Page 114 of The First Scar
This time, I didn't reach for Light first.
I reached for Shadow.
It rose eagerly—hungry, cold, vast. And instead of recoiling, I let it fill me. Let it exist without apology, without shame, without the desperate need to balance it with something "better."
Then I called the Light.
It came softer this time. Just... joining. Two currents meeting in the center of my body, spiraling together like they'd been waiting for permission.
The fusion locked into place.
One heartbeat. Two. Three.
It didn't feel like war this time.
It felt like breathing.
I volunteered for patrol duty. After a full day of fusing in the stale air of the catacombs, I needed to breathe air that didn't taste like ancient death.
My muscles still burned from Dreadscale's lessons, marks tender beneath my skin. But my Shadow held steadier now. More disciplined. Like a blade that had finally learned its sheath.
Late afternoon light cut down through the ruins, long and amber, throwing every broken wall into sharp relief. The footing was bad—loose rubble, paving slabs tilted at angles, weeds forcing through the gaps thick enough to catch a boot. I picked my way through, staying close to the walls where the shadowspooled deepest. The Veil hummed faintly here, restless magic seeping through cracks in the stone.
That's when I heard the voices.
Sharp and cruel, the unmistakable tone of men who knew no one would stop them.
I crept forward, pressed myself against a sagging wall. Peered around the edge.
Enforcers. Six of them, not a full squad, but enough. They'd cornered a family near a collapsed archway—scavengers, from the look of them. Low-caste. The kind of people the Crown pretended didn't exist until they needed someone to bleed.
The father stood in front of his wife and daughter, hands raised, voice cracking. "We found it fair. Just tools. Rusted tools, nothing worth—"
"Everything in the Undercity belongs to the Crown." The lead Enforcer's voice dripped with bored cruelty. "You want to keep breathing? You pay the tithe."
The daughter couldn't have been older than eight. She was clutching a handful of edible fungi like they were treasure. Her eyes were huge. Terrified.
My blood surged.
The Fury came fast and familiar—that sacred, burning thing that lived in my gut, the one that had kept me alive in alleys just like this one. My Shadowmark flickered, ready to lash out, and my daggers were already in my hands.
I was going to make them pay. I took a step, breath hissing through my teeth, about to strike—
Then a weight clamped onto the nape of my neck. The smell of steel and a storm breaking.
Crownforged.
He was right beside me, stepping out of the gloom as if he’d been woven from it. His shoulder brushed mine, a wall of solid,radiating heat against my shivering rage. He didn't look at the Enforcers or the family. He looked only at me.
His fingers tightened on my neck, thumb pressing into the pulse point behind my ear—a grounding tether. The pressure short-circuited the red haze in my mind, forcing me to feelhiminstead of the fury.
He pulled me closer until my breast was pinned flush to his, his grip still firm on my neck.
"Eyes on me. Steady," he commanded.
My mind went blank and the tension in my shoulders uncoiled slightly. My weight sagged against him—like a wire that had been pulled taut finally given slack.
Eyes still locked on mine, he brushed his thumb over my lip. "Good girl," he purred. My breath stopped. The world started to sharpen again—the alley, the Enforcers, the scavengers still frozen in fear,Eryndor.
