Page 38 of The First Scar
But I glanced back. One of the twins had lifted her head, her veiled face turned toward me. I couldn't see her eyes. I felt them anyway.
Serenya had stopped, too. But she wasn't looking at the Twins. Her attention was locked on the alcove behind them—where shelves had been carved directly into the rock, stuffed with rotting scrolls and leather-bound tomes.
Her fingers twitched at her side, an itch I knew well. The hunger of a scholar starving for ink.
"Come on," I murmured, nudging her. "Book club with creepy twins later. Survival now."
She tore her eyes away, but the look on her face shifted. She wasn't just a refugee anymore. She was a priestess who had just found a goldmine.
The next chamber opened wider, and a figure stepped from the shadows like he'd been cut from them. Enormous. Still. His skin was etched with dragon tattoos that seemed tomove, ancient ink shifting beneath the surface.
"Dreadscale," Brannick said. His grin was still there but the wattage had dropped. "Skal'Varin. Dragonborn. He'll be working with your Shadowmark." He glanced at Dreadscale again and added, quieter, "If you make it that far."
I eyed him curiously. I'd never met a Dragonborn. They were rare enough to be myth in most parts of the realm—recluses from the volcanic reaches who kept their own counsel and their own secrets. My eyes fell to his open tunic, Shadowmarked. The only one I’d seen in the stronghold so far.
The only one who might actually understand what I carried.
He didn't greet us. Didn't smile. But he stepped closer, his gaze a brutal, unblinking weight that peeled back my layers like he was searching for a nerve.
"You're flinching already," he said.
I stiffened. "I'm not—"
"Fighting what's meant to free you." He closed the distance between us. I held my ground through sheer spite. His eyes seemed to map my Shadowmark, even through my robe, reading a script I couldn't see.
"You've been taught it's corruption. Something to tame."
"It is something to tame." The words bit more than I intended.
"No." He bridged the space between us. His hand reached out, and gently moved my robe aside—and then he…touched my Shadowmark. No one had ever touched my Shadowmark. Noonedared. But his fingers traced the outline like it was an icon instead of something shameful. My breath hitched and I stood perfectly still.
"Pain," he said quietly, "is the ink your shadow writes in. Stop trying to blot out the page."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Maxx cleared his throat. "Andthat'sDreadscale. He's fun at parties. Really knows how to lighten a room."
Dreadscale didn't acknowledge him. Just bore into me for one more breath, then stepped back and melted into the shadows like he'd never been there at all.
I exhaled, my fingers curling into tight, bloodless fists at my sides.
"You okay?" Serenya whispered at my shoulder.
"Fine," I lied.
Maxx leaned in. "For what it's worth," he said, quieter than before, "the creepy ones are usually right. It's the friendly ones you have to watch out for."
He shot Brannick a look.
Brannick just sighed again.
Serenya touched Brannick's arm before he could launch into another tour of the stronghold's many fascinating corners.
"Sleeping quarters," she said. "Please. Before she falls over."
I wanted to argue, but my legs were shaking and the room kept doubling on me. Brannick's expression shifted—that relentless warmth dimming into concern.
"Right. Yeah, of course." He led us down a narrow corridor, torchlight catching on wet stone. Behind the hanging cloths that served as doors, the murmur of voices drifted out—a child fussing, the scrape of a pot on a cook-fire. Dried herbs hung fromthe ceiling; the scent of sage and wild chicory almost masked the smell of damp underground. People had built lives down here. Real ones. The kind I'd stopped believing in somewhere between my second city and my third knife.
