Page 140 of Embers of Ruin

At least she’s honest.

She pulls absently at a loose thread on her sleeve before speaking again. “I grew up hearing stories about children with magic disappearing. Everyone blamed the Shadow King. We all did.” Her eyes meet mine. “Now I'm not so sure.”

My thoughts immediately drift back to my conversation with Onyx. He’d all but told me the Shadow Guard never took magical children, yet he’d carefully avoided filling in the rest of the story.

Now…

Now I want to know what Onyx and Thorin were trying so hard to protect.

Mara lied to me outright. Onyx hinted at the truth but never gave it voice. Thorin guarded his secrets just as fiercely. Whatever happens to magical people who disappear, I’m beginning to think the truth is far more complicated than anyone ever let me believe.

The young woman begins telling me stories instead of answers. A little girl whose touch could heal broken bones. A boy who made flowers bloom wherever he walked. Families who learned to hide what made them different because they feared what would happen if anyone found out. They all blamed the Shadow King. Then she stops talking and stares at me.

“I’m not important to them. I’m just a helper. I feel like I should tell you more—but I don’t know if I can.”

“Then don’t.” I lean back against the glass with a tired sigh. “I’m not sure how many more stories or half-answers I can survive.”

She ignores me. “The Shadow King…”

Everything inside me stills. So much for pretending I don’t care. “What about him?”

“He hasn't stopped looking.”

I blink.

She watches my face carefully. “We thought he would bargain with us.”

A smirk tugs at my lips. “The king doesn’t strike me as the bargaining type.”

A faint smile flickers across her face. “No, no he doesn’t.”

She looks toward the corridor again before lowering her voice even further. “His rage is... palpable. He doesn’t know where we are, but we can feel his presence searching.”

Those words send a wave of relief crashing over me. For the first time since I was dragged into this place, someone has confirmed what I’ve been too afraid to believe. He didn't give up. He didn't think I was dead. He's searching for me. She doesn’t elaborate, and she doesn’t have to.

The image of Thorin standing in the Sacred Gardens flashes through my mind, his silver eyes fixed on me with such certainty, as though there had never been a world where I wasn’t meant to stand beside him. I spent so much time questioning his motives that I never stopped to question his determination to protect me.

She slips away without another word, leaving the tray untouched between us. I stare after her long after she’s gone.

My mind slips back to those words he’d told me when he first brought me to Andell.

You. Are. Mine.

That thought steadies me.

Then my wrist erupts with pain. I cry out, clutching my arm as the mark beneath my skin blazes with unbearable heat. The sensation races up my arm and across my chest until I can barely breathe.

It isn’t my fear.

It isn’t my grief.

The emotion crashes into me like a tidal wave, ancient and overwhelming. Rage. Not wild or reckless, but focused with terrifying precision. Beneath it lies desperation so profound it steals the air from my lungs. Thorin. For one heartbeat, I feel him. Not his thoughts. Not his memories. I feel the force of his determination. The connection vanishes almost as quickly as it came, leaving me trembling against the glass. I press my forehead to the cool surface and close my eyes.

He knows.

Somehow…

He knows I’m alive.