The silver had finally dimmed, but the silence it left behind was worse than the flare itself.
Alina sat rigid on the edge of her bed, breath shallow, the air still vibrating from the way her mark had burned moments earlier. She could almost feel the imprint of their hands—Kael steady and grounding, Riven fierce and consuming—still holding her together.
It should have calmed her. Instead, it only underscored how fragile the balance was.
“They’ll see this as proof,” Kael said, his voice breaking the silence. He stood near the door, arms crossed tight, gaze fixed on the floor as though the stones themselves had betrayed him. “The Council will call her unstable.”
“Or,” Riven countered from the window, his tone infuriatingly casual, “they’ll see that when we’re both with her, she doesn’t b
