Page 98 of The First Scar
Which meant she was exactly the kind of weapon the world could use against me.
Thatwas the lie. Not that love destroyed. That I could protect anyone by keeping them close enough. I'd kill for Serenya without blinking. I'd burn a city for her. But I'd felt the same way about my mother—and she'd still ended up on the wrong end of a blade while I swallowed river water.
Love didn't save people. It just told the world where to aim—and made damn sure you felt every blow you couldn't stop.
"You are still withholding," Dreadscale accused.
Desperation clawed at me. How could I fail now? After everything—after naming the thing I'd spent years refusing to see—
A tendril of pure Shadow uncoiled from my core—cold and dense, seeping from my fingertips in dark filaments. It writhed with its own hunger, eager to consume. The strain was immediate—a twisting pain in my gut, pressure behind my eyes that threatened to split my skull.
Pain is the ink your shadow writes in.
"Now, pull it in," Dreadscale commanded.
I willed the Shadow to coalesce. To obey. To form something solid with my will instead of lashing out wild and formless. It fought me—bucked against my control like a living thing that didn't want to be tamed.
This was harder than any brawl. More agonizing than any wound. This was trying to stab the dark and hoping it bled.
After what felt like an eternity, the Shadow held. Bursting from my heart—a void that drank the torchlight.
Dreadscale nodded. "Now, combine."
I drew on my Luminar—familiar warmth blooming above my core, silver threads unfurling outward. They met the weight of the Shadow, and for a heartbeat they clashed. A silent, internal scream of discord. My body convulsed. A dry retch tore from my lungs.
But I pushed through.
Wrenched the two currents together. To spiral into fragile harmony. The Light wrapped around the Shadow—not consuming it, not denying it, butembracingit. A shimmering dark blade humming with resonant power.
One heartbeat. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.
Ten.
The torch on the wall flared twice its height. Dreadscale's dragon tattoo unfurled ember-bright in answer. My breath hitched, triumphant and agonized at once.
I had done it.
Dreadscale moved without warning—a flick of his wrist sending an ember from the pyre straight at my face. Instinct took over before thought could catch up. Shadow coiled and snapped outward, binding with fierce light, forming a blade of smoky brilliance that extinguished the ember mid-flight.
The fusion held, then shattered.
Sweat dripped from my brow, my entire body quivering—spent and euphoric all at once.
Dreadscale crouched beside me. He stripped away his tunic in silence and twisted to reveal his spine. I sucked in a breath at what I saw.
I'd seen the dragon before—glimpses of it stirring beneath his skin, scales catching the torchlight, that living tattoo that seemed to breathe when he did. But I'd never seen it like this.
The dragon coiled across his spine, ink-black and ember-edged, every scale rendered in brutal detail.
Except the eyes.
Where the dragon's eyes should have been, there were two pale voids. Smooth, scarred skin—a perfect face ruined by an internal scouring. The fire had gutted them from the inside, leaving only a memory of sight.
"The first time I faced Mirrorheart," he said, his voice softer now, though still edged with gravel, "I lasted fifteen heartbeats. Saw every terror I'd ever hidden." A pause. His gaze went distant, haunted by ghosts I couldn't see. "When I broke, the backlash seared my sight. Three days blind. Three comrades dead."
The air grew heavy between us. Thick with shared understanding.
"The Mark isn't merciful," he finished.
