Page 97 of The First Scar
The memory hit like a blow to the face.
"Open to your shadow," Dreadscale growled. No mercy in it. Just demand.
I dove inward. My mind screamed at me to slam the doors shut, to run the way I'd run before. But I forced myself to stay. Forced myself to feel every unbearable heartbeat, every second that dragged like a knife across bone.
"Every time your light flares, your shadow recoils," he said. "You think they're opposites. They're not. They're reflections."
"Reflections of what?" I gasped through clenched teeth.
"You."
The truth landed harder than anything the Mirrorheart had shown me.
I closed my eyes. Sank past the familiar hum of my Luminar, past the racing of my heart, until I stood on the threshold of Shadow itself.
It rose to meet me. Black smoke, hungry and vast.
How am I supposed to heal the Veil if I can't survive ten heartbeats?
"Feel it," Dreadscale rasped. "Not the absence of light. Thepresenceof shadow. It is a part of you. Embrace it."
I tried. Reached for it. Stuttered.
"A lie is holding you back."
I glared at him, choking back a snarl.
"Name the lie," he snapped.
My throat closed. Resisting. But the Mirrorheart's pressure intensified, relentless, giving me nowhere to hide.
"No." I dug my heels in. Clenched my teeth. I would not give this up. Not this. Not the one thing I'd kept locked away from everyone—
Dreadscale stepped directly in front of me. His face inches from mine. Close enough that I could see the faint pulse of his dragon tattoo, the ember-glow glinting beneath his skin.
"Name. The. Lie."
The pyre popped. A coal split and hissed. The sound was small and ordinary yet it jolted a part of me loose.
He pushed with his Mirrorheart—harder—and the resistance inside me cracked.
The pyre roared at my back. Heat crawled up my spine, licked across my scalp. My knees hit the ground and I barely felt the impact—just the stone biting through my trousers, the dirt pressing into my kneecaps.
"Now," he demanded.
"If I'm loved, I'll destroy them."
The words tore out of me. I heard them hit the air and wanted to claw them back. Shove them down. Swallow them whole the way I'd swallowed everything else.
But they were out now. The pyre's heat dried the tears before they made it past my lashes. The wood shifted and settled—a soft, collapsing sound, like something giving up.
My parents. My brother. Everyone who'd ever stood close enough to love me had been torn apart for the proximity. I'd spent every year after the river making sure no one got that close again. Building walls so thick nothing could breach them.
My palms were flat on the floor. Dreadscale's boots stood at the edge of my vision. He hadn't moved. Hadn't crouched down. Hadn't tried to soften this.
But Serenya had walked straight through those walls like they weren't there. Stubborn, relentless, impossible girl—she hadn'tasked permission and she hadn't taken no for an answer and now she wasin.
All the way in. The one person I couldn't cut loose, couldn't push back to a safe distance, couldn't survive losing.
