Kyle’s blood was still warm on the stone.
I could feel it under my palm. Red. Human. Not wolf. Not magic. Just brother’s blood. The brother who called me Nothing for 18 years. The brother who just gave me air.
Damien hadn’t let me go. Not for a second. He held me like if he loosened his arms, I’d turn back to blue and stop breathing.
“You’re alive,” he whispered into my hair. “You’re breathing. That’s it. Stay with me.”
I was. Lungs worked. Heart beat. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to gold light that tasted like guilt.
But the ghost mother’s last words sat in my chest heavier than the poison ever did:
_Death doesn’t forget. It waits. And what’s given freely... can be taken back just as freely._
Kyle gave his life freely. Death took it. Death would come back.
I knew it before the walls sho
