Page 82 of The First Scar
I didn't elaborate. Didn't saybefore the Veil Minesorbefore the caste brandsorbefore my brother's voice calling out once and then silence. Some wounds didn't need names to bleed.
He just shifted his weight, putting his shoulder between me and the dark like it was the most natural thing in the world. His hand found my arm—warm, calloused, solid.
"You're not alone, little flame." His voice was quiet enough that it felt like a secret. "Whatever ghosts you're carrying, you don't have to carry them by yourself."
We sat like that for a while. Quiet. Almost peaceful.
Then Brannick spoke again.
"Kaelen's right, you know. About the cost." He stared out at the darkness, his voice taking on that familiar brightness—the one he wore like armor. "If we don't act now, everything we've sacrificed means nothing. Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette."
His hand was still on my arm. Still warm.
"The people we've lost," he continued, waving his free hand like he was brushing away cobwebs. "The hard choices. It's all part of the bigger picture. Kaelen sees that. He sees what the rest of us can't."
His expression flickered, hidden under the cheerfulness—a grief he wouldn't name, quickly buried.
He believed it. Every word.
"Yeah," I said, pulling my arm gently from his hand. "I'm sure you're right."
He didn't notice the distance. Just smiled, clapped me on the shoulder, and went back to watching the dark.
I watched it too. But the quiet didn't feel peaceful anymore.
Chapter 19
AMARIA
The training ground was loud. Midday light poured through the ventilation shafts and cut the dust into gold columns. The ring smelled like sweat and leather and the chalky grit they spread on the packed dirt to keep footing. Most of the camp had turned out—more bodies than I'd seen in here at once, crowding the edges, sitting on upturned crates, passing waterskins back and forth, laughing.
My gaze drifted. Habit. Always scanning, always cataloging exits and threats and—
Maxx.
He was crouched near the far edge of the cavern, half-hidden behind a stack of crates. His usual sneer was nowhere to be found. Instead, his face had gone soft—soft—as he picked a handful of pale cavern flowers, their petals thin as moth wings. He tucked them into his cloak with the care of someone handling something precious.
Well. Wasn't that interesting.
Serenya sat cross-legged on a crate, eyes closed, practicing her Memory-Weaving on a weathered stone. I was working the training dummy—methodical strikes, nothing fancy, just trying to burn off the restless energy that had been crawling under my skin since yesterday.
Then my eyes found him.
Eryndor sat alone, his back against a rough stone pillar, bow across his knees. The familiar scent of oiled leather drifted toward me—clean, steel-tinged,him. His fingers worked the bowstring with that same meticulousness I'd come to recognize.
He started the Crown knot. I knew that pattern, rigid and pristine, the type of knot drilled into Crownforged children before they learned to write their own names.
Then he stopped.
His hands stilled. His gaze went somewhere distant.
And slowly—deliberately—he unraveled the cord.
Started again.
My double-hitch. The same knot I'd used on the glyph-map rope. The one I'd taught Brannick mere days ago, that the rebels had begun to adopt as their own.
My breath shuddered.
