Nova POV
When his skin brushed mine, it was like being shoved out of my own body.
A flash.
Fire. Screams. Someone's voice—hers—echoing through the dark. A girl with laughter too bright for the world, snatched away before he could save her. Kieran's hand reaching, grabbing at nothing, the sound of his own breath breaking as everything he loved burned to ash.
It wasn't just an image.
It was grief.
Bone-deep, ugly, endless grief.
I gasped and staggered back, heart slamming, my hand flying to my chest. My mouth opened, but no words came.
He—he lost someone. Not just anyone. Someone he couldn't live without. And I felt it.
"Kieran…" My voice cracked. "She—who was she?"
His eyes snapped to mine, sharp, panicked, then shuttered with that cocky smirk I hated. But it didn't cover the flicker of shock in his gray eyes.
"You weren't supposed to see that," he muttered, low, like it was a sin I'd caught him in.
Before I could press him—before I could demand the truth—the air shifted.
