The candlelight sputtered again.
Not from the draft.
From her.
Amelia felt it—too faint for a scream, too sharp for coincidence—like someone had plucked a single string inside her chest. A note only she could hear. A pulse that didn't belong to her heartbeat.
She pressed a hand over her sternum.
Kael noticed instantly. "Amelia?"
Arden froze. His eyes snapped to her hand. "It's happening again."
"No," she whispered, though her voice shook. "It's… it's just a flutter, I'm fine—"
The pulse hit harder.
Her knees buckled.
Kael caught her before she dropped, one arm around her waist, the other cradling her by the back of her head. His runes flared in response, swirling across his skin like the echo of a storm looking for an outlet.
Arden stepped close, scanning her with a precision that bordered on panic. "Your resonance is climbing. Faster than it should."
"I don't—" Amelia winced as another pulse struck, this one hot and cold at the same time. "I don't understand why this is happening."
"Because the void marked you," Arden said quietly.
Kael's expression darkened. "It touched her, yes. But this—" he looked at Amelia, voice softening "—this feels different."
Arden didn't disagree.
He didn't want to.
But the truth pressed against the edges of the room like an unwelcome visitor.
"It's not behaving like a void imprint," Arden murmured. "It's… responding to you. As if you carry a fragment that's waking up."
Amelia trembled. "A fragment of what?"
Both men fell silent.
Which told her more than any answer.
Kael's voice dropped. Low. Protective. A promise made of quiet iron."We'll figure it out. Nothing is taking you again."
His hand brushed her hair from her cheek with an intimacy that made her breath stutter. She leaned into his touch before she realized she was doing it.
Arden looked away for half a second—only half—but the fracture in his composure was unmistakable.
This was hurting him.
But he stepped forward anyway.
"Amelia," he said, tone steady but threaded with emotion he didn't want her to hear, "look at me."
She did.
Arden placed two fingers beneath her chin, lifting her face toward the light. "Tell me what you felt. Every detail."
Kael bristled. "She needs to rest."
"She needs clarity first."
"And I need her safe."
Arden met Kael's eyes. "We both do."
Silence.A grudging truth.
Amelia exhaled, shaking. "It felt like… someone knocking. From the inside. Like something waiting for permission to enter."
Kael's grip tightened protectively. "It's not getting in."
Arden's brows knit. "Not permission to enter. Permission to awaken."
The room went still.
Even the candle stopped flickering.
Kael looked thunderstruck. "Arden—"
"I know." Arden swallowed. "I didn't want this to be the answer. But… Amelia, you may not be reacting to the void."
Her pulse hammered.
"Then what am I reacting to?"
Arden hesitated.
Kael stepped closer to her, almost shielding her again.
Arden finally said it.
"The anomaly isn't just inside Kael."His eyes softened with something bordering on awe.
"It's inside you too."
The floor seemed to drop away.
Amelia's breath hitched, thin and unsteady. "That's not possible. I'm not— I'm not like him."
"You weren't," Arden said quietly. "But the void doesn't reach for ordinary people. It reaches for those who can reshape it."
Kael stared at her.
Not with fear.
But with the stunned gravity of someone realizing he wasn't alone anymore.
"Amelia," Kael said softly, voice raw, "you're becoming something the world has never seen."
Another pulse throbbed beneath her skin.
Not weaker.
Stronger.
She clutched Kael's shirt, trembling. "What do I do?"
This time, both men answered at once.
Kael: "You stay with me."Arden: "You train with me."
They glared.
She blinked at them. "I can't do both."
"You will," Arden said.
"You must," Kael added.
Because the pulse inside her wasn't slowing.
It was counting down.