로그인EMBER’S POVRafael’s smile doesn’t phase. “Oh, please. I made it too easy for you last night. You had your chance to kill me and you didn’t take it.” He tilts his head, something cold settling behind those grey eyes. “I don’t intend to make it that easy next time.”Knox lunges forward — fast, violent, closing the distance in two strides with his fist already cocked — but Rafael only looks past Knox’s incoming fury, locks eyes with me, and says it.“Tell her about 2016, Knox. If you’re so interested in forcing secrets into the open, then honour Rayana’s little therapy bullshit and give your woman what she wants. Tell her what you did, bastard. Show her what you really are.” He pauses, letting a wicked smile graze his lips. “If you trust your fucking schoolboy feelings for her, then give her the truth. Or should I?”Knox stops mid-stride, his fist still raised, his whole body vibrating with the effort of not finishing what he started. Because Rafael just changed the game.My breath has
EMBER’S POVThere is something deeply unnerving about it. My stomach squirms, a bad feeling resurfacing and leaving a taste in my mouth I can’t swallow away.Nathaniel feels it too. He turns the slightest fraction toward Knox, catching his stare for a second, and a subtle frown crosses his face — questioning, uncertain.Knox’s grin only widens.A chill runs down my spine. There is trouble here. I can just taste it.“Knox, darling.” Rayana’s voice is carefully bright. “Come sit with us. We’re writing letters — things we’ve been carrying that we want to let go of. We write them, fold them up, and burn them together.” She holds up a blank page and a pen, waggling them in his direction. “I saved you a spot.”“I’m fine here.”“The exercise works better in the circle—”“I said I’m fine.” He takes a drink from the bottle. “Go ahead. Don’t let me stop you.”Rayana watches him for a moment, reading something in his face that makes her expression flicker. Then she turns back to the group.“As I
EMBER’S POVRafael’s jaw tightens. Something moves behind his eyes, a strange hurt that twists my chest in the wrong way. Nonetheless, he steps back and raises both hands, palms out.“Fine.” He drops the manila envelope at my feet. It hits the floor with a heavy thud. “I’m not taking it back with me. It’s yours. Your truth. Your choice what to do with it.”He walks to the door and pauses.“But when he breaks your heart today — and he will, Ember, because that’s what he does — don’t say I didn’t try to save you from it.”He leaves. The door clicks shut behind him.I stand there for a long time, staring at the envelope on the floor.The temptation is almost torture. A gravitational pull toward the answers I’ve been chasing since yesterday morning, since I crouched in the snow and heard Nathaniel say words that rearranged everything I thought I knew.I could pick it up. Open it. Read whatever’s inside and KNOW, finally, definitively, what 2016 means and what Knox did and whether the man
EMBER’S POVI turn on the shower. The water runs cold for the first few seconds, then scalds, and I step under it and let it burn.“Ember.” Rayana’s voice again, softer now, closer to the bathroom door. “For what it’s worth… I’m here. If you want to talk. I know we’re not—” She pauses. “I know I haven’t earned that. I know I’ve been difficult. Manipulative. Probably awful, if we’re being honest.” Another pause. “But I meant what I said about this trip. I want to learn what it is to be a good friend. Even if that starts from just being a good listener.”Water runs down my face. Possibly tears mixed in. Hard to tell.“I was jealous of you yesterday,” I say, and I don’t know why I’m saying it. “At the clinic. When you were delirious and calling his name and he was standing at your bedside like the world was ending. I was jealous of a woman who was literally unconscious from a medical emergency. That is how pathetic I am.”Rayana is quiet for a moment.Then, very softly: “That’s not pathe
EMBER’S POV“Wakey wakey, sunshine.”The voice cuts through my sleep, bright and shrill and entirely too alive for whatever ungodly hour this is.“I said wakey wakey. Rise and shine. Up and at ‘em. Carpe diem. Seize the—”“Rayana.” My voice comes out like gravel dragged across sandpaper. “What are you doing.”“I’m waking you up. Obviously. Now — breakfast. I have options. Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon and capers, or a traditional Finnish porridge with lingonberry compote, or — and this is my personal recommendation — pain au chocolat that Rafael’s chef makes fresh every morning and which I have been reliably informed will change your entire relationship with pastry as a concept.”I pry one eye open.Rayana is standing in my doorway, fully dressed, fully made up, radiating the specific manic energy of a woman who has decided that today will go according to plan by all means.She’s wearing cream cashmere and her platinum hair is swept into something elegant and she looks, by all acco
KNOX'S POVThe door isn't locked.Nathaniel doesn't lock his door on the compound — a small vulnerability from a man who doesn't believe in vulnerabilities, a costly oversight on his path.Fine. I'll bite.The cabin is minimal. Clean lines, no clutter, the living space of a man who keeps everything organized because mess in the external world reflects mess in the internal one.I know this about Nathaniel. I've known it for twenty years. It's one of the reasons I trusted him — a man that disciplined, that controlled, that careful with his surroundings must be equally careful with his loyalties.I was wrong about that.I search the desk first. Operational paperwork — rotations, assessments, manifests. Standard. Boring.The kind of material Nathaniel would leave in an unlocked drawer on purpose, just thorough enough to satisfy a casual search and just boring enough to discourage a deeper one.But the bottom drawer catches. There is something wedged behind it, between the drawer and the b
EMBER’S POVMy mother stands in the doorway, draped in designer everything as always.A silk dress in garish emerald that probably cost more than she can actually afford. Jewelry dripping from her neck, her ears, her wrists, every piece fighting for attention.Hair and makeup done to perfection, no
EMBER’S POVDr. Patel nods, no judgment in her expression.“Do you want to take it now, or bring it with you?”“Now. Please.”She pours water from a pitcher on her desk and hands me the glass. I uncork the vial, and the smell hits me immediately — bitter and earthy, like something dug up from deep
EMBER’S POVThe crowd murmurs agreement, curiosity rippling through the room.Knox extends his hand toward me.“Ember. Come here.”Every eye in the ballroom turns to me.My legs feel like they’re made of water. My heart is trying to escape through my ribcage.But Knox is waiting, his hand outstretc
EMBER’S POV“Your Majesty.” Harrison rises as we approach, inclining his head in a bow that manages to be respectful without being servile. “Thank you for accepting my invitation. I trust the drive was pleasant?”“Crawford.” Knox’s voice is flat. “Let’s skip the pleasantries.”“Straight to business







