MasukEMBER’S POVIt hits the oldest wound I have, the one that says you are nothing on your own, you have always been nothing on your own, you survive only by attaching yourself to someone stronger.And the fact that it’s true- the fact that the only reason I’m not dead in that storage room is that Knox reached through the bond and pulled me back- makes it so much worse.“That’s not fair,” I say, and my voice shakes.“Fair.” She laughs, and it’s a terrible sound, all edges. “You are the second person in my lifetime to say that word to me, through that same trembling little mouth. I have no use for fair. I have use for STRONG. Harden your mind. Harden your body. Stop reaching for me with your grief and your panic and your bleeding-heart need to save every dying thing you trip over. Become a vessel worth the wine, and perhaps — PERHAPS — I will consider pouring myself into you for something other than your own survival. Until then? Stop calling. I am tired of being summoned by a girl who wee
EMBER’S POV“It’s not — they’re not—”“They are commoners,” she says, and the word drips. “That is precisely what they are. I am not a balm, Ember. I am not a kindness you dispense. I am the Silver Wolf. My power is an art, the highest there is, elegant and old and earned across a thousand generations, and it is not — it has never been — meant to be SPENT on prolonging the lives of the weak. The weak die. That is the function of weakness. You keep trying to make me an instrument of mercy, and I keep telling you I am not built for it, and you keep not LISTENING.”It’s Hale’s words.It’s Hale’s words coming out of the beast in my own chest: the weak die, that is the function of weakness, and the horror of that runs through me cold and sick.That the proud thing inside me, and the dangerous woman by the fire believe the exact same thing about the world, and I am alone in believing otherwise.“Then you’re wrong,” I snap. “Both of you. You and her, you’re wrong. I’m not going to stop helpi
EMBER’S POVI picture her, despite the hairs raising on my arm and the strangest shift in the air, like wind picking up in a window-shut room.But I remind myself to keep my eyes fixed on chasing Sapphire, pulling at the thread between us, centring the one person that could answer my questions.And it works.That’s the thing.It works, and it works fast, faster than anything has worked before, and I have one bright cold second to think ‘that’s wrong, it shouldn’t work this fast’ before the room behind my eyes goes dark.And Sapphire’s face hangs in the dark like a candle, and I’m walking toward it.The floor of the room drops away under me, and suddenly, I’m somewhere else entirely.I’ve been to the still place once before, the night I first felt Sapphire stir.It started as a silver dream and opened into a kitchen — warm morning light, yellow curtains moving in a breeze I couldn’t feel, everywhere that impossible clean sunlight.Somewhere safe. Somewhere that felt like the inside of
EMBER’S POVOnce upon a time, I would have. I used to be the kind of girl who blindly trusted a kind voice and a helpful offer, right up until the exact moment it put a knife in my back.I look at Hale, and the pieces suddenly snap into place with cold clarity.She doesn’t know. She said she sensed “something” on the lawn, but she didn’t see the fire. She doesn’t know about the gold, or the healing, or what exactly happened out there.She’s not trying to be useful.She’s fishing. She wants to put me in a quiet room, poke the bear, and see what kind of monster crawls out.“If it’s just a mental trick,” I say, my voice dead-level, “you can show it to me right here. By the fire.”Hale’s smile just turns a fraction patronising.“You need absolute stillness to find the bottom of your own well, Lady Ember. This room is an intersection. Maids, guards, the King himself walking through—the air is too disturbed. That room upstairs is dead quiet. It holds the world out. But suit yourself.”It is
EMBER’S POVI don’t trust the tea.That is the first thing I want on record. A woman who shoots fragile things out of the air for sport, who looks at a dying animal and feels absolutely nothing, is not someone I am ever going to trust.Hale presses a warm cup into my hands and steers me to a chair by the fire, clucking over the blood on my face like a woman who actually cares. I sit, and I hold the cup, and I watch her over the rim of it the way you watch a snake.“You don’t have to drink it,” she says. “I can see you looking at it like it’ll bite you. It’s only chamomile and a few things my grandmother swore by. Smell it, if you don’t believe me.” She settles into the chair across from me, unbothered, tucking her feet up. “I’m not offended. People have always been suspicious of me. I’m used to it. It’s the face, I think. I’ve got a face that makes people feel watched.”It is exactly the kind of disarming thing a dangerous person says. It is a flawless, calculated piece of manipulatio
EMBER’S POV“Knox—”“I’m not finished.” His thumbs press against my jaw. “And if your plan to save her starts to look like it’s going to take you with it — if I see it coming, if I get even a breath of warning — I will stop it. I will sabotage it. I will lie to you, I will move her, I will burn the drugs and break the doors and turn this whole house against you if that’s what it takes to keep your heart beating, and I will not feel one second of guilt about it. So you can train, and you can learn, and you can chase Sapphire all you like. But understand that I am not on the table. You are not allowed to spend yourself to save her. That’s the one thing in this world I will not let you do.”The grey lawn is very quiet.My face is sticky with drying blood, and my knees are soaked through, and I’m looking up at the man I love telling me, in the gentlest voice he has, that he will betray me to keep me alive.And the worst part, the part that closes my throat, is that I understand it. I unde
EMBER’S POVI slump back into my seat unconsciously, not realizing how rigidly I’d been holding myself until the tension drains away.Knox lifts our entwined hands to his lips and presses a kiss to my knuckles, his eyes on me.It slows the tightening in my chest. Loosens the knot that Harrison’s qu
EMBER’S POV“Because I saw you on the news.” His voice cracks again. “During a press conference. I saw you standing up there, speaking to the camera, saying five words they have haunted me every night. You are dead to me. And though it wasn’t directed at me, I felt it so much. I felt it down to my
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 POVI stare down at Knox on his knees, my pulse slamming so hard I can feel it between my legs. He's grinning up at me like a wolf who's already tasted blood, gold eyes glowing, fangs just barely peeking past his lip.I fold my arms, pretending my thighs aren't already trembling."What do I







