Page 25 of This Shattered Star

“I couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed back home until I took care of that first name.”

Silence stretched over us all like a heavy blanket while they pieced together what that meant. Recognized the order for the death sentence it was.

“Your grandmother is a heartless bitch.” The sheer anger radiating from Theia hit me like a physical blow.

Brannon nodded solemnly. “That’s putting it nicely.”

I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of me then. It was small, quiet, but my shoulders shook with the force of it.

It was nice to hear the truth spoken so plainly. So unabashedly. A truth no one had ever dared speak out loud. Not even myself.

Kodhan stood, so abruptly that I quieted immediately. Storms brewed in the darkness of his features. But nothing drew past his lips. He merely stared at the ground, fists clenched. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

“Your lack of magic won’t be a problem,” Brannon announced, eyes darting between Kodhan and myself. He gave Kodhan one last lingering look before turning to face me fully.

“You don’t need to lie to me, Brannon. I already know what my circumstances are.”

“I’m not. Three of us have considerable skills, magic-wise. And you’re undoubtably the best out of everyone in close combat, seeing as you’ve never needed to rely on the distance that magic grants its user. It’s a balanced scale.”

“The scale is nowhere near balanced,” I muttered, but I appreciated the sentiment. Appreciated that he believed I could be useful at all. “What are your primary elements? I haven’t seen either of you wield.”

With age, every person developed an element of their magic that was stronger, more refined. One they could easily fall back on, like an extra limb. Kodhan’s was obviously fire. The hardest element to control with its wild temperament.

A soft breeze whispered through my hair, warm and pleasant despite the lingering cold.

“The wind speaks my name on any given day,” Brannon boasted. He had every right—alongside fire, wind was finnicky. Difficult to control. Intangible in form, like grains of sand slipping between one’s fingers. “Not as flashy as Kodhan’s fire, but just as efficient.”

“And yours?” I insisted when Theia remained quiet.

Shoulders drawn inwards, she worried her bottom lip, like she could digest her answer instead of speaking it. “Well…”

My limbs stiffened. “You’ll have to wield eventually. It’s nothing worth keeping as a secret.” Nothing that warranted the tinge of maroon that peppered her cheeks.

Theia rocked back on her heels, averting my gaze as I searched her face. Several emotions lay there, but only one stood out more prominently. Guilt.

I knew it all too well. Had spent countless nights in its embrace. It often coupled with self-loathing, which felt more like a studded cage.

“By the stars above,” Kodhan huffed, scrubbing an impatient hand over his face.

“Don’t,” Brannon warned.

“We don’t have thetime,Brannon. Besides, little harm can come from—”

Movement in my periphery caught my attention.

A flicker of shadow. A slight shift in the way it draped across the side of the hearth. Casting it off as a trick of the light, I began to turn my head away. But there it happened again, clearer this time. Like a cat’s tail, slashing back and forth.

I hadn’t realized my hand was raised; fingers poised inches away from the hearth—from the moving shadow—until Kodhan’s voice ripped through the air like a clap of lightning.

“What are you doing?”

I startled, snatching my hand back. When I glanced back at the hearth, the shadows had evened out. As though I’d imagined the entire thing.

“Nothing.” Before he could pin me with his skepticism, I demanded, “Someone needs to elaborate. Now.”

Kodhan eyed me carefully, clearly not pleased with my answer. But, mercifully, he let it go. “So impatient,” he chastised. “Everyone is making this a bigger issue than it needs to be.”

His voice faded into a dull whisper as my head suddenly filled with a pressure so intense that I began to see stars. A high-pitched ringing followed, sending my teeth grinding.