The silence left behind felt heavier than when Ashar and Riven were standing in the room. It wasn't tense in the way it had been before, not the snapping, teeth-bared tension of distrust and dominance. It was quieter, denser, heavy with the weight of something none of them could explain.
Kaine sat on the edge of a half-broken pillar, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. His scowl was still there, but duller now, softened at the edges. Not anger. Worry.
Lucien paced slower than usual, steps measured, hands behind his back, brow furrowed deep in thought. He looked less like a predator and more like someone desperately solving a puzzle that refused to give up the last piece.
Sethis sat cross-legged on the floor, head tilted, running a ring between his fingers, watching the energy fractures on the wall fade in and out like breathing. For once, his usual lazy smirk was gone.
Mae stayed seated where she'd been left at the edge of the raised dais. Her wrists were no longer cuffed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Every fiber of her screamed to make herself small, but it wouldn't have mattered. Not anymore. Not after what had just happened.
It was Lucien who broke the silence. "Mae." His voice wasn't sharp or mocking, just level and measured. "You're going to tell us what that was." His gaze pinned her, not hostile, not yet, but searching.
Sethis leaned back on one arm, flicking the ring into the air and catching it lazily. "Yeah. Because that wasn't bad luck." His eyes flicked toward the warped line where the corrected half of the castle stopped mid-shift. "That was something else."
Kaine didn't speak at first. He just stared at the floor, jaw tight, thumb rolling over his knuckles like he was grounding himself. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower than usual. "You didn't feel like this before." His eyes finally lifted to her. "What happened to you?" It wasn't an accusation. It was a genuine question.
For the first time since being dragged into their orbit, Mae realized no one was yelling. No one was threatening. Even Kaine. But it didn't help the knot forming in her chest. Her hands tightened until her knuckles turned white.
"I don't know." Her voice cracked, honest and frayed. "I swear I don't."
Lucien's pacing stopped. He turned, arms folded. "You're telling me you didn't feel any of that?" His hand waved vaguely toward the half-healed structure. "That? This?"
Mae's mouth opened, then closed. Her pulse hammered against her ribs. "I felt something." She swallowed hard. "It was like the second he touched me, the second the cuffs came off, I felt-" Her fingers trembled. "Like something inside me pulled. Like the ground wasn't real anymore. Like the whole world wanted to change." Her breath shook. "I didn't try to. I didn't mean to."
Kaine's voice interrupted, but it wasn't cruel. It was softer, gruffer, grounded. "Stop." Mae flinched. Kaine sighed and ran a hand down his face. "Not like that." He shook his head. His voice sounded strange in his own throat, like he barely recognized it. "I mean stop blaming yourself. It didn't feel like something you meant to do." His arms folded over his chest again. His eyes dropped to the floor.
"It felt bigger," Lucien muttered. His brow furrowed. "Yeah. That's accurate."
Sethis let the ring drop into his palm and spun it once. His voice was quieter now, the lazy edge gone. "It didn't feel like energy manipulation. Not magic. Not tech. Not anything I've ever felt before." His lips pressed together. "It felt like the rules themselves bent. The laws. Physics. Gravity. Space. Everything."
Mae dragged in a breath. Her throat burned. "I don't know what I am." Her voice was small, raw, and honest. "I've never known. All I've ever known is that I don't fit. That everything breaks around me. People. Places. Systems. I just break things."
Sethis rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. Well. This isn't just breaking things, darling. This-" His gaze flicked toward the wall again, still split between the fractured geometry and the corrected half that still hummed like it was waiting. "This was the universe trying to fix something."
Lucien's arms folded tighter. His voice was low. "Or make it worse. Depending on the view."
Kaine glanced toward the corridor Ashar and Riven had disappeared through, then back to Mae. For the first time since they'd met, his gaze softened. "I don't think this is your fault." His fingers tapped against his forearm. "But you better figure out what the hell you are before the rest of the galaxy does." No threats. No cruelty. Just truth.
Mae wrapped her arms around her knees, fingers shaking, jaw tight. I don't know how. I don't even know where to start. But I think Ashar does.