Her voice was firmer now. She took the cloth and gently pressed it to my palm.
“You don’t get to blame yourself for not knowing how to be a miracle.”
My eyes met hers, my voice, raw with a confession barely understood, fractured. “It came from inside me, Jasi. That power wasn’t something I cast or conjured. It was there somehow. Waiting. Watching. I don’t know what it means.”
Jasira’s eyes searched mine. “I don’t either. But I know this—when the world gave you something terrifying, you used it to protect us. Not yourself. Us. That’s what matters.”
My throat closed. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe I hadn’t failed. A constriction seized my throat, making it difficult to swallow past the sudden lump. Every fiber yearned to trust the words, to banish the gnawing fear that I had not failed.
A tremor ran through my hand as I wiped at my face, attempting to scrub away the sickening emptiness that filled them. Every breath felt shallow, the heart aching with a regret that whispered, “I wish it hadn’t come too late.”
Jasira said nothing for a moment. Then she reached out and took my hand in hers, steady and warm.
“Then use it now. Use it to keep the rest of us alive. That’s what Tyren would’ve wanted.”
Across the camp, the silence was brittle.
Gideon paced near the fire, muttering under his breath. “Didn’t even see it coming. One blink, and he was gone.”
Alaric sat nearby, sharpening his blade with steady, violent strokes, the motion too fast, too harsh, his knuckles white around the hilt.
No one responded. There was nothing to say.
Jasira stood and trudged back toward her bedroll, but not before exchanging a glance with Erindor. They both knew I was different now, something more.
That night, as the last light faded, and we made camp in the haunting forest, the sky came alive.
I found Erindor standing at the edge of the camp, alone on the cliff’s edge, watching the night like it might crumble.
Veilfire.
It began with a small shimmer. The stars blinked out, one by one, veiled by something brighter. Curtains of light unfurled from the heavens in undulating waves—violet, crimson, gold. It was something old and holy. It twisted and flowed like ink dropped into water, painting the sky in colors that didn’t belong to the world of men.
I had read about it once in an ancient text with pages that crackled at the touch—Veilfire, the ghostlight of the gods. They say it appears only when someone has awakened a divine tether, when the realm beyond ours leans too close.
It was beautiful. But it also terrified me.
The trees stood still beneath it, every branch silver-edged in its glow. The wind didn’t move. Even the fire in our camp dimmed, as if bowing to a more ancient flame. I stood, feet fixed firmly to the ground, watching the sky breathe.
Something inside me responded, a thread pulled tight, a presence stirring beneath my ribs. I felt seen by something otherworldly and vast.
Erindor said nothing when it appeared. Even when the strange light painted his shirtless back with violet fire. He was crouched in silence, shadows moving down the muscles of his back like something sacred. His body was marred, yet he had beautiful, broad shoulders that tapered into lean muscles and long scars. I shouldn’t have stared, but I did.
I knelt behind him and unwrapped a clean bandage, then unscrewed the lid of the salve I’d made that afternoon. “Let me,” I said softly.
He didn’t respond, but he didn’t stop me either.
I gently peeled back the bloodstained wrapping. His back tensed under my hands. The old scar stretched white and smooth, like lightning carved across the skin, but the fresh wound from the Vorrhound was angry, deep, with edges that were red and hot to touch. I cleaned it carefully, then dabbed the salve over the worst of it.
He hissed softly. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
Stillness lingered. Then, quietly: “You’ve got a terrible habit of looking after people who don’t deserve it.”
“You’ve got a terrible habit of believing you don’t.”
A new kind of silence unfurled, deeper than before, filled with an awareness that hummed in the air.
