Chapter Nine: Ember’s Eyes

The room was quiet again. Not the heavy kind, like sleep or sedation. This was the kind of quiet that listened. That waited.

Ember lay still, her body warm but no longer burning. The fever had passed. Or maybe it had changed—become something else. Something she could hold.

Her skin tingled. Not painfully. Just… aware. The sheets felt too soft. The air too sharp. The light above her shimmered like water. Even the hum of the monitor pulsed like a second heartbeat.

Everything felt louder. Closer. Like the world had leaned in.

Her eyes drifted to the figures beside her bed.

Kael. Isla.

They did not speak. Not to each other. Not while they worked. But Ember saw the way Isla’s hand lingered on the chart. The way Kael’s shoulders tensed when she moved too close. The way their silence was not empty—it was full.

Have they met before? Ember wondered.

It felt like they had. Not in the way grown-ups meant names, handshakes and paperwork. But in the way fire met wind. In the way two things collide