The Current Between US

Nightfall 2

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*Chapter 5: Nightfall 2

Bale was tied to the post in the execution ground, the rope biting into wrists that were already too thin. Malnourished and gaunt, his ribs showed beneath his thin tunic like the ridges of driftwood. He couldn’t even hold his head up without shaking. Three days in the cells had taken everything he had left.

Around him, the guards tore through the quarters. Bags were upended. Bedding and gear ripped apart in the search. Tridents stabbed through mats, through baskets, through anything that looked like it could hide something.

Bale couldn’t stop them.

He could only watch.

His eyes drifted to Lily.

She stood a few paces away, face pale, watching as they ransacked her room. Brown hair fell loose around her shoulders, wild from being pulled out of its tie. The tan scales on her skin looked dull in the torchlight, like they’d lost their shine. To everyone else she looked older than she had eight years ago. Tired. Weathered.

To Bale, she was still everything. Still the girl who’d taught him how to laugh in the reef shallows. Still the one he’d left to keep her safe.

They’d had feelings for each other.

They always had.

That was the problem. That had always been the problem.

Lily knew about his magic. She knew he could read minds. Had known since they were eighteen and he accidentally pulled her secret from her head during a fight.

That was why they broke up. She didn’t want to drag her family into trouble, didn’t want the king’s attention on them because of what Bale could do. Love was dangerous when one of you could hear the other’s thoughts.

So now she kept her mind guarded. Stone walls, locked doors. No stray thoughts. No memories. No windows he could slip through.

Only her voice, low and steady, speaking to Beatrice in fragments the guards couldn’t piece together. Words that meant nothing alone. Warnings that only made sense if you already knew the code.

Beatrice caught Bale’s eye for half a second.

Confusion first. Then fear.

Then recognition — like she’d just realized he knew something she’d never told anyone. Something she’d hidden even from her own mother. That she was Dave’s daughter. That the comb had been hers at the reef.

The water grew darker.

Torches flickered along the reef wall, throwing their shadows long and thin against the rock. The light made everything look sharp, then blurred it.

Three of them, bound by a secret none of them could say out loud. Bale with his mind-reading. Lily with her silence. Beatrice with the comb under her tunic.

And nightfall hadn’t even come yet.

The king’s deadline was still hours away. But the execution ground already felt like a grave. Bale tested the rope and felt it cut deeper. He looked at Lily one more time and thought, _I’m sorry I couldn’t stay away._

Then he closed his eyes and waited for the Alpha...