#6
913 Words
Chapter Six – Ashes Between Us
Mavi couldn’t sleep.
The dorm room was silent, her roommate gone for the weekend, but the walls felt alive, pulsing with the aftershock of what she had unleashed. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again: the storm erupting from her body, Kael’s silver gaze steady against the onslaught, her own voice breaking on a scream she couldn’t control.
Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. She hid them beneath the blanket, whispering to herself like a child afraid of the dark.
It wasn’t real. It wasn’t me. It was him. He pushed me.
But the whispers disagreed. Daughter… heir… crown of shadows…
Mavi clamped her hands over her ears. “Shut up,” she hissed into the dark. “Shut up, shut up, shut up—”
“You’re only making them louder.”
Her stomach dropped.
Kael stood in the corner of her room, half-draped in shadows as though the night itself had bent to cloak him. His presence filled the air, heavy and unyielding.
Mavi shot up, clutching the blanket to her chest. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
He didn’t answer right away. He studied her—messy hair, pale skin, fear in her wide eyes—as if memorizing the cracks in her armor.
Finally, he said, “You think walls will keep me out?”
Her pulse stuttered. “Get out.”
“No.”
She scrambled for her phone on the nightstand. He moved faster. One flick of his hand and the device slid across the table, shadows swallowing it whole. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Kael stepped forward, slow, deliberate. The shadows slithered away from him as he moved, obeying like hunting dogs at his heel.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured.
“I’m not.”
He reached the edge of her bed. For a heartbeat, he didn’t move, only stared down at her. Silver eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, searching, dissecting.
Mavi forced herself to glare up at him. “You don’t get to break into my room and—”
“—and what?” His voice was low, dangerous. “Remind you of what you are? Remind you that you nearly tore the earth apart tonight?”
Her chest heaved. “I didn’t ask for this! I don’t want it!”
Kael leaned down, one hand braced on the mattress beside her, trapping her in the cage of his body. She gasped, instinct screaming to shove him away, but her limbs wouldn’t obey.
“You don’t get a choice,” he whispered. His breath brushed her ear, hot and steady. “Power doesn’t vanish because you’re afraid of it. It grows. It festers. And it will eat you alive if you keep pretending you’re human.”
Her throat tightened. “I am human.”
His silver gaze cut through her denial. “No, Mavi. You’re Altınkaya. That blood doesn’t make you fragile. It makes you feared.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She hated the way his words slithered inside her, hated the way part of her wanted to believe him.
She turned her face away. “You terrify me.”
“Good,” he said, echoing the night before. But softer this time. More dangerous.
The silence stretched, charged, her body thrumming with adrenaline. She could feel the heat of him, the press of his presence, the steady weight of his power folding around her like smoke.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
He smiled faintly. “No. You hate that you didn’t hate what it felt like.”
Her breath caught. “You bastard.”
Kael’s gaze flicked down to her trembling hands. “You think I don’t see it? The rush. The release. That storm inside you has been clawing for freedom your whole life. Tonight you gave it a taste, and now it won’t stop.”
Her stomach twisted. She wanted to scream denial, to tell him he was wrong. But she remembered the moment too vividly—the surge of power, the ecstasy and terror in equal measure. It had felt like flying.
Kael leaned closer, his lips a breath from her ear. “You’ll thank me when you stop fearing yourself.”
Her voice shook. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll die.”
The bluntness of it cut through her like glass.
Her eyes burned. She hated him. Hated his certainty, his intrusion, his merciless words. But most of all, she hated the truth in them.
She shoved at his chest. “Get out.”
He didn’t move right away. His gaze lingered, sharp and unreadable. Then, slowly, he pulled back, straightening to his full height.
The shadows around him stirred, restless.
Kael’s smirk returned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Sleep if you can. Tomorrow, the Court will come calling.”
Mavi’s blood went cold. “What…?”
But he was already fading into the darkness, dissolving into smoke and silence until the corner of her room was empty once more.
Mavi sat frozen on the bed, chest heaving, tears stinging her eyes. The room was the same, but nothing felt the same.
The whispers in her head had grown clearer now, almost voices. Almost names.
And she knew—though she didn’t understand how—that Kael was right.
The Court was waking.
And she would not be left alone.
- Writer
