POV: James)
The Great Library of Havenwood was my only sanctuary. It was a place where history was quiet, contained in leather and ink. The air smelled of old paper and stillness, a scent I clung to as the last remnant of a normal life. Here, I wasn't a weapon or a miracle; I was just a twelve-year-old kid trying to finish an essay on pre-elemental magical theory. Luna was with me, sitting across the heavy oak table, sketching quietly in a notebook. Her presence was a silent comfort, a shared island in the middle of a school that no longer felt like ours.
For a moment, it was peaceful.
Then, the silence was broken.
"You're James," a voice whispered, breathless and reverent.
I looked up. A younger student, maybe a second-year, stood by our table. She had wide, intense eyes that were fixed on me with an unnerving combination of awe and adoration. Luna tensed, her pencil stilling on the page.
"I am," I said, my guard instantly up. "Can I help you?"
"My name is Seraphine," she said, her hands clasped together as if in prayer. She didn't seem to notice my wary tone. "I just… I had to see you. The one who faced the Weaver."
I felt my stomach clench. I wasn't "the one who faced the Weaver." I was the kid who woke it up. "It was a team effort," I said flatly, hoping she'd take the hint and leave.
She didn't. She took a step closer, her voice dropping to an even more intense whisper. "But you were at the center of it. I've read all the preliminary reports the instructors released. You touched its mind. What was it like? To hold all that power? To feel something so… ancient?"
The question was a physical blow. She spoke of it like one might ask about seeing a beautiful sunset or hearing a transcendent piece of music. She didn't understand. She was asking me to describe the feeling of absolute, soul-crushing terror and predatory hunger as if it were a tourist attraction.
"It was cold," I said, my voice tight. "And it wanted to erase us."
Seraphine's eyes only widened further, a rapturous smile spreading across her face. "Incredible. To stand against oblivion itself. You must have felt like a god."
"I felt like I was going to die," I snapped, my control fraying. "We all did."
My anger didn't register. Her gaze shifted, landing on Luna. Her expression softened into one of pure, beatific wonder, and it was a thousand times worse than the way she looked at me.
"And you," she breathed, looking at Luna. "You were the vessel. The one chosen for the cure. To have the shadow inside you, and then to be filled with the light…" She looked at the spot on Luna's shoulder where the crystal had been, as if expecting to see a holy scar. "It's a miracle. You're a living miracle."
Luna flinched as if she'd been struck. I saw her hand tremble, the pencil clattering softly onto the table. Seraphine was talking about the most horrifying experience of Luna's life—of being slowly, painfully overwritten by a parasitic monster—as if it were a divine honor. She wasn't seeing a person who had survived a violation. She was seeing a sacred relic.
"Please don't," Luna said, her voice barely a whisper.
"But it's beautiful!" Seraphine insisted, her fanaticism blinding her to the pain she was causing. "Your sacrifice, his power… it's the greatest story Havenwood has ever known!"
That was it. I stood up so fast my chair scraped loudly against the stone floor, making other students look up. "Stop it," I said, my voice low and shaking with a fury I hadn't felt since the crisis. "You have no idea what you're talking about. It wasn't a story. It wasn't beautiful. Now leave us alone."
Seraphine finally recoiled, a look of shocked hurt on her face, as if I had just blasphemed in a temple. She stammered an apology and scurried away, leaving a toxic silence in her wake.
I sat back down, my heart hammering. I looked at Luna. She was staring at her own hand, her face pale. She wouldn't meet my eyes.
The library was no longer a sanctuary. There was nowhere left to hide. Cade's hatred I could understand. I could fight it. But this? This worship was a different kind of weapon. It took our worst moments, our trauma, and polished them into something shiny and holy, erasing the truth of what we'd been through. It was another way of being devoured.