Page 293 of Scarlet Wars
Alive when nothing else was.
And then the memory began to collapse. The edges of the battlefield bled into black, the sounds of war dissolving into silence. Blood-soaked mud gave way to nothing, the fire of her haze extinguished as if snuffed by an unseen hand.
Until there was nothing left at all.
I blinked again, and we were back.
Back at Cyclos, in the room.
The four walls, the stale air, the too-quiet silence pressing down like a weight.
Emma staggered, catching herself on the edge of a lounge chair. Her breaths came shallow and uneven, tears sliding down her cheeks without a sound.
My hands were clenched at my sides, nails biting into my palms. Every blink replayed it: the Chela, the blood, my body collapsing into the mud.
My own death burned behind my eyelids, branded there, impossible to escape.
SIXTY-FOUR
CADEN
The silence that settled over the room after we came back from that memory was not quiet. It was loud, and stunned and crushing, as though the world itself had paused in disbelief.
I looked at the woman next to me—the woman I had known, with a certainty that bordered on instinct, would be my wife long before the future ever confirmed it—and the sight of her silent tears ignited something feral in my chest.
Murderous didn’t even begin to cover what I felt toward the people who had put that pain in her eyes.
When I snapped my gaze back to the two older men standing across from us, a brutal knot pulled tight beneath my ribs.
The whole thing was distorted, warped by personal belief and despair until right and wrong were ground down into excuses. But intent didn’t absolve a damn thing.
Two so calledfathers—both deeply misguided, both convinced of their own righteousness—who had torn lives apart while telling themselves it was for love. They called it protection. I only saw damage, as they had fought for what they believed mattered most: the survival of their children.
Or at least, for those they decided were worth saving. Because I did not, and never would, see Stephen as a father in any sense of the word.
Judging by the rigid, unforgiving stillness beside me, Emma didn’t see Maurice that way either.
But before I could figure out how to behead either of them with the ridiculously small knife I still had in my hand,shemoved.
Or rather, her haze did.
I’d seen her lose control before, but this wasn’t that. This was faster. More precise. Instinct stripped bare.
Scarlet energy tore free from her like a dragon surging from its nest, violent and incandescent, as her arms snapped outward in a smooth, rapid arc, too fast for hesitation, too precise to be reckless. Power slammed into the room before anyone could so much as inhale.
The next thing I knew, metal screamed.
Chains erupted from the walls, biting hard and fast, slamming Maurice, Stephen, James—and me—back against stone with bruising force. The impact rattled my fucking teeth.
When the room stilled, Emma stood alone at its center, chest heaving, fists clenched at her sides, eyes blazing like she was barely holding herself together through sheer fury.
“What the fuck, Emma?” James snarled, yanking uselessly at his restraints.
Confusion and anger collided in his tone.
But I understood.
I saw it in the way her shoulders were too tight, the way her gaze kept flicking, counting, assessing, grounding.
