I swallowed. Hard. “I don’t… even know what I am.”
That made him look at me.
Really look.
Everything stilled — the trees, the wind, the river — like the entire forest had paused just so he could hear the shape of my breath.
“You do,” he said softly. “Somewhere in you… you know.”
My blood went electric.
He leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees, and his voice dropped into a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through the ground, through my bones, through the parts of me I tried so hard to pretend didn’t exist.
“You feel the pull,” he murmured. “The emptiness. The hunger.”
Each word hit like a truth I’d buried in the dark.
“It is not madness,” he continued, eyes glinting like obsidian catching a shard of moonlight. “Nor is it evil. It is power. In its purest form.”
He held my gaze as the silence deepened between us.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
“And those who hunt you…” His lip curled faintly. “They follow the scent of what sleeps inside you.”
I swallowed again, throat thick. “And you?”
His head tilted just slightly — dragon-still, dragon-sure.
“I am not here to hunt you, Seph. I am but a guardian of the balance.”
My name in his mouth felt like twilight wrapping around my skin.
He blinked once, slow, controlled.
“I am here,” he said, voice like old storm clouds, “because the moment your power woke that first day, I knew what you were.”
My breath caught.
“And?”
“And,” he continued, “because even with all that you are, all you fear…”
His gaze softened, as if I were something sacred.
“You did not run from me.”
Chapter 26
Seph, aged 16
It was my birthday.
I only knew that because Sable told me.
Because though I had lay in my bed for days, my body decaying around me. She had still brought me a gift.
A bracelet. One she had made herself.
