for questioning. That’s gonna take hours. You really think they’ll notice if we’re gone?”
I blink at her. Ezzy, by-the-book, always-early Ezzy, suggesting we ditch patrol? For me?
Finn grins, easy as ever. “Yeah, I heard one of them bragging about hitting a brothel after. Real dedicated to the cause.”
Rowan’s eyes go wide. “That’s not funny. If they catch us, we’ll be Reassigned for sure.”
“Look, we’ll be back before they even realise we’re missing,” Ezzy says, already angling toward Bren like it’s decided. “They sent us here to find a drunk troublemaker, right? Well, he’s long gone. Patrol’s over.”
Finn bumps Rowan’s shoulder with a grin. “Come on. Don’t you want to see where Lyra grew up?”
“I want to not be Reassigned,” Rowan mutters.
But Ezzy’s already turning to follow Bren’s lead like it’s settled. Rowan glares at all of us, arms folded, spine stiff. But when no one backs him up, he finally sighs through his nose and falls in line behind us.
“Please say something. Anything—” I say to Bren.
We’ve been sitting on the ground outside his house for what feels like hours, backs pressed to the cool stone wall while the afternoon sun inches across the alley in slow, golden bands.
Inside, Ezzy, Finn, and Rowan are waiting—giving us space that I’m not sure I wanted.
I’d told him everything. For the first time in a month, I’d been honest—the spice run, forgetting the dragon scale for Kael, getting caught, Merrin’s deal. One month for the journals. .
I kept my voice low on purpose; the last thing I needed was anyone inside overhearing. Still, I didn’t look at Bren while I spoke. Couldn’t. Even hearing it out loud had made it feel impossible, like something I’d watched happen to someone else from far away. Not me.
He’d just sat there beside me, silent and still, like he was trying to absorb it all without breaking.
And I kept going. I told him about my Threads, how I’d lost control on Ryven, nearly killed a girl.
The duck. Talen. The tunnels, the truce, the kiss.
The fucking dragon. The version of me I’d had to become just to stay alive.
I told him Ezzy and the others thought the relationship was real. That I wanted to keep it that way, that I didn’t want them to know I’d lied. That they’d be gone soon anyway.
By the time I stopped talking, the sun had dipped low, shadows stretching long across the alley, the air heavy with heat.
I watch Bren’s hands as he picks at the edge of his thumbnail. Small. Repetitive. Like he doesn’t notice he’s doing it. I haven’t seen that tic since we were kids. Then, quiet, so low I almost miss it.
“I kept waiting for someone to find your body.” He sighs.
It hits harder than I expected, my gut knots. I don’t say anything. Can’t.
Then he drags in a breath, slow and uneven. “We still have a lot to talk about. But right now? Right now, I’m just glad you’re here. Still breathing. I missed you. I thought you were—” He cuts off. Doesn’t need to finish.
Something gives in my chest. Not loud. Not clean. Just a crack, like a breath held too long.
“I missed you,” I say, and it’s the only part that feels easy. The rest—what it means, how deep it goes—I don’t know. Not really. I did miss him. His steadiness. His quiet. The way he always felt like the safe answer.
Bren shifts closer, knees brushing mine, and I feel it. That same quiet pull between us, familiar, impossible to forget.
Then his hand lifts to my jaw, calloused fingers gentle as they tilt my face toward him, and he kisses me.
For a heartbeat, I let him. The taste of him, the press of his soft mouth—it’s all memory and comfort, and then the doubt digs in, sharp and unshakable. But before I can second-guess what I’m doing—
“Well,” a voice cuts in, dry as flint. “This is awkward.”
I jolt back from Bren, lungs lock up, heat still on my mouth as I scramble to my feet—too fast, too obvious—only to find Talen standing dead centre in the alley. A package dangling from one hand, his white uniform spotless, his crooked grin polished to match.