“Emberling,”he says, voice like cracking bone.“So, this is the righteous fire that would chain the Resh’Agar.”
Your heart stutters. Your skin burns. But you know him. All too well.
The Vargrún.
The wolf of the shattered world. The thing left behind after the breaking of the Skyglass. The darkness that was captured, tamed,enslaved—thensealedinto your Bonded. See how the air bends around him.Aether snarls in his wake.Every breath of his presence devours mana, love, hope.
He is lust behind the war. Blood behind the blade.
“You are small, Auryn’reh Solah,” he smiles. “Too small to holdourchains. Go back to the ice, little ember. Go back to Skyglass. He awakened you…but it was amistake.”
Stop it.
Stop shaking.
Clasp your hands together. Breathe.
Do not let that word echo in your heart again.
Mistake.
Mistake.
You grit your teeth so hard they might crack. You are not a mistake—not small, not shapeless. Even now, on quaking legs, you stand. The mark of Numen. You endure. Through time and death and rebirth—youendure.
I…
I endure.
My nails dig into my palms, and I look at the Resh’Agar’s Master Rune—as the Vargrún—without flinching.
“So…” I say, “it would seem webothhave a monster just behind our eyes.”
Vargrún smiles. A cruel, jagged thing. He steps close. Grips my arms so hard I have to stifle a gasp. Pain flares, too real to be a dream.
“You tamper with forces beyond your ken,” he says.
I raise my chin. “Only beyond memory. But not beyondmy will.”
Sound presses in, deafening now.
The drums—Beating. Beating. Beating.
The horn roars in a mourning dirge.
My veins sing in tune, the Nine Rivers cresting in my soul. Vargrún’s smile widens, showing gleaming fangs.
“You will see,emberling. And you willregret.”
He crushes his lips to mine. A bruising, brutal kiss—meant to punish, to scar. But I don’t fight it. Because beneath the violence—beneath the rage—Ifeel him.
The Resh’Agar.
My Kailorien.
The Bond trembles, and I reach—not with hands, but with memory. With hope. Withlove.
Kail. This isn’t who you are. Come back.
