Page 111 of The Bound Blood
Lindsay…
Auron steps closer, shadows of winter light clinging to his pale hair, jaw clenched, shoulders set. His magic—whatever sharp, cold thing burns inside him—rises like a shield.
“You stay with me,” he commands.
After a few tense moments—his hand circling my wrist as though he doesn’t trust me not to follow the voice—the air goes silent. The whisper fades. The lantern flickers once more… then steadies.
Only when the quiet settles back into place does Auron exhale, releasing my wrist slowly, like he’s forcing himself to let go.
I look up at him. Really look.
His composure is cracked around the edges. Not much. Just enough that I can see something fragile beneath the frost. For the second time tonight, he looks almost human. I don’t know what to do with that information.
“The voice feels familiar,” I say, admitting a truth I haven’t told anyone, to him, the one guy I probably shouldn’t trust.
His expression shifts. “Familiar, how?”
I wrap my arms around myself, the cold finally seeping past my jacket. “I don’t know. It feels like… like something I should remember but can’t.”
Auron studies me, eyes colder than winter air but not unkind. “Has it spoken to you before yesterday?”
I lick my lips, pulse thudding in my throat. The truth presses up from somewhere deep and hidden.
“No,” I say softly. “Not likethat.Not…calling my name.”
His gaze sharpens.
“But whispers like it…” I swallow. “They’ve followed me my whole life.”
His breath stills—just a fraction.
I force myself to keep going, even though the words feel like I’m unearthing something I buried years ago. “When I waslittle, I’d hear things. Voices no one else heard. I pushed them away. Pretended it wasn’t real.” My fingers curl into my palms. “Because if no one else heard them, then it had to be my imagination. Right?”
Auron doesn’t speak. He watches me with a focus that feels surgical—as though he’s taking apart every memory behind my words.
“But now…” I breathe out slowly. “What if they weren’t imaginary? What if they were always real, and I just didn’t understand what I was hearing?”
Auron turns fully toward me, the cold halo of his white-blond hair catching the faint lantern glow. “Lindsay?—”
“What if the Veil has been calling me since I was a kid?” The question rasps out of me. “And I didn’t know?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” he says quietly.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give without lying.”
My heart stutters. “Auron—if you know something?—”
“Lindsay.” His voice drops—softer, warmer, stripped of every mask he wears. “If the Veil has been whispering to you since childhood…then it means you were marked long before you came here.”
A chill runs through me that has nothing to do with the winter air.
“And if that’s true,” he continues, stepping closer, “your magic isn’t waking up because you’re learning to use it.” His throat works, like the next words cost him. “It’s waking up because something on the other side has been waiting for you.”
The lantern flickers violently at the same moment a low tremor moves through the ground.
Auron reacts instantly. His arm snaps out, and he grips my wrist again, as though he is going to hold me in place.
