LOGINNo one should have been in my quarters at this hour. The whole floor was silent–the kind of deep, controlled quiet that came only after every guard changed post and every unnecessary torch was extinguished.So when I heard a voice behind me, low and too damn casual, the muscles in my shoulders tightened before I even turned."Where are you going?"Noah stood in the doorway, arms folded, posture relaxed in that way that always hid calculation. The lantern behind him cast a thin rim of gold around his silhouette, making him look like a judgment sitting there with arms crossed.I exhaled through my nose. "For a walk."His brows rose. "In the middle of the night?""I needed air." I adjusted my cloak. "What are you doing in my quarters?"He shrugged like it was nothing. "Door was open.""That doesn't answer the question." My voice came out harder than I intended.He tilted his head, studying me with irritating amusement. "You didn't answer mine either."I moved past him, brushing the edge
ADAMI had been trying to ignore the thought all morning, but it kept circling back like a persistent storm cloud.Sage and Darius.There was something between those two—something sharp-edged, hidden, threaded far too deeply for my liking. Not the softness of affection or the childish cling of old friendship. No. This was something darker. Purposeful. Bound by secrets I wasn't allowed to touch.One of the contestants had reported it to me just before sunrise: He had seen them vault the fence in the dead of night.Vault the fence. Like two shadows. Like two people with something to hide.Where had they gone? When had they returned? How long had they been sneaking around without my knowledge? I had dispatched my men the moment I heard the report. Their message came back not long ago—quiet, irritating, inconclusive:"Sage is in her house.""Darius is in his house."As though that solved anything.My jaw tightened. What were those two planning? What were they in together?And why, in al
I wasn't listening to Darius.I could hear him—his voice flowing beside me as we cut through the brush, his words rising and falling like an annoying chant—but I wasn't absorbing any of it. My mind was far ahead of my body, racing down a darker corridor entirely. I stepped over roots, brushed aside hanging vines, and let my limbs move on instinct alone.He was scolding me. Again."…Makeh could have told us more if you had just stayed," he was saying, his boots crunching against leaves as he tried to keep up with my long strides. "You storming out like that accomplished nothing, cara. We should have pressed her harder… asked the right questions. There are things she was holding back and you know it—"I tuned him out deliberately.The forest shifted around us, alive in that heavy silent way only ancient places could manage. My senses were open and alert, stretched tight across the gloom like fine threads of wire. Every insect click, every dead leaf crushed underfoot, every distant trem
Makeh's words did nothing to reassure me.A replacement. The word curdled in my stomach the longer it sat there.Not heir. Not a successor. Replacement. Something meant to be slotted in when I cracked beyond repair.My mouth pulled into a crooked sneer before I even realized it, the expression carving itself onto my face like instinct.So that was it.All this time—the suffering, the blood, the crawling back from death's throat more than once—and the goddess still kept a spare like a broken shield tucked behind her altar. Just in case.I felt something sour swell inside my ribs. Something ugly. Something dangerously close to grief. I masked it the only way I knew how. With derision."Well," I scoffed, folding my arms. "That's comforting. Nothing says divine confidence like a backup plan with eyes and a pulse. Also gives me peace to go about my other business."Makeh did not scold me. She only watched me with a quiet, uncomfortable patience. "You shouldn't dwell on it," she said. "Your
SAGEVisions?The word sat wrong in my chest. Like a lie dressed in something holy. If what I had seen were visions, then death had a cruel sense of narrative.Because the only time the world had ever opened itself to me like that—the only time reality bent and peeled back its skin—was when I was dying, or felt depressed enough.I laced my fingers together. Visions… No. I had struggled. I had fought my way back from the edge with teeth and instinct and something deeply unnatural screaming inside my ribs.Blood had been the first thing. Always. The thirst. Not gentle. Not poetic. It tore at me, burned me from the inside out until there was nothing but hunger and the certainty that if I did not feed, I would become something far worse than dead.And the dead…I swallowed. They had swarmed me in those moments between breathing and nothingness. Hands dragging. Voices whispering through my bones. Eyes that watched me with the accusation of things I did not remember doing.I had fought them
I sat there while Makeh's words hung in the air like smoke that refused to dissipate, curling into my lungs whether I allowed it or not.You are feeding it.I bared my teeth and felt heat rise behind my eyes. If working with vampires would burn the world, then so be it.If bargaining with monsters made me one too, then I would wear the title gladly. People had died for less noble reasons than mine. Kingdoms had fallen for greed and pride and jealous wars—but suddenly it was my work that would end the world?Then let it tremble.Inside my skull, El sighed like someone witnessing a slow-motion disaster.You're being dramatic, she drawled. Mass extinction is not a personality trait.Shut up, I snapped back in my head. You're not the one being told you're the reason the sun might someday die.Darius cleared his throat.I ignored him.Makeh shifted beside her simmering pot and added something fragrant to the broth, as though she hadn't just accused me of cosmic catastrophe. My hands curled







