Page 108 of The First Scar
And now I had to live with knowing that.
"Oh, Flameheart." Maxx's voice dripped with theatrical sympathy. "Thelookon your face." He shook his head, still grinning. "Priceless."
I couldn't speak. A jagged silence had choked me.
"You really thought the Soulbinder would come at you like that?" He tilted his head, studying me with those too-keen eyes. "Even for him, that was a bit much."
He paused and his grin softened.
"But the blush, Amaria. The way you leaned in." His voice dropped. "That was real."
I wanted to deny it. Wanted to spit something vicious at him and watch it land.
Nothing came out.
Maxx watched me for a beat longer, concern flashing in his warm eyes.
"Better you figure it out with me," he said quietly, "than get blindsided by the real thing."
Then he turned and sauntered away, hands in his pockets, like he hadn't just cracked me open and looked inside.
I sank back onto my bedroll, daggers clutched uselessly in my trembling hands.
Eryndor was still gone. Still missing.
And Maxx—the cynical trickster who saw too much—now held a piece of me I'd never meant to give anyone.
The cavern hummed around me. The Nullatheon's tremor seeped through the stone. Then a wet snarl vibrating through the walls, distant. It didn't sound like magic. It sounded like hunger.
I waited. Listened. Nothing followed. Probably just a stray dog prowling near the outer tunnels.
That's what I told myself, anyway.
Chapter 24
AMARIA
I lay on my bedroll, one arm thrown over my face, the rough weave of the blanket scratching against my cheek. Maxx's glamour still danced behind my eyelids every time I closed them. The humiliation burned. The wanting scorched.
The drone of the Veil had been building for hours—a dissonant chord vibrating up through my spine, settling into my teeth. My marks writhed, sensing a danger I couldn't name yet.
Then the smoke found us.
I had steel in my hands before my brain even registered the threat. Not the familiar haze of our campfires—this was acrid, and laced with a foulness that made my stomach bottom out. Burning flesh. Scorched stone.
I sat up. Serenya was already awake on her bedroll, her eyes latched to mine in the dark.
"Do you—"
"Yes."
Then the screaming started.
Distant. Muffled by stone and earth. But unmistakable—high-pitched and desperate. It rose and rose and then cut off. Too abruptly.
We were on our feet before I knew I was moving, daggers in hand, shoving toward the cavern entrance with the others. The tunnels had erupted into chaos—rebels stumbling from bedrolls, half-dressed, voices overlapping in confusion and fear.
"What is it—"
