Lucian woke to the sound of rain on glass.
Not thunder. Not fire. Just the gentle, insistent rhythm of a world moving on without him. But his body remembered what the dream refused to let go.
His throat was tight. His chest, heavier than it should be — as if someone had taken a match to old bones and left them smoldering beneath his skin.
He sat up slowly, drenched in sweat that felt too cold, too real. The scent of the forest still clung to him. Ash. Wet leaves. Smoke. Kyrell.
God, Kyrell.
Lucian exhaled like he hadn't in years. Like he'd been holding something in since the night everything burned.
He wasn't supposed to remember the way Kyrell had looked at him — not with that hunger. Not with that silence like a wound that wouldn't close. But the dream had ripped the edges of memory wide open. And now it pulsed in him, alive again. Dangerous.
He touched his ribs, fingers pressing lightly over skin, but what he was looking for wasn't there. It was deeper. A scar memory couldn't heal.
Lucian dragged himself to the window, pushed it open, let the rain hit his face. He needed to bleed something out of him. The craving. The ache. The question.
Why now?
He closed his eyes. Tried to shake the ghost from his skin. But then—
There it was. The scent again.
Not dream-scent. Real. Present. Clinging to the air like smoke that never left.
Kyrell.
He was here.
Somewhere.
Lucian's eyes opened — red. Glowing softly in the dark like a forgotten promise