The fire’s sudden collapse left nothing but embers and smoke that made you choke. My ears rang, the world a blur of orange that was fading into black. I stumbled back against the stone, coughing hard enough to tear at my chest.
When the haze lifted, the figure was gone. Only silence pressed in, denser than the ash that was falling on our skin.
“They vanished…” Wren spat the word as though it was something poisonous. She still had her dagger, knuckles white as bone. “Just like that.”
“Not just like that,” muttered Gideon, his eyes roaming over the charred walls. “They wanted us to hear that last line. That was their strike.”
My throat was raw, but the words pierced me all the same: The one you trust most already walks beside me.
The room tilted. It could have been Wren, sharp, merciles
