Page 139 of The First Scar
The pull against my scalp was fierce, dragging my skin tight. It stung.
Good. Pain I could understand. Pain was honest.
Unlike him.
My jaw clenched so hard I felt my teeth grind. My hands curled into fists in my lap, nails biting into my palms—a sharper pain to drown out the other one.
It didn't work.
The phantom ache on my chest seared beneath my ruined shirt—the place where he'd pressed the brand into my skin. Where he'd burned the King's will into my flesh without a flicker of hesitation. I could still smell it. Still feel the heat of the iron, the sizzle of my own skin cooking.
And his face. Gods, hisface. Empty. Hollow. Like I was nothing.
Eryndor.
I closed my eyes, and I could still see him. The indifferent precision of his movement. The way he had looked at me—not as a female, but as a variable to be solved. A problem to be suppressed.
He had branded me. He had looked at the wild, dual nature of my soul and decided it needed a shackle.
He saw me,the bitter thought whispered.He saw everything I was, and he chose the King.
Dreadscale’s hands worked rhythmically, weaving order out of my discord. A warrior’s braid. A promise of violence.
"The prophecy," I whispered. "When Light no longer denies Shadow..."
"And the sundered soul binds its warring halves," Dreadscale finished. He tied off the braid with a strip of leather, pulling it taut. "Then shall the scar mend."
I opened my eyes. I looked at Serenya, broken on the straw because she loved a girl who was afraid to be what she was.
I had spent my whole life hiding. Cloaks. Hoods. Dampening amulets. I had treated my own soul like a dirty secret, begging the world to forgive me for existing.
And the world had bled anyway.
Hiding hadn't saved Serenya. It hadn't saved the village. It hadn't stopped Eryndor from trying to break me.
Light no longer denies Shadow.
It wasn't just a prophecy. It was an instruction.
The Veil was tearing becauseIwas tearing. I was the Rupture. And you cannot heal a wound by pretending it doesn't exist.
"Done," Dreadscale rumbled.
I stood up. Iron-steady focus straightening my spine.
"I need fighting leathers," I said. "Something I can move in."
One of the rebels—a wiry female with close-cropped hair—passed me a bundle of dark leather and tipped her chin toward a curtained alcove at the back of the mill.
I slipped behind the curtain.
The ruined tunic fell to the floor. I didn't look at it. Didn't want to see the blood, the dirt, the evidence of everything I'd survived in the last two days.
I scrubbed my skin clean with water from the basin. The water turned grey, then pink, then grey again. I scrubbed until my skin stung and the water had nothing left to confess, then patted myself dry.
The leathers slid on like a second skin—fitted vest, sleeveless so I had a full range of motion with my arms, bracers for my forearms, pants that moved with me instead of against me. I secured the last strap and took a breath.
The rebel girl had included extras at the bottom of the bundle—a set of slim, curved blades with leather harnesses built for the body. I turned one over. Light enough to forget it was there. Sharp enough to remind someone else. I strapped the first to my right elbow, cinching the harness until the blade sat flushagainst the outside of the joint. Then the left. Knees next—smaller blades, angled to cut on any kick or sweep. Wrists over the bracers, edges out. Ankles. Shoulders last, nested into the seams of the vest where they'd bite on any roll or shove. When I moved my arms, nothing shifted. Nothing rattled. The blades were part of me now—an extension of bone, invisible until they weren't.
