19
The world shifts on its axis
ZARA
My head throbs and I roll over, forcing myself to my feet. The world spins as the wind picks up, carrying the scent of burning magic with it, but it’s unusual and unlike any sorcery I’ve known. It’s ancient and ruined, like the charred remains of a forest left to smolder long after the flames have died. The trees around us stand skeletal, their blackened trunks twisted and broken, as if even nature itself has turned against us. The air is thick with the taste of ash, heavy with the weight of something unnatural in the distance.
“Easy,” Kade growls. “Take your time.”
“What the fuck happened?”
I press my weight down, hoping my balance does the decent thing and finds itself again. It returns, slowly, as if it’s trying to spite me with its tardiness and my vision joins in, deciding that Kade’s face is the only thing it wants to focus on.
“You tell me, Zara,” he says. “You did this.” He spins around for dramatic effect and I contemplate murdering him. “You took out a small army of warlocks.”
I don’t remember.
I don’t think I believe him.
I don’t know if I want it to be true.
If it is, it means I saved our lives. Kade’s as well as mine. It means I’m more powerful than him, maybe more powerful than all the Senior Council. But I don’t want this kind of power, not when it comes with responsibility. Not when it puts a target on my back and I’ll never escape its burden.
“I didn’t…”
Kade doesn’t cut me off and my words fade away, as lost in the ether as I am. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to; the silence between us is enough. Heavy, uncomfortable, and impossible to ignore. I press a hand to my temple, wincing at the dull throb that refuses to subside. The smell of scorched magic lingers, clinging to my skin like a second layer.
“I didn’t,” I say again, softer this time, as if repeating it will make it true.
“Don’t waste your breath,” Kade mutters. “You’ve got nothing to prove to me.”
The silence returns, and its presence is oppressive. Kade backs away, resting against a tree as he watches me. I know him well enough to know he’d usually make some sarcastic remark or scathing put-down right around now, seizing the opportunity to put me in my place. But he doesn’t. He just stands there, quiet and still, his gaze scanning the ruined landscape like he’s expecting someone to appear.
Now, he’s unnervingly calm. He’s too measured. He’s too controlled. He’s keeping something bottled up and it’s concerning. Worse, it’s deeply unsettling.
I brush the ash from my clothes, wincing as my fingers brush over a tender spot on my ribs. “Should we get going?”
“There’s a tavern about a day’s walk from here. We can stop there from the night if it’s still standing.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “We don’t have any money.”
“Money isn’t a problem,” Kade replies, walking away.
I sigh and trudge behind him, too tired and too confused to argue with him. I stare at his boots, letting the blank spaces in my memory gnaw away at me. I don’t remember casting that much magic and I don’t remember it burning through me or seeing it tear through a group of warlocks.
All I remember is the panic beforehand. The sheer desperation. The fear that choked the air from my lungs and the certainty we wouldn’t survive unless I did something. Shit, the thought that we wouldn’t survive was the last conscious thought I had and that might be more terrifying than anything that happened after.
Magic has rules, even among the chaos. It has structure and form, a rhyme and reason to it. I’ve always been careful, always kept the thinnest slither of control. I abided by the limits; I didn’t break the rules my coven taught me.
Until he needed me to.
I might not remember how I did it, but I’m sure I tore through whatever rules existed. Whatever it was, it was raw and wild, completely out of my hands.
And Kade saw it all.
I glance up at his back as he strides ahead of me, his steps deliberate but not hurried, like he knows exactly where he’s going. He hasn’t said much since we started moving, and that silence unsettles me. Kade is rarely quiet, always quick with a sharp comment or a biting observation. Now, he’s almost reflective, as if he’s turning something over in his mind.
The forest looms around us, its skeletal trees standing like silent witnesses to whatever catastrophe left them in thisstate. The air is dense and cloying, the faint scent of burning magic still lingering as we move deeper into the wilderness. My ribs ache with every step, but I don’t complain.
