The walls seemed to close in.Azmik lifted higher, his body forming a living shield between us.My heart slammed against my ribs, but I couldn’t back down.
“There is nothing between us.”
Shadows curled around his fingers, more fire flaring before being swallowed by the darkness.
“Again.”The command crackled.
The words stuck in my throat.Each one harder than the last.“You meannothingto me.”
The moment the lie left my mouth, the air changed.Azmik’s head snapped toward me, the slits of his pupils expanding wide as if I’d physically struck him.
Dalkhan’s silence was worse than his rage would have been.
His hands flexed at his sides, like he was fighting the urge to reach for me—or destroy me.His expression remained beautiful, terrible, and completely unreadable.
“Get out.”The words were barely audible.
I didn’t move.
His head tilted, eyes narrowing into burning slits.“Did I stutter?”
“No, I—”
“LEAVE!”
The word exploded from him, shaking the very foundations of the room.The walls trembled.Every torch flared so bright they nearly blinded me.
A door materialised across the room.The sight of it was like a knife to the heart.
I held the sheet tighter around me and forced myself to move.
Azmik tried to reach for me, reluctant to let me leave, but I pushed him away.
One step.Then another.Each tore something vital inside me.I passed Dalkhan without glancing back, though every instinct screamed to turn around.
The air around him burned, but he didn’t touch me.Didn’t stop me.
Part of me wished he would.
I faltered, but just for a heartbeat.It was for the best.I couldn’t let whatever existed between us cloud my purpose any longer.My mother’s life hung in the balance, and Zaheera would not tolerate failure.
The second I stepped through the door, the walls behind me erupted in a symphony of destruction—of stone cracking, of fire consuming everything in its path.Of a man’s control finally, completely shattering.
And so did I.
I staggered through the corridors, leaning heavily against the walls to steady myself.The torchlight played tricks on my vision, shadows stretching like grasping fingers, reaching for me as I stumbled past.Here a doorway, there an archway—all of them wrong.All of them mocking me.
Another corner.Another dead end.
I spun around, slamming a palm against the stone.The tears I’d been choking back burned like acid behind my swollen lids.I lurched forward, using the wall to propel myself down the next passage.
Focus.One foot in front of the other.
I needed to disappear, to hide where I could collapse without witnesses.Where no one could see the way I was crumbling from the inside out.
The sight of my door ahead sent a wave of relief through me.I threw myself toward it, clawing at the handle with shaking hands.
I tumbled inside, crashing against the frame before I spun and drove my heel into the wood, slamming the door shut with a crack that split the air.
