Page 161 of Scarlet Wars
And exactly like before—once in the blood-soaked chaos of the Spring Palace when I thought James was dying, once whenmilitia executed my parents in front of me—I reached inward, fully aware of how destructive this choice would be and choosing it anyway.
My dark scarlet power was there, waiting.
It surged toward me the moment I reached for it, vast and violent, a force too immense to ever truly belong inside a human body. It flooded my veins like wildfire devouring dry forest, roaring awake after hours of restraint.
And again, I didn’t care.
I didn’t care the bubble would burn me apart from the inside out.
I didn’t care these might be the last seconds I ever breathed.
Whatever instinct for self-preservation I once possessed had been eroded over time, shredded by trauma, and loss: Enya’s death. James’s betrayal. My parents’ murder. A thousand fractures I’d pretended didn’t hurt, each one carving away another piece of caution, another reason to save myself.
So when it came down to me or the person I cared most for in this godsforsaken world, I didn’t even hesitate.
“Emma, don’t youfuckingd—” Caden’s barked warning was cut off, smothered beneath the weight of the bodies pinning him down.
His voice, his fury, should’ve stopped me.
Maybe once, it would have, but not anymore.
His survival—him beingsafe—was the only thing that mattered to me.
My fear for his life fear clawing through my chest, the outrage of this ambush, the rage I’d been choking down for months, it all detonated at once.
My dark red haze erupted from me, ripping across the battlefield like a storm with teeth, every pulse of it aimed atprotecting him.
I didn’t restrain a single atom of it.
I opened the gates, knowing all too well what it meant to choose so beneath a bubble.
To die for the man I?—
“NO!”
Caden’s roar tore through the chaos, followed by human shouts as my power engulfed the world in front of me.
But it was already too late.
His voice was lost in the destruction I’d unleashed for him.
THIRTY-EIGHT
CADEN
The second they forced me to the ground, I knew we were fucked.
I’d fought hard—harder than I ever had without translation—but there were too many. For each one I knocked down, three more took their place, dragging me under, pinning my arms, slamming boots into my ribs, fists hammering into my face. My skull cracked against the dirt, breath ripped from my lungs as bodies piled on top of me, pressing, suffocating—winning.
For the first time since this started, true panic clawed up my throat.
We couldn’t win this. Not beneath the bubble, against that many.
And then I saw her.
She was standing still, eyes wide with terror. Her gaze flicked to her hands—trembling, but certain—before curling into tight fists.
She wouldn’t…
