Page 106 of The First Scar
The threat should have made me shove him away. Instead, my traitorous pulse quickened—and from the way his fingers dug into me, he felt it too. The bastard.
As he leaned in, our Marks crackled with fusing energy. The fusion didn't stay between us. Ittraveled—a heat that started where our chests pressed together and radiated outward like a stain, climbing the column of his throat, tracing his jaw. The air between our faces shimmered. The papier-mâché edge of his mask curled at the jaw first—
Then a dry heat dusted my cheek.
His Mask. The painted surface was flaking apart against his skin. Dissolving. Fine as powder, grey-white, it drifted between us like a memory that had never been solid to begin with. The pieces snagged in my lashes, settled on my lips.
His body went rigid. Eyes wide. The face beneath the mask was bare, and for one stuttering heartbeat I saw it all. Everything the paint had named. Everything the fire had stripped.
Then he released me.
His hands left my skin and with it, the charge, the pressure, the unbearable pull of him—gone. My body swayed forward into the space he'd left. He didn't look back.
His lies lay in ash at my feet. Fine and pale against the trampled sage on the floor.
Eryndor hadn't gone anywhere near that fire. He hadn'tgottento choose.
The ritual didn't do this. The brazier didn't strip him.
I did.
He'd walked in wearing more masks than anyone in this cavern. The painted one was the least of them. And I had just ripped them off in front of everyone. Not a sliver of the mask like the others. The whole thing disintegrated. I basically just declared: Youare a lie.
No wonder he ran. I would have run too.
Across the circle, Dreadscale stood unmoving. A dark silhouette against the silk-wrapped lanterns. His head tilted—barely perceptible—and he gave a tiny, curt nod.
Like he'd expected this. Like he'd wanted it.
The murmur of the Veil rose abruptly, vibrating through the walls. A lantern overhead, wrapped in its twin shrouds of black and silver silk, splintered with a deafening crack. Shards of glass rained onto the packed earth. The light within guttered. Died.
And in the sudden, deeper gloom, the Seer Twins stood with their veiled faces turned toward me.
They were smiling.
The cavern had folded into that heavy quiet that came long after midnight. Most of the rebels slept, their forms lumps under rough blankets. The only sounds were hushed breaths and the occasional murmur of couples who hadn't untangled yet.
I sat on my bedroll, polishing my daggers. The wool under me had gone flat weeks ago—more stone than cushion now. Someone had let the fire die to coals, and the chill had crept back in. The celebration's incense still clung to my hair, sweet and smoky, mixing with the sour edge of wine dregs spilled near the fire pit.
The steel was familiar in my hands. Grounding. A rhythmic distraction while my mind refused to stop circling.
The ball was a fluke. The Marks reacting, nothing more. His threats were just that—threats. Empty words from a male who couldn't even stick around long enough to face what he'd started.
I dug the cloth into my blade harder than necessary.
It meant nothing.Hemeant nothing.
The bastard.
My lip curled into a sneer. If he walked in right now, I'd gut him before he got a word out. Maybe I'd pin him by the balls. Make him count his own heartbeats before his last breath.
I was “polishing” so aggressively I nicked my finger on the edge. I paused to suck off the blood when a shadow detached itself from the deeper gloom near the cavern entrance.
Every nerve in my body pulled taut. Exhaustion and paranoia fighting for the same wire. The figure moved with silent,predatory grace. The faint glint of a Crownforged cuirass caught the dim light.
My breath hitched. The blade I'd gripped so harshly clattered to the stone, forgotten.
He was back.
