I kissed Eiran's temple before I left his room. "Try not to set anything on fire in your sleep."
"No promises."
We parted for the night, doors closed between us.
But I stayed up for hours, whispering his name into my pillow, hoping he was doing the same.
Sleep never came.
The room was too quiet. Too cold. Or maybe it was just me.
I lay on my side, the thin temple sheets tangled around my legs, the moonlight slicing through the high window in a single silver blade. I could still feel Eiran's warmth on my skin from earlier — the ghost of his hand on mine, the curve of his shoulder under my touch.
I pressed my palm to my chest and exhaled.
And that's when I felt it.
Warm. Not like fire, but like breath against the skin. A soft thrum, pulsing in time with my heartbeat, low and steady. Familiar now, though I still didn't understand it.
I sat up, slowly. My fingers trembled as they undid the ties of my linen sleeping shirt.
And as the thin fabric slid down stopping at my elbows I saw there it was.
Nestled between my breasts, just above the curve of my heart — the mark.
At first glance, it looked like ink: a twisting spiral of black lines and soft curves, delicate and cruel in equal measure. But when I leaned closer in the mirror's reflection, I saw how it moved. Like it was alive. The pattern seemed to shift subtly in time with my breath.
I reached out and brushed it with two fingers.
A shock of sensation pulsed through me — not pain. Not exactly. More like pressure. Like something ancient and endless had turned its eye toward me at that moment.
The voice came faintly, deep and distant in the back of my mind.
"You carry our favor, child of twilight. Do not forget the bargain."
I flinched. The voice was not male or female. It simply was.
I pulled my shirt closed quickly, heart pounding.
I hadn't told Eiran. I couldn't. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Because I wasn't sure if I had saved him… or damned myself.
Sleep remained a stranger.
I curled beneath the blankets, lying still, eyes fixed on the ceiling where the moonlight traced pale shapes that refused to stay still. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it — the mark. I felt it. Like something pressing inward from the outside, a whisper at the edge of hearing, like breath on the nape of my neck. It didn't hurt, not exactly. But it ached in a way that made my skin feel too tight.
I tried to ignore it. I tried to count the rhythm of my breaths, to ground myself. But my thoughts wandered back to the bargain. His voice. That… thing's smile. Too calm. Too knowing.
What had I agreed to?
I saved Eiran, yes — I would do it again. I will do it again, if it comes to that.
But now something watches me. Waits. Like I've been marked not just in flesh, but in fate.
I turned over onto my side, facing the wall, pulling my knees up to my chest. The bed felt too large. Too empty. I missed his voice. His breath. The comfort of knowing he was beside me.
But the priests had said no. "The wounded need solitude," they'd told us, hands raised in gentle refusal. "The soul must heal alone." I nodded. Pretended to agree.
They didn't know what it felt like to be marked by something unseen.
My hand drifted to the space between my collarbones again. Even through the cloth, I could feel it — a slow, steady thrum.
I knew sleep wouldn't come.
Not tonight.
Maybe not for a long time.
The darkness was endless.
Not the kind that lulled you into sleep, but the kind that crept beneath your skin and whispered to your bones. The kind that stayed even when you closed your eyes.
I couldn't sleep.
Not with the way my arm felt like it was still on fire. Not with the way every breath caught like broken glass in my ribs. The healers had done what they could — salves, herbs, light spells — but there was a limit to how much even they could mend. Whatever I had become back in that manor, whatever I had let loose, it had burned from the inside out.
I stared up at the ceiling, teeth gritted.
Each inhale sent knives between my ribs. Each movement made the scorched flesh along my shoulder and upper arm pull and sting like someone dragging claws across raw meat. My body shook from it sometimes. Weak. Too weak.
And yet… I'd do it again. Without hesitation.
Because I'd heard her scream.
And I would burn for her a thousand times if it meant she'd still have a voice to scream with.
I shut my eyes. Flashes of Silas came unbidden — his mocking smile, the sound of his voice, the sheer weight of him pressing down on me like a mountain. I had been nothing to him. Less than nothing.
The mark on my forearm — the old Warden sigil, barely visible beneath the scarring now — pulsed faintly. But it gave no answers. No strength.
Not now.
I wondered if Auralia was sleeping. If she was safe. If the kid was safe. My mind looped around them both like a mantra, trying to anchor myself to something solid. Something good.
She'd wanted to stay by my side. The priests hadn't let her. I didn't blame them. I looked more like a half-dead beast than a man. But gods… I'd give anything to hear her voice right now. To feel her hand in mine.
Instead, I stared into the dark and tried not to tremble.
The pain would pass.
The shame would linger longer.
And the fire, whatever it was, still simmered deep in my chest. Waiting.
Not gone.
Never gone.