Page 18 of A Soul’s Awakening

“Sorry, next time I decide to sacrifice myself, I’ll make sure I’m more prepared to infiltrate the secret organization experimenting on people and their magic. I learned ‌just as much as you, but getting too close was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.” Changing the subject, Ren shifted his focus to me, pinning me with an unimpressed glare. “What I’m curious about is Alex. Those powers are … dangerous, and we damn well know the Syndicate was exploiting them. We need to understand what their end goal was to control it and what capabilities she has. And now that they saw your powers working together … you two destroyed the fucking veil between life and death. That kind of power won’t be ignored.”

I didn’t have a response to that, but the voice behind me did.

“We didn’t mean to break the veil. We were just trying to weaken it enough to slip through. The magic that flows within him … it’s … living. Like mine. When Theo saw Jordan sacrifice himself, the magic spiraled out of control with his emotions. It reacted to my magic and amplified it.”

My breath caught as I turned around. Standing in the doorway in front of Thomas was Alex in one of my t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants. Even with the fabric hanging loose on his frame, there was something obviously different. Dark black hair had been cut in a style strikingly similar to my own—short at the back, longer on top—no longer hiding those bright blue eyes.

My mind raced, struggling to reconcile the image before me with the one I had assumed all along. “Wait, you … you’re a guy? Why didn’t you say anything!”

Embarrassment crept up my neck and heated my cheeks. I might have treated his wounds, woven his magic with mine, but I was focused on my magic, not his body. I just assumed, given his soft voice and the shy way he carried himself, that he was a girl. The transformation was startling. The grime and matted hair that had hidden his features were gone, revealing a face that was undeniably male, yet still carried an almost feminine charm. His frame lacked any pronounced masculine muscle, but his shoulders gave him a subtle strength, hinting at resilience beneath his delicate appearance.

Alex shrugged. “No one ever asked.”

As if that was an acceptable response, he padded over toward the kitchen table, eyeing the last piece of pizza. He picked it up, examined it briefly, looked at me for approval, then and ripped off a generous bite, chewing thoughtfully as if savoring a minor victory. He sat down beside me, pulling the chair much closer to me than it needed to be. Thomas took the empty seat at the head of the table.

“Okay, now I’m curious.” Stella leaned forward and pointed her finger at Alex. “What the hell is going on here with Theo’s magic? And how is it connected to his?”

Ivy, having finished her cleaning, sat down beside Stella with a glass of iced tea to join in the conversation.

“Not my magic. Caspian’s magic,” I surmised. “He never got the chance to tell me much about it, but he said he acquired it when he refused to die and leave his family behind. It became something … tangible. He could speak to magic, but it didn’t always listen to him. It was that magic that turned him into a phantom and refused to let him die. In his final moments, I felt it latching onto me.”

Alex sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “From what I understand, it’s an incredibly rare type of magic that only appears under extreme circumstances. Most people develop their abilities later in life from past experiences. Mine started before I was even born.”

His gaze dropped to the floor. “The magic made my mother’s pregnancy difficult. The Syndicate convinced her they could help, that they could safely deliver me. She didn’t survive, but I did. I became the first living person born in the underworld.”

His fingers tightened around the hem of his shirt. “With my mother gone, I was theirs to own. The Syndicate spent years experimenting on me. I was isolated, monitored, treated more like a project than a person. I was terrified of everything around me, and eventually my magic adapted to that fear.” He glanced up at me. “It started creating barriers. Walls. Safe spaces. Anything that could keep the world out and keep me protected.”

“But it didn't stop there,” Ivy said. “Did it?”

Alex shook his head. “The more it grew, the more it connected to the veil itself. The barrier between life and death is the largest protective barrier in existence. My magic learned from it. Now I can reinforce it, repair it, and shape smaller versions of it into shields, wards, and dimensional boundaries.” He hesitated. “I don't think the magic chose barriers because that's what it’s supposed to do. It chose barriers because that's what I needed.”

Alex’s shoulders sagged, his gaze looking past me and outside the window at the evening sun basking the kitchen in an orange glow. “The Syndicate noticed the changes before I did. They thought because I was young, because my magic was still developing, they could shape it into something useful. Something controllable. It didn’t want to be controlled, so eventually it stopped listening to me, but those chains would corrupt it if it refused to obey. That’s why I had to use Theo to open the veil. I could feel he possessed a spark of that magic inside him too, and he wasn’t corrupted like I was.”

A chill crept down my spine.

“This sounds like it’s going to be a much bigger problem than just fixing the veil,” Stella dramatically sighed. “We just ran off with the Syndicate’s most powerful weapon. Two, actually, if you count the fact they now know Theo’s power amplified Alex’s.”

“Fuck.” Ren shifted in his seat, grunting under his breath. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but couldn’t get the words out.

“What’s wrong, Ren?” I asked carefully, unsettled by the look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Ren shot to his feet so abruptly that the chair screeched across the floor behind him. “What’s wrong is that you keep throwing yourself into danger like you’re invincible!”

The words came out sharp, but underneath them was something rawer. Fear.

His hands clenched at his sides hard enough for his knuckles to pale. “Did you ever stop to think about the consequences of your actions? I went to the underworld to protect you from the Syndicate, Theo, and here you are throwing yourself at them again.”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off before I could speak.

“You always do this,” he snapped, voice cracking at the edges. “You run toward every disaster, every broken person, every impossible situation like it’s your responsibility to save the world, and one day it’s going to get you killed.”

“Well, gee, sorry for caring about you so much,” I shot back, exhaustion and frustration bleeding into my voice. “You disappeared into the underworld, Ren. What exactly did you expect me to do? Sit around and hope you came back? Forget everything and move on like you never existed?”

“That’s not the point!”

“No, it is the point!” I retaliated, stepping toward him despite the ache tearing through my body. “You don’t get to act like I’m crazy for coming after you when you would’ve done the exact same thing for me.”

Ren’s expression faltered for just a second, guilt flashing across his face before fear swallowed it again.