Page 147 of Embers of Ruin

Then I feel it.

The air around us shifts. Not dramatically. Subtly. The way the world changes in the heartbeat before a storm arrives. The mark on my wrist grows warm. At first, I hardly notice. The sensation has become familiar over the last few weeks, our bond humming quietly beneath my skin.

Only…

This isn’t our bond.

This is something else.

Something ancient.

The warmth spreads up my arm, across my chest, and settles beneath my ribs. Gold light flickers beneath my skin. Our magic has always danced together, but this feels different. I glance down and watch the glow race along my wrist. His shadows answer it. Black veins climb higher, twining with the gold as though the two have always belonged together.

Thorin goes perfectly still as horror flashes across his face.

I feel it immediately—the shift, the tension, the sudden stillness. My gaze snaps back to his.

Something has changed.

I see hope. Raw and blinding. For a moment, neither of us speaks. He’s looking at me, and yet he isn’t. Not really. His eyes are fixed on mine, but something behind them has shifted, as though he’s seeing something beyond me.

This isn’t my Thorin.

Acting on instinct, I reach for the mental training he taught me and slip inside his mind. I’m barely there before I catch a single thought, fuzzy but forming. I see torn parchment, missing from the archives.

For the Cursebreaker to heal the land, the Darkbringer must take the ember and heal the kingdom. Only then will the curse be broken.

The light brightens as the air grows warmer. Magic hums through me like sunlight trapped beneath my skin. Thorin stares—not at me, but at the light. At the thing he’s spent centuries searching for.

And suddenly I understand.

Not everything.

Not even close.

But enough.

Enough to know the prophecy is standing between us. Enough to know that something is looking at me through his eyes.

No—not something.

The corruption. The darkness rotting this continent.

Something forces me out of his mind, and my vision blurs as I’m shoved back into myself. When it clears, his expression hasn’t changed. He’s still looking at me as though nothing happened. My stomach drops. This isn’t him. Whatever is happening to him right now, he doesn’t know. I start to pull away before he does something he’ll regret, but his hand catches mine. Not forcefully. Instinctively.

“Wait!” The word leaves him before he can stop it.

The light surges. Gold spills through my veins as the shadows at his feet answer, curling toward us—toward me, toward the light. For one suspended heartbeat, it feels almost beautiful, light and darkness reaching for one another, ancient halves of the same story finally finding their way home.

Then I feel it.

A pull, deep inside my chest. Not pain. Recognition. Something ancient stirring awake. Thorin goes perfectly still as black veins climb his arms, spreading beneath his skin while shadows slide across him, no longer under his command but driven by instinct alone. His gaze locks onto mine, wide with something between hope and horror, as his hand rises almost of its own accord and comes to rest against my chest, directly over my heart. The mark on his wrist flares, and the light inside me answers.

And suddenly I understand what he thinks is happening. What he believes is happening.

The return.

The restoration.