Chapter 8: Learning Control
I didn’t sleep again.
Not because I couldn’t, but because I didn’t trust what would happen if I did.
Every time I closed my eyes, I could still feel it—the surge of power, the way it had ripped through me without warning, without control. It hadn’t just been a reaction. It had been something else entirely.
Something that didn’t feel new.
Something that felt… remembered.
That was the part I couldn’t shake.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my elbows resting on my knees as I stared at the floor, replaying it over and over in my mind. The way the air had shifted. The way everything around me had reacted.
The way Vaerik had looked at me afterward.
Not surprised.
Not confused.
Like he had been waiting for it.
A quiet knock broke through my thoughts.
Before I
