Page 318 of Scarlet Wars
The kind of kiss thatdestroysa person.
I leaned in, already halfway lost, when?—
Caden dies if you love him.
The thought hit like a physical blow. I jerked back, vision blurring hard at the edges.
Caden stilled.
Not startled,alert. His grip loosened enough to give me space, his gaze snapping to my face, catching the panic I couldn’t quite hide.
“Hey,” he murmured, like he was grounding a live wire. “It’s okay.” A beat. “You’ve been through hell. Take all the time and space you need.”
I swallowed hard and nodded once.
Before I could explain—or even pull in a full breath—his mouth curved into a devastating smile. He lifted a hand and translated a clean set of clothes onto me with a single snap.
When he looked at me, there was no mistaking it. No mask. No indifference. Only raw, stunned intensity.
He shook his head once. “You broke a bubble, Emma. No one in the entirehistoryof translation has done that.No one.And you just?—”
He cut himself off, like even his own words couldn’t catch up with what I’d done.
I grinned, weak, but wicked. “Ugly ass spider for the win.”
His laugh cracked the air, full andbeautiful. Then he turned, manifested his Nexus, and sliced through the space in front of us with a single sharp motion.
The portal tore open: green and pulsing. Like vengeance itself had been summoned.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said, stepping forward, his eyes lit with something fierce. “And finally kill some Chiefs.”
SIXTY-NINE
EMMA
After I broke the bubble, everything accelerated.
It took us maybe three minutes to find Stephen, Cara, and James—who’d broken out as soon as they’d felt the bubble lift—and another three to realize the United Chiefs had left the building.
Which, naturally, left us no time to process anything like normal, emotionally stable people. Only a quick mental note of who we’d lost and a firm reminder we still had several Chief-shaped problems that needed violently solving.
James’s nex to Matthew confirmed Nino was still in the Healers’ wing, while the United Chiefs had apparently decided subtlety was overrated and had dramatically revealed themselves in the Town Square.
We’d outnumbered them the last time we’d faced off, but none of us were delusional enough to think they hadn’t reinforced since. The fact they’d stayed in Cyclos at all—cocky enough to linger after the High Chief must’ve felt his precious little bubble pop—only confirmed what we already suspected.
They thought they were untouchable.
Which is usually the last thought people have before everything goes catastrophically wrong.
So we planned. Quickly.
I found myself portaling in a few blocks from the Town Square, less than an hour after we’d broken out of our magical cage (since clearly the appropriate response to nearly dying is immediately running toward the next life-threatening situation).
The street was veiled in shadows stretching long between buildings, but I knew the way by heart, all those late nights wandering around alone like an unhinged insomniac finally paying off.
Now, all I had to do was make it to the square unnoticed. Blend in. Disappear in plain sight.
Thanks to Maurice kindly demonstrating how healing magic could alter someone’s appearance—bone, skin, pigment, even eye color—I stood there now as someone else entirely.
