White meant the moon itself was responding.
And somewhere in the back of my mind—a place I would revisit much later when I understood the enormity of it—I realized something deeply unsettling:
For the first time in years, my emotions had not destabilized my magic.
They had sharpened it.
Centered it.
Like my fury had found orbit around her.
Amrin shifted beside me, straightening slightly, her earlier softness retreating behind embarrassment.
I hated that instantly.
Hated the way she folded inward after vulnerability, like she expected rejection to follow honesty.
Like she’d learned sharing herself came with punishment.
No.
Not with me.
Never with me.
Finally, she looked at me.
Gods.
Those eyes.
Pale and luminous beneath the dim lights of my quarters, so painfully open and earnest it nearly stole the breath from my lungs.
There was nothing manipulative in them.
Nothing hidden.
Just truth.
Soft, devastating truth.
I felt myself go still beneath that stare.
Hypnotized.
Undone.
Then she opened those pretty pink lips and quietly said, “Anyway… that’s why I’m afraid of moths.”
Something inside me snapped.
Not violently.
Not chaotically.
Worse.
Something ancient and possessive simply gave way.
