Night pressed against the broken courtyard like a held breath, thick and unmoving. The air still smelled of burned ashroot and cracked stone, a reminder of what had happened only hours before. Nyra stood at the edge of the shattered training ring, her cloak pulled tight around her shoulders though the wind was warm.
She hadn't lit a torch. She didn't need to. The moon was enough—soft, silver, distant. Kind. Everything she wasn't feeling.
Nyra exhaled slowly, counting it as if she could force the tremor in her chest to quiet. Three breaths and you move. Three breaths and you don't think. It was a childhood trick. It had always worked.
Just not tonight.
She tipped her chin upward, eyes narrowing at the silent sky. Kael's magic had scorched half of it a violent purple only hours ago. For a heartbeat she could still see it—the flare of his power, the way the ground shuddered beneath her boots, the wild pulse that had ripped out of him uncontrolled. When she'd reached him afterward, he had looked like a ghost carved from exhaustion and regret.
She pressed the heel of her hand against her sternum. The memory hurt more than it should.
Nyra walked forward until she reached the center of the broken ring. Her boots crushed pieces of shattered sigils, remnants of the wards Kael had destroyed when the magic slipped loose. She crouched, brushing her fingertips over the fractured rune-lines. They were still warm, pulsing faintly like veins under bruised skin.
"He's losing control," she whispered, though no one was there to hear. "Or it's taking control of him."
That truth settled like iron in her stomach.
She straightened, wiping stone dust off her hands. She had always known Kael carried more power than he admitted—more than he liked. But this… this was different. This was dangerous. Not because he meant harm, but because the magic inside him was beginning to rise like a tide that refused to go back out.
And she had seen the look in his eyes after it was done. Not fear of his power.
Fear of what Nyra might think of him.
That thought lodged deep beneath her ribs, where it ached the most.
She walked toward the outer wall, the one he had nearly collapsed against earlier. A dark smear of dried blood marked the stone—his. She reached out, hovering her fingers above it but not touching. Her throat tightened.
He had pushed himself too far for her. Again.
Nyra stepped back, running a hand through her dark hair. Her pulse beat unevenly, betraying the calm she tried to hold.
You're supposed to be the steady one, she scolded herself. You promised him that.
Yet tonight she felt anything but steady.
She turned toward the hall where Kael was resting—if he was resting at all. He'd barely stayed conscious long enough to speak, but he had still managed to say her name before darkness took him. Not a plea. Not an apology. Just… needing her there.
Nyra swallowed hard.
She should give him space. She should keep her distance until she knew how to help him. That was the smart choice. The safe choice.
But her feet moved anyway.
Through the archway. Down the quiet corridor. Past the dim lanterns. And then—
She stopped outside his door.
Her hand hovered over the handle, trembling with something sharp and unspoken.
Three breaths and you move, she told herself again.
She took one.
Two.
Her third caught in her throat.
Because from inside, faint but unmistakable, came the sound of Kael murmuring her name again—raw, dream-soft, and aching.
Nyra closed her eyes.
Then she opened the door.